Our mobile phone these days are real powerhouses! They are packed with tons of connectivity, cpu power, ram, storage and…….Sensors!!!!

And the latter is exactly what we need in IoT, combined with connectivity makes them really usefull for all kinds of tests, workshops and POC’s.

But how can we use all those features and make sure that data is dumped in whatever cloud solution you pursue?

In this series we will build up the phone software and add all kinds of features to our solution so it can be a quickstarter for any future endeavours.

STEP 1, to android or not to android, that the question?

Is your phone an ANDROID phone? If not, stop, and never look back!

If so, be adviced that Android phone offer a decent amount of flexibility, but suffer from standardization because of that.

Make sure your phone is recent phone with a recent OS version. You need the don’t latest, an 5 year old phone will do the trick probably. The version of android must be +4.4. The sensors differ from phone to phone, so although you might end up with a working solution, the lack of sensors can hold you back.

STEP 2, be aware!

All the apps are available on the official Google Play Store, and your phone doesn’t need any ROOT access. But, some of the apps require some money (as in 2$). Developers need to make a living too! But you might be curious if it really works, and don’t want to make an investment yet. Then we need a different app store! The F-droid app store isn’t illegal or anything, but there might be a risk involved for ransomware etc. due to the ‘side-loading feature’ that needs to be enabled. 

You wanna have F-Droid, take STEP 3, else go to STEP 4!

STEP 3, install F-Droid

Allow software from unknown source in Android Settings menu, see https://www.androidcentral.com/unknown-sources

So F-droid is what we need, go to https://f-droid.org/

Download and install the APK

Open the app! 

STEP 4, install all apps

If you didn’t install F-droid, go the Google App Store

Install the following apps:

• Termux: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/ OR https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux
• Termux-API: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux.boot/ OR https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux.api
• Termux-Boot (paid on Play Store): https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux.boot/ OR https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux.boot

When the Termux apps are installed, we need to go to the Google Play Store, and install:

• Teamviewer Host, for really remote access: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamviewer.host.market&hl=en
• Dory Mongo server, to store some data: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.tempage.dorymongo
• Auto Start, to start apps when the phone turn on: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.autostart

So, now we got all the app’s installed, let’s configure them!

STEP 5, configure Teamviewer

Why Teamvier? Well, our IoT solutions are never around the corner, and are tucked away in some dark area where they are hard to reach.

The benefit of Teamviewer is that it can connect through a lot of different situation without any additional configuration. If you don’t require this, than skip this step. SSH might be sufficient for a local connection.

Start Teamviewer host. You need to register to make it available when it’s unattended.