Google Releases the 3rd Developer Preview of Android Things

Brillo was originally supposed to be Google's IoT platform, and while it did receive some attention when it was announced, it ultimately hasn't really caught on the way many had hoped. So in order to unify things a bit more, Google decided to rebrand Brillo to Android Things back in December of last year. The current software is available as an early preview on devices such as the Intel Edison, NXP Pico, and Raspberry Pi 3 and it utilizes their own Weave communication layer.

Along with this rebranding, we also saw the release of the first developer preview for the platform. This was followed up in February with an update to Developer Preview 2 and just a few days ago Google released the 3rd developer preview for Android Things. Along with all of the previous changes we've seen so far, this 3rd developer preview adds two major additions to the IoT platform. This includes USB Host support as well as support for Android's Bluetooth APIs.

Google added USB Host support to Android 3.1 and it allows a regular user space application to communicate with USB devices. This was possible before, but it required root privileges or support from the Linux kernel. This is no longer the case thanks to this new feature and now Google has brought it to Android Things. Google has even added an extra sample USB Enumerator that will demonstrate how to iterate over and print the interfaces and endpoints for USB devices you may have.

The other big change with the 3rd developer preview of Android Things is the addition of Android's own Bluetooth APIs. With this update, you'll now be able to write code that interacts with both Bluetooth classic and low energy (LE) devices. This is the same process that you would see with a regular Android device, so Android developers should feel right at home here. And to help out, Google has also provided two new samples, Bluetooth LE GATT server and Bluetooth audio sink for developers to try out.

Source: Android Developers Blog

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