Posted by Wayne Piekarski,
Developer Advocate for IoT
Today, we are releasing the next Developer Preview 4 (DP4) of Android Things, bringing new supported hardware, features, and bug fixes to the platform. The goal of Android Things is to enable Android Developers to quickly build smart devices, and seamlessly scale from prototype to production using a Board Support Package (BSP) provided by Google.
Today, we are releasing the next Developer Preview 4 (DP4) of Android Things, bringing new supported hardware, features, and bug fixes to the platform. The goal of Android Things is to enable Android Developers to quickly build smart devices, and seamlessly scale from prototype to production using a Board Support Package (BSP) provided by Google.
- AIY Projects and Google Assistant SDK
Earlier this month, we announced
a partnership with AIY
Projects, enabling Android Things support for the Raspberry Pi-based Voice
Kit. And now with DP4, the necessary drivers are provided to support the Google Assistant SDK on
all Android Things certified development boards. Learn more from the
instructions in the sample.
- New hardware and driver support
We are now adding a new Board Support Package for the NXP i.MX7D, which supports
higher performance than the i.MX6UL
while still using a low power System on Module (SoM) design. Support for
Inter-IC Sound Bus (I2S) has been added to the Peripheral I/O
API, now enabling audio drivers to be written in user space for sound
hardware connected via an I2S bus. The AIY Voice Kit sample
demonstrates how to use I2S support for audio. We have also provided the ability
for developers to enable/disable Bluetooth profiles at run time.
NXP i.MX7D System on Module
- Production hardware sample
Android Things is very focused on helping developers build production-ready
devices that they can bring to market. This means building custom hardware, in
addition to the software running on the Android Things system-on-module (SoM).
As a part of this effort, we have released Edison Candle, the first in a series
of production samples showcasing hardware and software designed to work
together. The code is hosted on GitHub and the
hardware design files are on CircuitHub,
and can be easily fabricated by many 3rd party companies.
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, 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 4,900 members. We also have a number of great talks about
Android Things and IoT at Google I/O, which you can view via live stream or as a recording
later.