Now this is something interesting. Android Things is an embedded OS platform by Google and is obviously Android-based 🙂 This platform is meant to target IoT (Internet Of Things) devices. IoT devices typically have power and memory constraints and this OS aims to operate within those constraints. Typically these devices have about 32 to 64 MB RAM.
History of Android Things
Google had announced OS for IoT devices back in 2015 with name “Brillo”. That OS was C++ based. However, it never came out of developer preview. Later in Dec 2016, Google announced Android Things which was based on Android i.e. Java. An important advantage of this shift is that development life cycle almost remains same as that of mobile app development. Developers can use Android Studio and other popular IDEs for development for this OS.
So, what’s latest on this front?
In current Consumer Electronics Show – CES 2018, many OEMs are announcing their products based on Android Things. e.g. Voice Activated Speakers powered by Android Things. Google Assistant will be coming to smart displays, which would be powered by Android Things. Check this video which shows a drawbot drawing a facial image captured by photo. As you would have guessed, this drawbot is powered by AndroidThings
Developers would be able to push the updates to the OS, just like other Google products.
Competitors:
- Microsoft – Windows 10 IoT
- Amazon – AWS Greengrass – this is not exact competition, but it is Amazon’s entry point of the IoT strategy.
Some References:
Related Keywords
Android, Operating System, Embedded OS, IoT, AWS Greengrass