Speed of forwarding ADB ports to send data from Android device to PC

Question

I am looking for a very fast method of sending commands from my Android device to my computer. There are 3 methods in question, Bluetooth, ADB w/ USB, and USB. A server socket connection is too slow for what I need.

All 3 seem to give me a headache when trying to implement them.

I know a straight USB connection would be faster than anything else, but I'm finding it especially difficult to implement.

Many users suggested using adb to communicate over USB. The main method in question is using the ADB server/client implementation, where I would forward the ADB ports and use a socket connection to host a server on my Android device (Somehow the USB is involved). More information is available here: http://www.anothem.net/archives/2010/02/15/communicating-over-the-usb-cable/

Would this method be any faster than using a standard server/client socket connection (since there is a USB involved in this method).

I'm a little hazy about how this all works, since I don't think it's a very common request. If anyone could explain this method a bit more I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Answer 1

I made an application which I started with Bluetooth, after some testing I decided to go with normal TCP sockets with the WIFI interface. The application consists of one PC which handles up to 20 tablets for a commercial command entry in restaurants, discos, etc. Every time a tablet connects the server send about 100 small JPG pictures which represent the different items in the menu. It's done very fast, less than a couple of minutes, and in normal data entry I've seen no problems so far. I don't know how fast you need it to be but WIFI sockets are as least as fast as USB (2.0) and Bluetooth.

Also with sockets the tablet and the PC can be hundreds of meters away from each other, depends on your WIFI configuration which can be expanded easily. Other thing to consider is when the device goes to sleep, when it wakes up it may take some seconds before getting the WIFI up and running and, in some few strange cases you need to restart the socket connection.

Whichever you decide to use, all of this should be handled by a well define protocol of course.