Android REST SMS Gateway and Arduino Control Center

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It sounds awkward? In short, REST SMS Gateway allows changing your phone into a powerful SMS Gateway which you can control from the Arduino Control Center desktop application for sending alarm SMS messages.
For testing purposes, I've installed on my smartphone an Android application called very intuitively - REST SMS Gateway :). I got this app from my friend, but you can download it from Android APK(install packages) download sites. This, and many other applications with similar purposes, are not available on the Google Play store anymore due to the Google Play Developer Policy which restricts SMS, CALL_LOG access only to default phone applications.

After downloading and installing the APK Android package for the REST SMS Gateway application, you will get this window:

NOTICE: your phone MUST be connected in LAN (local, home network over wireless connection!!!) Otherwise, this will not work.
After pressing the Start button, the window below will show up. But, the application will request your access to Contacts, Images, SMS, and phone Calls. As I mentioned before, for this reason, this application(and many other similar apps) are removed from the Google Play store. Will you trust this or any other application made for this purpose, it's up to you. Be sure to download applications from a trusted source.


As you can see, the web address, in this case, is http://192.168.1.101:8080. The blue number is port, and it is hard-coded and cannot be changed.
Green number is IP address, obtained automatically from a home router or other devices with DHCP (protocol for assigning an IP address to devices within Local Network).
Green number, in your case, will be different. It can be 10.x.x.x:8080, 172.x.x.x:8080, 192.168.x.x:8080...
That's all you need from this Android application.

Of course, a SIM card is on the phone. Right? :)
Arduino Control Center Application
I use this application to integrate SMS alarm notifications - Arduino device is not available, sensor, input, or output alarm status is activated and the user has to be informed about that change.
How to set up alarms in Arduino Control Center is out of scope for this blog. Tutorial about Alarms setup will be subject in another topic.
I only want to show you how easy is to set up and test Android REST SMS Gateway in Arduino Control Center with a demo version and not configure any Arduino device.
- First, download and install Arduino Control Center from the Downloads page.
- Open application and close, required for creating sms.ini file.
- Open the installation folder and open the sms.ini file.
- Copy lines below to sms.ini file, replace 192.168.1.101 with the address from Android REST SMS Gateway application.

[RESTSMS]
urllabel=SMS service url
url=http://192.168.1.101:8080/v1/sms/
param1=
param1_text=
param2=
param2_text=
param3=message
param3_text=REST SMS application test
param4=phone
param4_text=38161xxxxxx number to send sms
parameters_info_url=
error_codes_link=
web_page=
logo_link=
param5=
param5_text=
param6=
param6_text=


Open up Preferences setup window, SMS Setup tab:


- Select RESTSMS from dropdown menu.
- Test SMS service:


- SMS with message on the phone with assigned number in sms.ini file:




That's it. Easy and very useful option. You can turn on your old smartphone with Android from 4.1.2 up to the latest version into SMS Gateway for messaging in Arduino Control Center!!!

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