I have always been fond of tilt sensors and have adopted them for the palm years ago (http://www.harbaum.org/till/palm/adxl202).

Now i wanted to do the same with the n800. I have managed to put the n800 running os2008 into host mode as described in various other threads.

I then connected a tilt sensor based gamepad i have built using the avr usb stack http://www.obdev.at/products/avrusb/index.html
and ... the device gets detected. It isn't supported just like any other usb joystick isn't supported. But that's just a matter of software. Even an event entry in /dev/input is created and delivering data from my "tiltpad".

That means that with os2008/n800 and a simple avr based hardware everything is possible. You can connect just everything to the n800 this way. Think of the possibilities ... using e.g. my usb to i2c converter (http://www.harbaum.org/till/i2c_tiny_usb/index.shtml)
any i2c chip can be used at the n800 incl. a/d converters, motor drivers, temperature sensors, electronic compasses etc etc ...

I thunk i'll now take a close look at the libusb as this is the key for simple user space based interfacing to some of this usb hardware.

Excellent

I think you mentioned your tilt sensor in the Enigma thread?

Man that would be sweet to use it with games like that, I can't say I enjoy using the stylus too much in Enigma.

Hi,

i've continued my work with the i2c sensors. I now have some hardware setup for the n800 incl. a temperature sensor and a 8 bit general purpose io port. I also have a udev rules file allowing everything to be driven from the standard user. Also there's now a hildon demo application for both setup. And finally everything went into my own new maemo repository for one-click installation. See http://www.harbaum.org/till/i2c_tiny_usb and scroll down to the maemo section.

There's still an issue that the n800's watchdog timer is sometimes firing some seconds after an application has disconnected from the device causing the n800 to reset. This is still to be investigated with the help of Nokia.

The device and tool chains are working fine making the internet tables into some nice sensor platform.

MoG

For tilting, the Wiimote works quite well over Bluetooth. There is a python script floating around somewhere to read the 3D acceleration data.

I am talking about cheap and compact diy hardware. The Wiimote is limiited to motion sensing, can't be extended, runs on its own batteries, is expensive and big and heavy ...

@Master of Gizmo
What's your Serial<->USB chip. Is it FTDI?

Great work, MoG! Look forward to seeing what else you get up to. I use Arduinos, PICs and Basic Stamps but haven't delved into AVR toolchains yet.

Well, apart from motion it can track 4 Infra-Red targets as well... check out these projects.

Wiimote is definitely too big for N8x0 purposes, but I think it's pretty good value. I'd be interested to know if there's somewhere you can get a 3-axis accelerometer *and* a bluetooth cable-replacement chipset for less?

(I paid 30 UK pounds, $US15, for my Wiimote.)

30 UK pounds is usually $US60...
but if u can get me a Wiimote for $15, im all in