If you’ve installed smart home lights, cameras, or other IoT connected devices; you’ve found every device and platform doesn’t work together efficiently. Google is trying to solve the issues of a fragmented market with Brillo, their Android-based OS, and Weave, their platform to help IoT devices talk to each other and Google Home. Now, Google is combining the Brillo with their tools like Android Studio, the Android SDK, Google Play Services, and Google Cloud Platform into a platform called Android Things.
Philips Hue and Samsung SmartThings already use Weave; Google says that other major manufacturers including Belkin WeMo, LiFX, Honeywell, Wink, TP-Link, and First Alert will also back the platform. This means hundreds of new devices will work Google Home in the coming months, but also talk amongst themselves.
Google wants to lead the charge in the growing IoT market where everyone is building their standards, and the Amazon Echo and Google Home both are the best ways to control the smart homes. Amazon is building out an IoT platform called Greengrass, which lets developers use AWS to run their IoT in the cloud or locally. Google and Amazon are both leveraging the cloud as their advantages, but it appears Google could have the upper hand; dozens of IoT manufacturers are working on adding Android Things support.
Android Things is currently in Developer Preview – You can start building projects with development kits like Intel Edison, NXP Pico, and the Raspberry Pi 3.