PDA connecting to device via serial port

I'm bound to buy a glucometer that can communicate with my iPAQ h5550
via Bluetooth and serial port. I think I need an adapter because my PDA
does not have any serial port. What exact adapter or cable do I need?
Is not enough with the PDA-PC synchronization cradle and cable? This
mechanism does also have a USB or serial connector, so I think this
serial connector could be used to coonect the future glucometer, is
this correct?

Then I wanted to ask you for serial port communication example, that
is, how to very basically read data from serial port. I would also like
to be able to read data from a bluetooth source.
I've read something in OpenNETCF, but also have heard that CF 2.0 comes
with managed classes to read data from different interfaces? Does it
worth start programming or better to wait for CF 2.0 release?

Thanks in advance.

Since we are so close to the November 7 release date for VS 2005, I'd be
tempted to wait or begin work with one of the betas, but the OpenNETCF
serial class and Dick Grier's CFSerial class are both well tested and
available in source code if you want to get going right away (and they
should still work with CF2.)

Something like this might work for you:
http://www.expansys-usa.com/product...B-9M_USB-SERIAL but I haven't
tried it.

--
Ginny Caughey
..NET Compact Framework MVP


"Lonifasiko" <mloichate@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128417056.317334.272420@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I'm bound to buy a glucometer that can communicate with my iPAQ h5550
> via Bluetooth and serial port. I think I need an adapter because my PDA
> does not have any serial port. What exact adapter or cable do I need?
> Is not enough with the PDA-PC synchronization cradle and cable? This
> mechanism does also have a USB or serial connector, so I think this
> serial connector could be used to coonect the future glucometer, is
> this correct?
>
> Then I wanted to ask you for serial port communication example, that
> is, how to very basically read data from serial port. I would also like
> to be able to read data from a bluetooth source.
> I've read something in OpenNETCF, but also have heard that CF 2.0 comes
> with managed classes to read data from different interfaces? Does it
> worth start programming or better to wait for CF 2.0 release?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>

Hi,

What Ginny said, plus:

Does your glucometer have a Bluetooth port? Or, do you want to use a BT
adapter with it (Socket Communications and others have these for about
$150)?

If your glucometer has a built-in serial port, and if you can purchase a
serial ActiveSync cable for your PPC (or a "Y" serial/USB combo cable) then
all that you would need to connect this internal port to your glucometer are
two things, a cable for the glucometer itself (these usually have
non-standard connectors) AND a null modem adapter. The null modem adapter
is required because the ActiveSync serial cable is designed to connect to a
PC, not to another device, so you need the adapter to cross over the Tx and
Rx lines (and, perhaps the hardware handshaking lines), so that in and out
match up.

Dick

--
Richard Grier (Microsoft Visual Basic MVP)

See www.hardandsoftware.net for contact information.

Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, 4th
Edition ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages) published July 2004. See
www.mabry.com/vbpgser4 to order.

Thanks both for your replies.
Appart from hardware issues, I would also need a good link where I
could start with little examples related to reading data sent by a
bluettoth device, that is: discovery the device, establish a
communication and read data sent by the device.

I've seen Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK has multiple Bluetooth examples, but I
suppose they only will work on Windows Mobile 5.0 devices, which is not
my case! That is, examples use WM 5.0 routines, not CF 2.0 I
understand.

What a pain! I must target Windows Mobile 2003, WM2003 SE and Windows
Mobile 5.0 devices. I've read something about need to do P/Invoking for
using Bluetooth, but programming at such a low level scares me a little
bit.

Any good link or code snippet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very
much.

Lonifasiko,

Peter Foot has done a lot of work with Bluetooth. You can find his products
at www.inthehand.com.

--
Ginny Caughey
..NET Compact Framework MVP


"Lonifasiko" <mloichate@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128594208.097424.305200@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks both for your replies.
> Appart from hardware issues, I would also need a good link where I
> could start with little examples related to reading data sent by a
> bluettoth device, that is: discovery the device, establish a
> communication and read data sent by the device.
>
> I've seen Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK has multiple Bluetooth examples, but I
> suppose they only will work on Windows Mobile 5.0 devices, which is not
> my case! That is, examples use WM 5.0 routines, not CF 2.0 I
> understand.
>
> What a pain! I must target Windows Mobile 2003, WM2003 SE and Windows
> Mobile 5.0 devices. I've read something about need to do P/Invoking for
> using Bluetooth, but programming at such a low level scares me a little
> bit.
>
> Any good link or code snippet would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very
> much.
>

Hi again Ginny,

Yes, after a little research I finally landed at http://32feet.net/

I have a very basic problem because after downloading Peter's
librarties and trying a Bluetooth example, the first message was that
my iPAQ h5550 used an unsupported Bluetooth software stack! What a
dissapointment! I've read Peter uses Microsoft's Bluetooth stack and
that this is becoming almost in a standard.

In spite that in the future I'm going to buy another PDA supporting
this technology, nowadays I must develop for my "old" iPAQ, and I don't
find any documentation or examples around this issue. What kind of
Bluetooth Stack is using my iPAQ then? I need Peter's examples for my
iPAQ, but I would need something more global that would support both MS
and non MS Bluetooth Stack. Perhaps this global and opened approach
can't be achieved but would be the best solution for me ;-)

I've also tried infrarred communication between my iPAQ and my Nokia
6100 cell phone. File transfer seems to work but I cannot see the
transferred file in my phone. I've posted in Peter's forum. I hope he
replies me soon.

Although I'm having many problems due to my "special" iPAQ, Peter's
work with these libraries is awesome, wonderful!

Regards Ginny.

Lonifasiko,

Peter is definitely the Bluetooth expert around here.

--
Ginny Caughey
..NET Compact Framework MVP


"Lonifasiko" <mloichate@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1128607536.025867.161470@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> Hi again Ginny,
>
> Yes, after a little research I finally landed at http://32feet.net/
>
> I have a very basic problem because after downloading Peter's
> librarties and trying a Bluetooth example, the first message was that
> my iPAQ h5550 used an unsupported Bluetooth software stack! What a
> dissapointment! I've read Peter uses Microsoft's Bluetooth stack and
> that this is becoming almost in a standard.
>
> In spite that in the future I'm going to buy another PDA supporting
> this technology, nowadays I must develop for my "old" iPAQ, and I don't
> find any documentation or examples around this issue. What kind of
> Bluetooth Stack is using my iPAQ then? I need Peter's examples for my
> iPAQ, but I would need something more global that would support both MS
> and non MS Bluetooth Stack. Perhaps this global and opened approach
> can't be achieved but would be the best solution for me ;-)
>
> I've also tried infrarred communication between my iPAQ and my Nokia
> 6100 cell phone. File transfer seems to work but I cannot see the
> transferred file in my phone. I've posted in Peter's forum. I hope he
> replies me soon.
>
> Although I'm having many problems due to my "special" iPAQ, Peter's
> work with these libraries is awesome, wonderful!
>
> Regards Ginny.
>

Thanks for all your help. I'll ask him then.