Romo second generation protocol has been revealed

It seems that Romotive has released a full description of the new protocol to talk to their second generation Romo smartphone robots on their blog. I have not yet found the time to dig into upgrading my Romo SDK for Windows Phone with this, but I really want to, so keep checking the Codeplex site and this blog for more information on that.

Romo codeplex site is live

It does not contain much (yet), but the Codeplex site I created for my work on a WP7 SDK for controlling a Romo smartphone robot is now published and available.

If you have a revision 1 Romo and a developer unlocked Windows Phone you can now download a pre-alpha XAP file of an app that turns your Romo+smartphone into a moving compass.

The "guy in the Netherlands"

Oh, just two things I mentioned on Twitter before, but not yet here:

• I am the "guy in the Netherlands" mentioned in the "Romo the smartphone robot raises $1.5M, seeks world domination" article.
• My work on writing WP7 software to control Romo is mentioned as the first "something cool you've built" hack on the Romo hiring page.

I must say that I like both of them.

Romo has landed in the Netherlands

Last week brought the Microsoft TechDays in The Hague. And as part of the Caesar Experts booth, lots of people here in the Netherlands finally saw a Romo smartphone robot in person!

Elsewhere on this blog you can see how I got to know Romo and how I am writing software support for him for Windows Phones. As we expected lots of Lumia phones would be available as winnable goodies at TechDays (and we were right...) I suggested we'd go for completely different: show off my work on WP7 Romo, get people in the Netherlands to actually see one in action and have two to raffle off to registered visitors of our booth. This was actually a great succes, as far as I'm concerned. I've received lots of questions and people really seemed to like the Romo concept.

Unfortunately, the new Februari revision Romos could not be here in time, so the two winners will receive their robots later, as soon as I receive them. I hope this should not be long. Also based on the information I now have, these new revision should have support for some extra frequencies to maybe add some better control to turning the robot and ways to turn the 5V auxiliary ports on the front of the robot off and on again. When I have received information on these frequencies, included them in the Windows Phone library and have the library tested on both my original #42 revision one Romo and a new revision one, I will make my library public so anyone could write WP7 apps that drive a Romo robot.

If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask.
And stay tuned for more Romo information!

Romotive publishes Romo audio protocol

On their blog, Romotive has made public which audio waves you need to generate on which audio channel to control a Romo first revision smartphone robot. So if you want something programmable with an audio port to control one, now you know how!

The article even briefly mentions my own work on a Romo control library for Windows Phone, which can change the amplitude of the soundwaves it sends out to control robot speed as well.

This library (and my first two apps) are slowly but surely nearing a state in which they can be made public for every WP7 developer to easily interact with Romo devices. The Romotive staff has already received preliminary XAP files to use on the Nokia Lumia 800 they have, and they told me they liked what they saw so far.

There should be more information about this soon, even though the next revision of Romo (which should be out in or shortly after this Februari) will include more frequencies as part of the interface.

Just be patient...

Romo robot control library for WP7

After seeing the Romo smartphone robot on Kickstarter some time ago, I was hooked. I wanted one. And I wanted to program for it myself, on my Windows Phone! So I pledged a certain amount of money for the limited edition one - gotta have the T-shirt too - and waited for the Kickstarter results...



And then it was a landslide (they raised $114796!), and around Christmas I received my robot. It happened to be limited edition number 42 and all, pleasing my inner nerd immensely. To get to work!

In fact, I had contacted the guys at Romotive to ask about the sounds needed to drive the robot. The evening before FedEx would deliver, I had a first draft of a library and an app with some simple buttons. When the Romo arrived, this code immediately drove the Romo robot flawlessly, without any changes needed. That certainly was cool.

Today after the last day at work, I met up with some of the WP7NL crew. This first demo received some great reactions and some good suggestions too. Turns out the Romo base reacts to volume as well as sound frequencies. So I reworked the library to allow you to use this to not only control forward/backward motion and left/right rotation but variable speed for both as well.

When the library is done and tested, which means having written and published at least one Romo WP7 app myself, I plan to publish it open source on Codeplex and make the binaries available (nice reason to get into NuGet) as soon as possible. And then, order yourself a Romo, and get programming robots!

Keep watching this space for more info!