Tethering to Android

GoogleGroups
1

Ultimately, what I am trying to do is use an Android tablet as a UI to a PocketBeagle, but things are not quite working as I expect. On a rooted Amazon Fire 7, I can manage to get a USB network connection to the PocketBeagle, but I have to configure the networking on the tablet manually, and enable rndis over USB. On a standard Android Pi tablet (no root) I have not been able to establish a connection even though tethering is enabled on the tablet. Tethering works between the tablet and a Windows 10 PC. Tething works between PocketBeagle and Windows 10 PC.

I have not been able to find out when Android thinks tethering is available. Even with rndis enabled on both sides, it does not see the PocketBeagle as a tetherable device. I am at a loss to find out why it is unhappy as I have yet to find a log file or diagnostic message that tells me anything.

I was noticing the PocketBeagle has 2 gadget configurations, but only one shows up in Windows (I suspect the other is supposed to show up in Mac). This leads me to believe there are different implementations or different requirements between systems, and Android may have something else required. Does anyone have any docs on how this stuff works under the hood? Whenever I do a search, the results are the basic getting started stuff.

2

Well, technically there's three… two USB Ethernet devices and one USB
serial.

All of them show up on Linux, which creates an interesting challenge of:
"which IP address does the PocketBeagle want to talk to me on?"

On that basis, I'd think the issue is the Android device doesn't know to
automatically connect to the Ethernet interfaces. Not sure if you can
try tethering the other way using the PocketBeagle's USB host… might be
worth exploring.

3

With a Linux host the answer is either as both are enabled. It’s windows and Mac that can’t decide on ‘1’ built-in USB network standard.

Regards,

4

My understanding is that Windows like RNDIS and Mac likes CDC-ECM. Linux likes both. For Android, what works best for me is to make the PocketBeagle a host, then if tethering is enabled on Android it will appear as a device that Linux likes – not sure which protocol it uses. I have had the PocketBeagle work as a device on a rooted Amazon Fire, but it took some scripting on the Android side to enable it, set the IP, etc. On a non-rooted Walmart tablet, having the PocketBeagle be the host is pretty close to plug and play once you get the PocketBeagle networking configured.

I have moved on to getting WiFi and Bluetooth operational so I have choices between wired and wireless and connectivity.