Digital compass

All information pertains to the N900.

Contents

Connection options

  • Optical (use one of the cameras, plus image processing)
    • Best to use user-facing camera, so the world-facing can be used for capturing the world image for AR
  • USB
    • Unknown if USB host possible.
    • Unknown if power is available from USB.
  • IRDA
    • Seems unsupported at this point
  • Bluetooth
    • Bluetooth data
    • Bluetooth audio - sending analog signals via Bluetooth microphone for digital signal processing on the N900
  • FM radio
    • Requires headphones be connected
    • Signal processing of audio in software

Compass chips or sensors

  • Honeywell HMC5843
    • I2C interface
    • Magnetometer requires vector math on client side for interpretation, see OpenMoko i2c compass project for more info
  • Dinsmore analog

Ready-built compass modules

  • Ocean Server OS4000
  • Ocean Server OS5000
    • USB and RS232 interface

Microcontrollers

Converters

Designs

Optical image processing of compass

  • Periscope-like mirror

Ready-made RS232 compass modules with RS232-Bluetooth conversion

Custom board designs