Hi guys.
I am very green when it comes to actually designing anything electronic. I’m a programmer by trade (PC, not embedded), so I’m here to ask a simple question and hopefully receive some helpful guidance along the way.
I’ve written some code for my ATmega168 that receives a serial signal over RTS/CTS and then performs a function based upon the (VERY SIMPLE) serial data received. Currently I’m simply toggling a relay device to turn on and off a piece of equipment. This was designed to use my serial programming cable as the mechanism for obtaining my serial data.
I’d like to use Bluetooth to supply the serial data (eventually to be used via phone instead of pc). I see that the bluesmirf module seems to provide what I’m hoping to do, however I’m wondering what benefits (that I would require) that the bluesmirf provides over a basic serial Bluetooth module. With my limited understanding of the Bluetooth serial communications, it seems like one of the $20 modules out there would provide the basic functionality that I’m looking for, but maybe I’m missing some basic underlying principle in this communication approach that would require something like the bluesmif instead? Any thoughts on this would be very helpful in getting me moving down the right path here.
Thx,
AF