I  have an App Inventor app running on my Nexus 5 and talking to an Arduino board via Bluetooth. I finally had a chance to work on this!

UPDATE: Here is the link to the final code and tutorial information!

What I have  now is some experimental code not suitable for posting online. I will be revising this code to turn it into a simple example that will provide basic functionality, and then present a tutorial on putting it to use in your own applications.

Update Tuesday Cinco de Mayo (in the U.S.): I have the demo code up and running. Next up is to test and write up the tutorial! It’s coming! The first tutorial will be simple – intended to get you up and running.  I will eventually create some more advanced features.

Longer term, I may create a more general solution for passing data packets back and forth between an Android App Inventor app and an Arduino board, so that many types of applications may be supported using my basic code library.

Arduino is a small microcontroller board used by hobbyists and others to add computing to small devices, art projects, robots, Internet connected devices and much more. Arduino is not part of App Inventor. Arduino is, for an “embedded system” easy to use in terms of building electronics hardware and writing control software. By writing App Inventor code to talk to an Arduino board, we open an entire world of new possibilities using simplified development (App Inventor on Android, and Arduino on the hardware side).

• Use your phone or tablet to remote control an Arduino device over a Bluetooth link
• Use an Arduino device to monitor remote sensors, and then link sensor inputs to an Android phone over Bluetooth
• Conceptually, an Arduino device could monitor local sensors (temperature, humidity, security alarms), and transmit sensor data to an Android phone, which, in turn, could forward the data onto an Internet location.