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DAN GALPIN: Hi.
And welcome back to The Developer Show's coverage
at GDD India.
I'm Dan Galpin here with Wayne Piekarski
to chat about the latest from Android Things.
So what is Android Things, and how does it relate to Android?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: Well, the thing with it
is it's just another flavor of Android in the same way
that you've got Android Wear or Android TV.
It's just another version, except it's
designed for building IoT devices and especially
devices without screens.
And you can embed it in any kind of IoT application
in the same place that you would have used something
else before.
So, yeah.
DAN GALPIN: So what kind of hardware
does Android Things run on?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: So Android Things
runs on custom-made hardware.
So I've got a little circuit board here.
So the circuit board is based around a concept called
a system on a module, where it's a small computing
module with the CPU, the Wi-Fi, and the RAM on it.
And that's the core part that we provide software for,
and everything else is controllable by the developer.
So this board here is a developer kit
which has USB, Ethernet, and stuff like that.
But you wouldn't use all of that in a production device.
So this is used for making prototypes.
And then once you're finished, you
design your own custom board.
And then you have it manufactured
in large quantities.
And it's cheap and affordable because it
has only the components that you need.
DAN GALPIN: So what is the system on module, or SOM,
and how does it help IoT designers?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: The thing with the SOM
is it's a common module that Google supports.
So we provide the kernel, the drivers, the libraries,
everything needed.
And you don't have to do any of the source code
or anything like that.
So we provide binaries for that.
And then you can focus on making your own application.
And because the SOM is kind of a fixed design,
you don't have to worry about it changing.
Everything's handled for you.
DAN GALPIN: So now where does the Android Thing project
stand?
Can developers use it today?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: Yeah.
So right now, it's a developer preview.
So you can use it for making test devices
and trying out new ideas.
And we're hoping that next year, we're
going to be going to the full LTS release, which
stands for Long Term Support.
And that's going to be the production version that you're
going to be able to make devices and push updates out too.
And they're going to be ready for consumers
to make really nice, reliable products.
We have a really good story around updates.
And our team makes the security updates
and pushes them to the devices.
So it makes devices that are really
secure that consumers are going to be
able to have confidence in.
DAN GALPIN: That's great.
Now I know we recently announced the winners of the Android
Things Hackster.io contest.
Now can you tell us about some entries that
might have stood out to you?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: Yeah.
We had a whole bunch of really cool submissions
to the Hackster contest.
It was actually really hard to try to pick a winner for that.
There were three really good entrants that
were awarded the prizes for it.
Actually one of my favorites was one
where someone built a newsreader where you can hold it
in your hands, and it was like a Braille display,
where you could use your hands to have
news articles read to you.
And I really think with Android Things,
were going to open up possibilities
to make cool devices that are going to help people who might
not be able to type, or might not be able to speak,
who might have vision problems or something like that.
And so people are going to be able to make cool devices.
And because they're so easy to make,
it's going to be possible to make more of them.
Right now making custom, specialized devices
is very expensive.
And I think it's really going to--
we call it democratizing hardware development.
We want to be able to make it so anyone can make hardware
in the same way that anyone can make software.
DAN GALPIN: So I know you've traveled the world introducing
developers to Android Things.
What has that been like?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: It's been really fun.
It's been great to sort of come to events like GDD India.
We have a huge Sandbox area there.
And we've had a ton of people come up to us.
And they want to know how to do things
or how to build certain--
they've got questions.
And it's really cool to really come here and meet people.
There's only so much you can do on social media or whatever.
So it's been really great to meet people in person,
and spend time with them, and find out
what they're working on.
DAN GALPIN: Now you've actually done
Codelabs where you've introduced people to Android Things.
What's that like?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: It's really fun because we give these kits away
to everyone in the room.
And they open them up, put them all together.
And some people have never done hardware development before.
I mean a lot of software developers,
they write software.
But then with the kits, you realize
this is something you can pull apart and play
with and experiment with.
It's kind of like playing with toys when you're a child.
You can build things and assemble it yourself.
So it's really fun to watch people do that.
And they leave the Codelab going,
wow, I can use the camera, run TensorFlow on it, and use it.
And it works.
And now I can take it home and build some cool project
that they're trying to work on.
So, yeah.
DAN GALPIN: Where can developers go for more information
about Android Things?
WAYNE PIEKARSKI: Yeah.
So the best place is the Android developer site.
So developer.android.com/things.
And all of our documentation's there, the set-up guides,
samples, and so forth.
And that's a really great way to get started and sort of learn
more about Android Things.
DAN GALPIN: Awesome.
Thank you so much, Wayne, for joining us today.
Now visit the description below if you'd
like to find out how to get started with your own Android
Things projects.
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