[HELP] Control Mindstorms EV3 using Bluetooth gamepad

[le60head]

Hello everyone!

I was wondering if it is possible to use a wireless bluetooth gamepad to control a Mindstorms EV3 robot.

My goal is to drive a car-like robot with two motors: one for steering and one for fw/back movement via bluetooth using a gamepad like Sony PS3 Sixaxis controller or another wireless bluetooth controller. The thing is that i do not want to use a PC to receive the signal from the gamepad and send commands to the EV3. I want direct communication between the gamepad and the EV3 brick.

If anyone knows IF and HOW this might be done, i'd be really thankful if you shared your knowledge!

[Osuharding1]

Most smartphones have a free app that will allow you to control EV3 via bluetooth

[Jim]

I'm not sure whether this is possible without intervention of a proxy (pc). The pc usually has drivers to talk to the controller. On the EV3 this might be complicated, if not impossible. Maybe it's possible with custom Linux firmware.

I will try to find out whether it's possible or not.

[le60head]

  On 9/4/2014 at 8:06 PM, Jim said:

The pc usually has drivers to talk to the controller.

Thank you for your reply!

So a driver must be written for the EV3 in order for it to communicate with the Bluetooth gamepad?

If you tell me this would be impossible to do, it would still be a big help.

[pabr]

Hi,

The proper solution is to install a custom firmware with full support for the Bluetooth HID profile. Linux already has the drivers but they are not enabled in the stock EV3 firmware, presumably to save space.

But here is a quick-and-dirty solution which proves that it is possible, even with the stock firmware:

http://www.pabr.org/bricks/brickhid/brickhid.en.html