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  • Author Author: cstanton
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 2052 views
  • Likes 7 likes
  • Comments 6 comments
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Stranger Things are afoot with Android on Raspberry Pi - "Android Things" is available

cstanton

I'm not sure how I managed to miss this, perhaps because it's still in 'developer preview', but a version of Android is officially available for the Raspberry Pi 3.

 

If you're really keen, you can download the image here for the developer preview 3.1.

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Thanks to the recent release of Google's AIY Project with the latest version of the MagPi magazine (already selling for £40+ on ebay), the official guide for the project which is rumored to be on sale at a later date from Google, links to a github for running AIY Project on 'Android Things' with the aforementioned link to the developer preview.

 

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Google also has an Android image with the AIY Project as opposed to it running on Raspbian.

 

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It turns out there's a full site for Android Things and it runs on more than Raspberry Pi 3, it also runs on the intel Edison. However, it appears to be as 'bare bones' as the Windows 10 IoT Core, intended to be a deployment platform for apps via the adb interface. Though it likely still means that the full graphical interface could be run on it. It's not without issues though and is still very much in development:

 

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I for one, welcome our Google overlords image what're you going to make, and will this cause you to check out Android if you haven't already?

  • Interesting! : )

    I'm surprised they took so long though : )

    I hope they also have easy-to-use BeagleBone images at some stage too, because a lot of embedded Linux products are now using these too. Great to see Edison is covered.

    There are now other deployment middleware on Linux, so Google is a bit slow with an Android image for this. I hope it is as easy to use as the other middleware out there (e.g. Legato).

    Google of course has strengths in deployment/management, since Android and their app store is designed for that.

    As for app development, one concern is, most embedded app developers are familiar Linux and many are nowadays up-to-speed with Linux-hosted app platforms like Node.JS for app creation, but not necessarily with development for Android and Android APIs and Java.

    (I see some of their demo code is C/C++ or Java).

    I wonder how Google will drive learning for this among engineers.. or maybe start incorporating things like Node.JS on Android with Android API connectors? : )