Development of an Android Service to add IOIO Hardware Features to Android Apps

The world is currently witnessing a revolution in the Internet of Things (IoT) field. It is predicted that one day, our everyday life's objects will embed a computer. These devices collaborate to make all tasks as simple as possible, which is the ultimate objective of IoT. In this context, and with electronics and computer Science being one of the key skills in this field, there is a focus on lowering the entry level to these two fields, enabling a wider audience to learn the basic concepts at an early age. Different products are proposed, that simplify whether Electronics or programming tasks, however, a combination of both merely exists. The paper presents an initiative to simplify the programming task that consists of developing an Android service that integrates commands to control an electrical board called IOIO, which can be controlled via Android using Bluetooth. The service can be called by the App Inventor platform to add IOIO hardware features. With this integration, the developed Android apps can control the electrical board and electrical components connected to it. All of this without technical knowledge, which opens the way for easy prototyping of embedded systems.