Android Things: Everything you need to know about Google’s IoT platform

Google is realigning focus on the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, and has reworked the operating system platform. It was previously called Brillo. With the new branding—Android Things—comes new functionality as well.

Android Things is an IoT platform that helps build connected devices, leveraging Android software, and paired with the company’s cloud-based services, and can be used for allowing devices that can be allowed to connect with the Internet as well as other gadgets to enhance functionality.

There is a much greater push towards smart gadgets that can talk to each other, and form a sort of a mesh that allows you to control functionality over the web, remotely. The problem with IoT at present is that there are far too many individual platforms, and that confuses consumers and also means there is hardly any interoperability.

Here are the most important things to know about Android Things.

• Google has added the Weave support in Android Things. Weave is an independent IoT platform, and will allow devices connect to Google services and to talk to other gadgets, as well as Google’s recent Assistant. The manufacturers that currently work on Weave are Philips Hue and Samsung SmartThings. Apart from that, Belkin WeMo, LiFX, Honeywell, Wink, TP-Link and First Alert will also work with Android Things.

• Android Things is essentially a rebranded version Google Brillo, an OS that Google had announced in 2015. At its core, Brillo was Android, but it was very different from the standard Android development. Brillo used the coding language C++, but Android Things is more open to Java development as well.

• Like the over-the-air (OTA) updates that are delivered directly on Android smartphones, Android Things will also allow developers to push any app updates using the infrastructure. This means that Google will also roll out the IoT platform updates over-the-air as well.