node-serialport on Termux (Linux on Android)

[msillano]

💥 Proposal

extend

Add Linux on Android (Termux) to node-serialport supported environments.

Motivation

1. The use of top-boxes as node-red servers (especially for IOT) has been spreading for some time. As an example see here

2. "Using the Termux app in the app store makes it easy to run Node-RED on Android devices." says node-red/getting started: Android+Termux is an official node-red OS.

3. Virtually all nodes, including custom nodes, run in node-red + Termux. For a decent port of node-red applications, it would be highly desirable that node-serialport also works in Termux.

4. The use of USB / COM ports is ubiquitous in IOT, for example in photovoltaic devices MODBUS, RS232, RS422, RS485 etc.

5. The Termux environment is linux. On top of Termux, you can also install (if you like):

Alpine Linux (edge)
Arch Linux / Arch Linux 32 / Arch Linux ARM
Debian (stable)
Fedora 35
Manjaro AArch64
OpenSUSE (Tumbleweed)
Ubuntu (22.04)
Void Linux

node-serialport works on Linux !

6. I worked on USB-COM on Android, some time ago: Android does not build /dev/ttyS0... for you.
   So, in my (obsolete) APP (USBphpTunnel) I used as driver the usbSerialForAndroid (opensource by hoho, sources included). The list of all USB-ID supported is here. Maybe this example can help development.

7. For a 'proxy' solution, using telnet, see also this project,

Pitch

The ability to port any node-red flow that utilizes USB/serial communications to a server running 24/7 on a budget top-box is very important for IOT applications.