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       iBluetooth is easy
       iFebruary 24th, 2018
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       i
       iI ran across a little demo project the other day showing how a $7
       icomponent could connect an Arduino to any bluetooth device. It was
       ia bit of a revelation for me. I had assumed that there was a lot
       igoing on in Bluetooth land, and that it wasn't worth the effort
       idiving into all the protocol nonsense. It turns out it's
       ia glorified serial port.
       i
       iEnter the HC-05 and it's brother the HC-06. These little 4-pin
       icomponents handle all the parts of Bluetooth you don't care about.
       iHere's what you get: 5V input, Ground, Tx, Rx. Sound familiar?
       i
       iI plopped a Lucky Shield onto my Arduino so I had some sensors
       igoing, ran the example Lucky Shield Test, which outputs a bunch of
       idata from those sensors to the Serial debug panel, and plugged in
       ia HC-06. I paired the HC-06 with my phone by entering the default
       i1234 code. Then I opened up a serial debugger on my phone. 
       i
       iI was pleasently greeted by a bunch of information about the
       ilight, humidity, air pressure, and so on. No fuss, no muss. I love
       iit when things just work.
       i
       iThe HC-05 and HC-06 are very similar in features and price. The
       iHC-05 can do more, act as a master bluetooth device instead of
       ia slave, and send some funky control stuff that I don't care
       iabout. I got the HC-06 because I found one on Amazon Prime and
       iI was impatient. I saw these in bulk on Alibaba for under $2.
       i
       iI'm going to rig up a little voltage divider circuit with
       ia handful of push buttons, flash it onto an ATTiny85, and try to
       idesign and print a PCB for the unit. It'll connect with the HC-06,
       iand eventually I'll 3D print a case for it. I want a little
       icomponent based, battery powered, bluetooth button controller that
       iI can use for random acts of silliness.
       i
       iIn other, less fun, news, my latest raspberry pi zero w is
       irefusing to play nice with the wifi. I set it up identically to
       ithe last one which worked flawlessly, but nada. I'm going to bring
       iit in to work and swap the SD card I have in the working one to
       icheck if the problem is hardware related or software caused.
       i
       iMoops.
       i