Remote control Udoo with an android smart phone
Some days ago I bought a Udoo. This microcontroller is a mixture of Raspberry Pi and Arduino. It has two processors and many interfaces as a Raspberry Pi and it is compatible with the Arduino Due. The main reason why I bought it is that WLAN is included. Only the Cubietruck has similar features.
Today I just want to describe how you can remote control your Udoo with an Android smart phone or tablet. Prerequisite is that your Udoo has an SD Card with Linux on it. On the Udoo website you can download the images and you find a description how to prepare such an SD Card. I chose the Linaro Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, but it should work with every Ubuntu version. Another prerequisite is that both your smart phone (or tablet) and your Udoo are connected to your local network.
The steps on your Udoo:
- Menu Applications – System Tools – Administration – Synaptic Package Manager – enter your password
- Enter x11vnc in the search field
- Check the x11vnc package to install it with all its dependencies
- start the VNC server with menu Applications – Internet – X11VNC Server
- On the first window keep all the default values. Your port will be 5900.
- In the second dialog window check “Accept connections”, enter two passwords (the first one you will need on your android smart phone or tablet) and confirm with OK.
This worked not always. A more stable version is it to open Applications – Accessories – Terminal, then enter x11vnc and confirm with enter. As long as the terminal window is open you can connect.
Now your VNC server is up and running.
Steps on your Android smart phone or tablet:
- First find out the IP adress of your Udoo in the local network. With a Fritzbox (a common router in Germany and Switzerland) you can find this in the administration software.
- Open Google Play Store.
- Search “android-vnc-viewer” and install it (Link).
- Open the android vnc viewer.
- Enter any nickname, for example “udoo”
- Enter the first password you defined on the Udoo, the port 5900 and the IP address of your Udoo.
- Tap “Connect”
If everything is OK you should see the screen of your udoo after a short while. The cool thing is that now you can disconnect the screen from your udoo and manage it with any android tablet or phone.