microcontroller wireless communication for GPS tracking

Question

In what ways can I communicate between the microcontroller, and a standard android/iOS cell phone?

I would like to send the GPS location to this phone.

I am guessing I could use Bluetooth, and get some kind of Bluetooth adapter that I can control from the microcontroller, but this would only be close range.

I am also guessing it may be possible to get some kind of wireless adapter, that, with a sim-card, can send messages over the cell-phone network.

Are there any other ways I can send/track the GPS information to a cell-phone, from a system consisting only of gps-receiver, microcontroller, and some device x to send this info?

Answer 1

as user2447233 said go with bluetooth. I would add that you could use bluetooth near the phone, to add range you can then use some xbee pro modules, they have some longer range ones (range depends a lot on the antenna as well as module). The simpler xbee protocols/models are simply a dumb wireless serial. I have used the xbee modules before to move gps nmea (serial) data over a distance, as with anything like this line of sight certainly helps.

Another approach that has promise but I have not tried personally is gprs radios (frs?). basically there are modules you can use that combined with a pair of radios basically the whole setup becomes wireless serial with whatever distance you can get with the radios based on power and line of sight, etc. The that last few feet bluetooth to the phone.

Answer 2

You are correct in that you could use a Bluetooth adapter. This can give you a decent range of 100m or so in line of sight. There are a number of really nice little modules that you can connect to the UART of your micro and will connect to your phone using the Bluetooth serial port profile (SPP). This gives you a wireless UART in effect; the mobile will have the ability to accept and send data over this type of connection. You can also use Bluetooth LE (4.0) for lower power connection if you have small amounts of data to ship about. This is more complicated, but would give you far better battery life if that is relevant.

You could also use a GSM module and sent SMS to the phone from your micro using the GSM module. I do not know how you would extract that SMS data and import it to your app though.

You could also use a Wifi module on your board and talk to the phone using WiFi, but that is more complicated than Bluetooth for no gain in range I would think. You can get nice little WiFi modules that connect to a micro with a UART.

With the latter two, you could send the data from your board to a server somewhere [anywhere] on the Internet and then have the phone poll that same server for any updates. Now that would give you quite some range!

The simplest way, by far, is the Bluetooth module with SPP I reckon.