If you're an Android developer, you might want to look at the Android Things OS. Using the knowledge you already have, you can create and code connected devices.
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Android 10 adds a lot of things, one of which is gesture navigation. Jason Cipriani/CNET Android 10 launched in September, starting with Pixel phones and has slowly been making its way to more. Aug 30, 2019 All in all, it would appear that the wait for Stranger Things 3: The Game to arrive on Android was worth it. While I suppose some may scoff at the price since the first game was free.
Join For FreeAs you may already know, Google recently released a new IoT operating system called Android Things. Android Things is an OS derived from Android, and the interesting part is that we can re-use our Android knowledge to develop an Android IoT app. Before diving into that, though, it is important you know what Android Things is and how it works.
The goals of this post are to:
- Build a simple RGB LED controller.
- Build an Android IoT app that uses a UI developed using the Android API.
We will use a Raspberry Pi 3 as our IoT prototyping board for this experiment, but you can use any other development board, so long as it's compatible with Android Things.
If you just want to see the end result, the video below shows the Android IoT app in action:
Getting Started (Step 1)
Usually, an IoT project has two sides: an electric/electronic side and a software side. To keep things simple so that we can focus on the Android IoT app, this IoT application controls a simple RGB LED (common anode). This RGB LED is connected to a Raspberry Pi using a 220Ω resistor, one for each color. The schematic diagram is shown below:
The RGB LED is a common anode LED, so the Raspberry Pi 3 powers the pin anode. The RGB pins, which control the LED color, are connected to:
- Pin 29
- Pin 31
- Pin 33
These pin numbers are important because, later, we will use them in the Android IoT app. Double check the connections before powering on your Pi.
Now it is time to create the IoT application using Android Studio. The first step is configuring the Android IoT project using build.gradle:
Android Things uses Activity, just like we're used to in Android. So let's create a class called RGBThingActivity. In the onCreate method, we handle pin communication.
Android Thing PeripherManagerService (Step 2)
To handle the communication to the RGB LED, we use GPIO pins. GPIO pins use a programmable interface to read the device status or to set the output value (High or Low). Using Raspberry Pi GPIO pins, we turn on or off the three color components (red, green, and blue).
The Android Things SDK provides a service called PeripheralManagerService to abstract the GPIO communication interface. We have to use it every time we want to read or write data. At the beginning, the Android IoT app initializes the service and then sets the pin values:
This piece of code introduces some important new aspects. First of all, we have to select the right pins. If you are used to Raspberry Pis, you know that each pin has a corresponding number. In the same way, Android Things uses the same addressing model, though the pins are named in a different way. Using the Raspberry pin reference, you can know each pin address. These address names are used in the code above. For example, to use the pin BCM5 (or Pin 29), the code is:
At the beginning, we turn all the pins to low (or off), so the LED is off. Changing the pins values from low to high or high to low is how we introduce different LED colors.
Android IoT app UI (Step 3)
Another interesting feature provided by Android Things is the UI interface. We can develop a UI interface for our Android IoT app in the same way we develop any other Android UI. Like with an Android app, the UI is in the XML format. In this example, we want to control the RGB LED using three switches:
In the onCreate
method, the app sets the layout:
And to handle user switch:
You have to repeat the same piece of code for the other pins. The final result is below:
The last aspect we need to consider is the Manifest.xml
. To use our app, we have to add this bit inside the application
tag:
Then, we declare that our Activity is an IoT activity, and it starts at boot:
Conclusions
At the end of this post, you hopefully know how to use Android Things a bit better. The interesting aspect is that, using a few new APIs, Android developers can be ready to participate in the next technological revolution — IoT. Moreover, the development process is the same one you're used to when building an Android app. Using a few code lines, an Android developer can build an Android IoT app.
Published at DZone with permission of Francesco Azzola, DZone MVB. See the original article here.
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(Pocket-lint) - Remember Android Things? No? We don't blame you. It didn't last very long, and was officially shut down by Google at the beginning of 2021.
Google makes many operating systems: Android powers smartphones and tablets; Wear OS powers wearables like smartwatches; Chrome OS powers laptops and other computers; Android TV powers set-top boxes and televisions; and Android Things, which was designed to control all kinds of Internet of Things devices, from smart displays to kitchen appliances.
However - perhaps unsurprisingly - it became another thing to add to Google's infamous graveyard of killed projects.
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What was Android Things?
Android Things was meant to power all smart devices and IoT gadgets. Announced in 2016, it could run on products like connected speakers, smart thermostats, security cameras, routers, and so on. The idea is that, with Android Things, it would be easier for companies to start shipping IoT hardware, because they'd be using the same Android developer tools they already knew.
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In a nut shell, it was designed to be a stripped-down version of Android, aimed at nearly every type of internet-connected gadget you could imagine. However, via on its latest FAQ page Google affectively says that Android Things has passed on. It's no more, has ceased to be, has expired and gone to meet its maker. It is bereft of life.
Jokes aside, the announcement actually said that users with programs already running on Android Things would be able to continue pushing updates until January 2022. However, no new projects would be accepted, and once that 2022 deadlines passes, that's it, the developer console will be competely shut down. Android Things is now an ex-thing, effectively.
So, what is Brillo then?
Android Things, didn't start off being called Android things. In fact, it was a rebrand. A few years ago, Google announced Brillo, an Android-based OS for smart devices and IoT gadgets, but it never did much with the OS. Android Things was basically a successor to Brillo. It was also an update that allowed development to be accomplished with 'the same developer tools as standard Android', whereas Brillo didn't offer that.
Brillo didn't catch on because developers likely found it difficult to jump in and work on a new product. The hope with Android Things was that the familiarity would inspire more developers to hop onboard, but we all know how that turned out now don't we?
When was Android Things available?
Google released the first SDK preview of Android Things in 2016. Then, in May 2018, Google announced that Android Things hit its official 1.0 release, which meant we were supposed to be getting closer to devices being made available with Android Things on board. By 2022 it will have kicked the bucket for good.
Anything else you should know?
What Is Android System
Don't think of Android Things as Android or Wear OS, which you plainly see running on a phone or watch, respectively. Android Things was an OS that worked in the background but isn't visible. More of a framework than a user interface as such. It allowed smart devices to handle their own tasks rather than let servers do the processing. Because it was capable of more complex tasks, it was ideal for complex smart devices like printers and locks, rather than basic power outlets.
Things 3 Android
Also, Android Things devices were able to integrate with Android and iOS devices through Weave, a communications system that Google launched alongside Brillo. That protocol also enabled Android Things devices to have access to Google Assistant.