Google kills Android Things, its IoT operating system, in January

The latest dead Google project is Android Things, a version of Android intended for the Internet of Things. Google announced that it essentially ditched the project as a general purpose IoT operating system in 2019, but there is now an official shutdown date thanks to a new FAQ page detailing the operating system’s demise. .

The Android Things dashboard, which is used to manage devices, will stop accepting new devices and projects in just three weeks, on January 5, 2021. Developers will be able to continue updating existing deployments until January 5. 2022, when Google says “the console will be completely disabled and all project data will be permanently deleted, including build setups and factory images.”

Android Things was a lite version of the Google phone operating system for the Internet of Things, a network of small, inexpensive devices like sensors and smart home devices. The idea was that Android would bring broad hardware compatibility, an established app SDK and easy access to Google’s cloud platform to IoT, as well as regular security updates, which are currently unknown. in the Fire-and-forget IoT firmware space. Android is widely criticized for its inability to quickly update all smartphones, but this is based on smartphone standards. In IoT, where your device will likely be never to get a firmware update, Android’s typical three to six month update cycle would be an incredible upgrade to the nightmarish security world of IoT.

For Android Things, Google actually adopted the Apple-style update strategy that many would like the company to adopt for Phone Android. Modifying the operating system was prohibited, and Google said updates would be distributed centrally by Google to each device for three years. IoT admins simply had to click the “Update Ship” button on the Android Things dashboard, which Google had created specifically to remotely manage Android Things devices and dispatch operating system updates and updates. applications.

The problem with Android Things was that Android was really heavy, and while a smartphone operating system could be extended to cars and TVs quite easily, Android Things devices were always bigger, more power hungry, and more expensive than typical IoT form factors. Google tried to remove the operating system by removing things like system user interface, settings, widgets, telephony, USB support, NFC, biometrics, etc., but it is not never got to a cheap little form factor. I think the smallest test form factor was a 2-inch square card that used a low-end smartphone chip (a Snapdragon 212) that you’ll typically find on a $ 100 smartphone.

Android Things’ failure in the IoT space has led to a pivot towards smart speakers and smart displays built by OEMs. As far as we know, Google has never built a device based on Android Things. Its own smart displays and speakers use a modified version of the Google Cast platform, which may have something to do with Google’s ability to systematically reduce its Android Things-based competition, like the Lenovo Smart Display.

“Android for everything” has winners and losers

Android Things was part of what we’ll call the “Android for Everything” strategy, in which Google attempted to extend the Android model for phones to other form factors. The company is pushing a free operating system into a segment of the market, giving device makers a simple and inexpensive way to get started with a strong, updatable operating system with an ecosystem of developers and developers. ‘solid applications. The best example of this is, of course, classic Android for smartphones. could build your own operating system, work with hardware vendors for help, and build your own SDK, and you could try to continue development after launch and ship security updates and hope that an ecosystem of applications grows. But Google offers it all for free! Building all of this yourself would cost money, unlike Android. You have to sign a few contracts with Google and follow a few rules, but would you prefer your next quarterly revenue report to include heavy line items for long-term operating system development, or would you rather just start selling? products now with Android?

After phones, Google’s next most successful market with this approach is probably TVs, where various Smart TV vendors can ship Android TV and have access to all the major streaming services, great hardware support, and even access. to a few games. There’s a lot of TV competition from Roku, Samsung’s Tizen, LG’s WebOS, and others, but Android TV is doing well. Google’s most promising market is probably in automotive infotainment systems, where automakers typically struggle to keep up with the experience provided by smartphones, and a “Get Google Maps and tons of sales pitch” type of sales pitch. ‘multimedia applications in your car! ” it’s rather good. Android Automotive is just starting to hit the market with the Polestar 2.

In the “losers” category, we have Android-for-watches, aka Wear OS, which never took off for lack of chips. Qualcomm finally made a semi-modern smartwatch chip this year, but it seems too little, too late. Android for tablets, which is actually just an Android phone, never worked because Google could not be bothered by maintaining the tablet interface of the operating system or a suite of Google apps for tablets. Google’s “Daydream VR” group has started making Android VR headsets: both are phone-powered headsets and one or two standalone models. Android’s app ecosystem and touchscreen prowess have never really been translated into VR, so it’s not clear why you would want an Android headset. The phone-based headset is officially dead, and Google removed VR functionality from the Android codebase with version 10.

When Android Things launched in May 2018, Google promised “free stability patches and security patches for three years” for every Android Things device, and told developers that its hardware was “certified for use in Canada. production with long-term support guaranteed for three years “. This put Google on the hook until May 2021, but based on both the FAQs and the official Android Things releases page, it appears Google has broken that promise. The last version of Android Things listed was August 2019, which placed Google’s update support at one year and three months. Android Things will no longer support new devices starting two years and eight months after launch, and the set will be shut down three years and eight months after launch.