I’m looking at Sky Safari Pro Android app but upon researching it I came across this:
“No. For this to work, your Android device would have to be a USB host, and most devices are USB slaves, not hosts. Secondly, your Android OS would have to be running the drivers for that USB-to-serial adapter. As of this writing, we don't know of a single USB-to-serial adapter manufacturer that produces Android drivers. “
As a former Android developer I can say that I’ve used USB/RS232 adapters for almost five years now on every Android version since Gingerbead. All I used was an adapter and an app, no root, and no decompling the kernel. There are also multiple other examples of such like Android/Ardunio cables, StarTech cable and app, usb-serial-for-android (GitHub), etc..
So I ask this, is there any reason beyond “don’t feel like it” to not add RS232 support in the app? As the cables cost next to nothing, and apps to support the cables are plentiful, adding such support would make Sky Safari more viable for compact budget setups which can be used for outreach and education. One could even come close to replicating the Unistellar evscope with nothing more than a GoTo mount, cable and an old phone.
