Serial Communication

This chapter focuses on universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART)–based serial communication between the Arduino board and your computer. Serial communication uses pins 0 and 1. Serial communication helps us to show results on the computer screen with the aid of a tool called Serial Monitor. A Serial Monitor is a part of the Arduino IDE. For instance, assume that you read the voltage of an analog pin. In this case, you have two options to see the measured value: (1) use an LCD and show the measured value on it; (2) use serial communication and show the measured value on a computer screen. The first method requires an LCD, and the LCD must be connected to the Arduino board using suitable connections. However, in the second method, everything is prepared already, and you need to write a few lines of code. In the second method, data transfer will be done using the USB cable connected between the computer and the Arduino board.