Printable View
This isn't directly related to TA, but I was wondering if there was a way to add a wired button to trigger things like a lap counter/timer, or as a start/stop, or something else if a good idea comes up? A video trigger? I suppose it would have to go through the USB port. We used to do something similar with the early pocket computers using the serial/printer port.
The possibility of supporting that kind of stuff would depend on there being a commercially-available product that uses it, and what that accomplishes, but there are some inherent difficulties with connecting physical wire inputs to a smartphone... Some products connect simple inputs to smartphones via the headphone jack, but then that could interfere with our video recording and is also rumored to be going away with the iPhone 7 (we'll see...), so that's probably out. And the data connector (USB on Android, Lightning on iPhone) can be a bit too restricted to be practical to use... There are some potential exceptions, but Apple is notoriously restrictive when it comes to accessory hardware, and even Android may have some USB restrictions depending on the version and OEM. So, what we end up with is going wireless, with Bluetooth 4 Low Energy (BLE) being the simplest unrestricted solution that serves both platforms, assuming that we don't need much bandwidth.