Android fans that want to really get their geek on and develop their own accessories and physical devices to work with their smartphone might want to check this out. It’s from a company called SparkFun and the product is dubbed Electric Sheep. It’s not really a sheep, but rather a board that hooks to your Android device via USB, and lets you design things.
Similarly to the Arduino Mega ADK board, the Electric Sheep board will connect to your Android device using the Open Accessory protocol and that gives you access to the phone’s functions. You can use the board to tie the phone to just about anything electronic or mechanical you can dream up, then control it from your phone. The board has an ATMEGA2560-16AU microcontroller on it and a pre-loaded Mega 2560 bootloader. It has an onboard USB host header for connecting your Android gadgets, and can control devices without having to write any Java code – when used in concert with HandBag for Android.
The Electric Sheep board is available now for $79.95 (USD) over at SparkFun.
