MICO make it easy for Arduino users to create projects using cell phones. MICO can answer and place calls, present caller with voice prompt and accept touch tone commands

MICO connects to a cell phone via audio jack and it has circuits to detect and answer calls. It then uses pre-recorded voice prompts to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses. Responses can then be used to control lights, motors and other actuators, and get readings of temperature, wind speed, proximity and other sensors. The caller can be just a few feet or hundreds of miles away!

MICO is an acronym for Mobile Interactive voice response & COntrol. The word Mico in Portuguese means small monkey. It’s pronounced “mee co”.

Key Functions:

Detect a ringing phone – monitoring signal amplitude on analog input
Answer the phone – toggling the Answer/End call button
Play audio – stored in the MicroSD card
Decode DTMF tones – dedicated onboard IC
Encode DTMF tones – playing recorded tone files

An example of aMICO project is where it receivesa phone call and presents the caller with a voice prompt: “press 1 for lights on”. MICO can then decode the caller’s button press and take action, in this case turn an output on. Of course everything is customizable: MICO has a microSD card slot so you can store your own voice and all MICO libraries and sketches are open source, free to download and hack.

MICO interfaces to a cell phone’s 3.5mm audio jack. MICO has no build-in cell module or antenna. Because of that, MICO provide some key advantages:

Universal:can work on ANY cell network over the world! GSM, CDMA, TDMA, analog…

Rich features:can utilize new features cell phones have. For example: on the iPhone, MICO can say commands to SIRI such as “post to twitter: temperature is 70degrees”. (of course, you could instead just use an old phonefor basic function)

Simple:no need to learn complicated AT commands. Phone is controlled just with Answer/End Call Button and voice out of the microSD card.

Perfect for quick/temporary projects:no need to buy GSM card just to run a quick demo project. Just plug in your own/friend’s phone. No need to tear it open to grab the card, or hack its software.

There are tons of projects you can create with MICO, few examples:

Example of projects you could make with MICO:

Make MICO call to report temperature. On your own voice!

Use as a simple audio player

MICO is an acronym for Mobile Interactive Voice Response & COntrol. The word mico in Portuguese and Spanish means small monkey. It's pronounced "mee co".

Board overview: