Raspberry Pi Forums

I was wondering whether anyone is interested in developing an app for smartphones to turn the phone into a keyboard and/or mouse emulator.
I would like to be able to connect my phone via usb to the pi and have it appears to the PI as a keyboard.
I am up for paying a few bob for an app than buy an extra keyboard and mouse.
If you can do away with the need for a separate screen ..even better.

Virtually all smartphones have apps that allow you to connect via wifi to use a network connection to the Pi and using ssh client (or some other app) act as both screen and keyboard.

Several exist already, most over bluetooth though or via wifi, iOS isn't capable of doing it via USB and android handsets are usually restricted.

thanks a lot for the suggestions. I will try the wifi option as my phone has wifi hotspot. can anyone suggest a wifi dongle that works out of the box.
someone has already turned a phone into a usb keyboard. it will be useful here in India where you have limited network connections, but phones are cheap and readily available.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/23/hack ... s-via-usb/

A wifi / ethernet bridge is about the only thing that will work out of the box for the PI like a Vonets VAP11G or a "wifi access point".

Richard S.

vimal-1 wrote:can anyone suggest a wifi dongle that works out of the box.

If you look at
http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeriphera ... i_Adapters
you will find a lot of WiFi devices. There are a lot of links to instructions from this page

No WiFi device will work out of the box. You need to select the network and enter the network security key, just like in Windows.

To install a WiFi device the steps are
1. Install the firmware if necessary (The latest Raspbian already contains firmware for most popular Ralink and Realtek devices)
2. Set the network name by editing a file or using a graphical network manager.
3. If required, set the network security key by editing a file or using a graphical network manager.

My personal favourite at the moment is
http://dx.com/p/120933
I haven't used one yet (delivery time is 4 weeks) but it apparently can be used as an Access Point so you don't need to use your smartphone as a hotspot. There are also tutorials showing how to set it up.
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 36&t=14100