Posted by Dave Smith, Developer Advocate for IoT
Earlier this year at CES, we showcased consumer products powered by Android Things from partners like Lenovo, LG, JBL, iHome, and Sony. We are excited to see Android Things enable the wider developer ecosystem as well. Today we are announcing the final preview release of Android Things, Developer Preview 8, before the upcoming stable release.
Feature complete SDK
Developer Preview 8 represents the final API surface exposed in the Android Things support library for the upcoming stable release. There will be no more breaking API changes before the stable v1.0 release of the SDK. For details on all the API changes included in DP8, see the release notes. Refer to the updated SDK reference to review the classes and methods in the final SDK.
This release also brings new features in the Android Things developer console to make building and managing production devices easier. Here are some notable updates:
Production-focused console enhancements
With an eye towards building and shipping production devices with the upcoming LTS release, we have made several updates to the Android Things developer console:
App library
The new app library enables you to manage APKs more easily without the need to package them together in a separate zipped bundle. Track individual versions, review permissions, and share your apps with other console users. See the app library documentation for more details.
Permissions
On mobile devices, apps request permissions at runtime and the end user grants them. In earlier previews, Android Things granted these same permissions automatically to apps on device boot. Beginning in DP8, these permissions are granted using a new interface in the developer console, giving developers more control of the permissions used by the apps on their device.
This change does not affect development, as Android Studio grants all permissions by default. Developers using the command line can append the -g flag to the adb install command to get the same behavior. To test how apps on your device behave with certain permissions revoked, use the pm command:
-g
adb install
pm
$ adb shell pm [grant|revoke] <permission-name> ...
App launch behavior
Embedded devices need to launch their primary application automatically after the device boots, and relaunch it if the app terminates unexpectedly. In earlier previews, the main app on the device could listen for a custom IOT_LAUNCHER intent to enable this behavior. Beginning in DP8, this category is replaced by the standard CATEGORY_HOME intent.
IOT_LAUNCHER
<activity android:name=".HomeActivity"> ... <!-- Launch activity automatically on boot, relaunch on termination. --> <intent-filter> <action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/> <category android:name="android.intent.category.HOME"/> <category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT"/> </intent-filter> </activity>
Apps that contain an IOT_LAUNCHER intent filter will no longer be triggered on boot. Update your apps to use CATEGORY_HOME instead.
Feedback
Thanks to all of you in the developer community for sharing your feedback with us throughout developer preview. Join Google's IoT Developers Community on Google+ to let us know what you're building with Android Things and how we can improve the platform in future releases to help you build connected devices at scale!
Deeplocal is a Pittsburgh-based innovation studio that makes inventions as marketing to help the world's most loved brands tell their stories. The team at Deeplocal built several fun and engaging robotics projects using Android Things. Leveraging the developer ecosystem surrounding the Android platform and the compute power of Android Things hardware, they were able to quickly and easily create robots powered by computer vision and machine learning.
DrawBot
DrawBot is a DIY drawing robot that transforms your selfies into physical works of art.
"The Android Things platform helped us move quickly from an idea, to prototype, to final product. Switching from phone apps to embedded code was easy in Android Studio, and we were able to pull in OpenCV modules, motor drivers, and other libraries as needed. The final version of our prototype was created two weeks after unboxing our first Android Things developer kit."
- Brian Bourgeois, Producer, Deeplocal
Want to build your own DrawBot? See the Hackster.io project for all the source code, schematics, and 3D models.
HandBot
A robotic hand that learns and reacts to hand gestures, HandBot visually recognizes gestures and applies machine learning.
"The Android Things platform made integration work for Handbot a breeze. Using TensorFlow, we were able to train a neural network to recognize hand gestures. Once this was created, we were able to use Android Things drivers to implement games in easy-to-read Android code. In a matter of weeks, we went from a fresh developer kit to competing against a robot hand in Rock, Paper, Scissors."
- Mike Derrick, Software Engineer, Deeplocal
Want to build your own HandBot? See the Hackster.io project for all the source code, schematics, and 3D models.
Visit the Google Hackster community to explore more inspiring ideas just like these, and join Google's IoT Developers Community on Google+ to get the latest platform updates, ask questions, and discuss ideas.
Android Things makes building connected embedded devices easy by providing the same Android development tools, best-in-class Android framework, and Google APIs that make developers successful on mobile. Since the initial preview launch back in December, the community has turned some amazing ideas into exciting prototypes using the platform.
To empower these makers and developers using Android Things to share and learn from each other, we have partnered with Hackster.io to create a community where aspiring IoT developers can go to showcase their projects and get inspired by the work of others. Hackster.io is a community of 200,000 engineers and developers dedicated to building internet-connected hardware projects. They also seek to educate and challenge members through live workshops and design contests.
We are eager to see the projects that you come up with. More importantly, we're excited to see how your work can inspire other developers to create something great with Android Things. Visit our Hackster.io community to see the amazing projects others have already built and join the community today!
We will be hosting a webinar in cooperation with Hackster.io on July 7th, 2017 at 10AM PST titled Bootstrapping IoT Products with Android Things. During this time, you will learn how we have designed Android Things to address many of the pain points experienced by developers attempting to build IoT products. You will also have the opportunity to send in questions you have regarding the platform and ecosystem. Register today to join us for this exciting event!
Today we are launching a preview of the Android Things Console. This console allows developers to manage the software running on their fleet of Android Things IoT devices, including creating factory images, as well as updating the operating system and developer-provided APKs. Devices need to run a system image downloaded via the Android Things Console in order to receive future updates, such as the upcoming Developer Preview 5. Google provides all of the infrastructure for over-the-air (OTA) updates, so developers can focus on their specific application and not have to build their own implementation – getting their IoT devices to enter the market faster and more securely than before.
Let's take a tour of the console, and see the features it offers.
The developer first defines a product, which includes selecting a name and the type of System-on-Module (SoM) that the device is based on. Many developers want to use Google Play Services when building IoT devices, and this is configured here as an optional feature. The size of the OEM partition is also configured, and must be large enough to include the size of any future APK growth.
A device needs an initial base firmware to receive future updates for the correct product from your console. For starters, you can simply use "Create Build Configuration" to build a default factory image with an empty bundle that is configured for your product. This factory image can then be downloaded and flashed to your device, and you can start developing on it by sideloading an APK.
Later on, once you have prepared an application that you would like to deploy to all the devices in your product, you can upload a bundle to the console. This bundle is a ZIP file that contains a main APK file, user space drivers as a service in an APK, and any additional APKs launched by the main APK. A bootanimation.zip file is also supported, which will be displayed during boot up. The uploaded bundle ZIP file is then used to produce a complete system image that can be deployed to devices. More information about the bundle ZIP file contents is available in the documentation.
This tab allows the developer to select which system image should be pushed to the fleet of product devices. The developer selects one, and then "Push to Devices" starts the process. The update will then be securely pushed to all of the devices, installed to one of the A/B partitions, and made active when the device is rebooted. If any failures are detected, the device automatically rolls back to the previous known working version, so future updates are still possible. Developers will be able to test new releases of Android Things in advance and decide whether devices should be updated automatically.
The Android Things Console is currently a preview, and we are working on many more features and customizations. We encourage all Android Things developers to check out the Android Things Console and provide feedback. You can do this by filing bug reports and feature requests, and asking any questions on Stack Overflow. To learn more about the Android Things Console, read the detailed documentation. We also encourage everyone to join Google's IoT Developers Community on Google+, a great resource to get updates and discuss ideas.
Today, we're releasing a new Developer Preview 4.1 (DP4.1) of Android Things, with updates for new supported hardware and bug fixes to the platform. Android Things is Google's platform to enable Android Developers to create Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and seamlessly scale from prototype to production.
A new Pico i.MX6UL revision B board has been released, which supports many common external peripherals from partners such as Adafruit and Pimoroni. There were some prototype Pico i.MX6UL boards made available to some early beta testers, and these are not compatible with DP4.1.
DP4.1 also includes some performance improvements since DP4, such as boot time optimizations that improve the startup time of i.MX7D based hardware. This Developer Preview also includes a version of Google Play Services, specifically optimized for IoT devices. This new IoT variant is a lot smaller and optimized for use with Android Things, and requires the use of play-services 11.0.0 or later in your build.gradle. For more information about the supported features in the IoT variant of Google Play Services, see the information page.
Android Things had a large presence at Google I/O this year, with 7 talks covering different aspects of Android Things for developers, and these are available as videos in a playlist for those who could not attend:
Google I/O also had a codelab area, where attendees could sit down and test out Android Things development with some simple guided training guides. These codelabs are available for anyone to try at https://codelabs.developers.google.com/?cat=IoT
Thank you to all the developers who submitted feedback for the previous developer previews. Please continue sending us your feedback by filing bug reports and feature requests, and asking any questions on stackoverflow. To download images for DP4.1, visit the Android Things download page and find the changes in the release notes. You can also join Google's IoT Developers Community on Google+, a great resource to get updates and discuss ideas, with over 5,600 members.
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