Category: IoT

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Android Things Developer Preview Available

Here is a quick summary of what is new in the latest Android Things Developer Preview.

Earlier this month Google announced a partnership with AIY by releasing a co-produced build-your-own Google Home kit. Built on Google’s Raspberry Pi 3 developer board, the kit showcased Android Things’ ever-expanding features, particularly the integration of Voice Kit. Enabling developers to build a proper Voice User Interface (VUI) Voice Kit is an open-source platform which can integrate cloud services such as Google Assistant SDK or Cloud Speech API or simply run similar services directly on the device with Tensorflow – Google’s on-board neural-network.

Google also added some important drivers to the mix – most notably those necessary for implementing Google Assistant SDK on any certified development board. Also in tow is support for Inter-IC Sound Bus (I2S) which has been Added to the Peripheral I/O API. A Voice Kit sample for which is included, aimed at demonstrating the use of I2S for audio.

Developer Preview 4 will also bring new hardware, adding a Board Support Package for the NXP i.MX7D. Also, in a display of Android Things’ scalability, Google has released Edison Candle – a sample of custom hardware which fits modularly with SoM’s (system-on-modules) running the lightweight OS. Code for this sample is hosted on GitHub while hardware design files can be found on CircuitHub.

Things seem to be coming together quite well for Google’s IoT solution. With the 1.0 release of Tensorflow in February and I/O kicking off, we hope to see even bigger strides today.

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IoT and Auto-Replenishment – A Good Thing?

I guess I am taking a little more cautious/skeptical stance when it comes to the auto-replenishment feature touted by many IoT pundits and vendors. If you aren’t familiar, this would allow a device to determine that you were out of or running low on a given consumable (be it a food item, dish soap or toilet paper) and then order more of it on your behalf.

Here is the problem: the vendor and the device don’t have your best interests at heart and might tend to exaggerate the current state of consumable and (maybe) tend to order more of it more frequently that you might actually need (or want). For example, if you have ever owned an inkjet or laser printer you have probably experienced this already – persistent warnings/notifications to replace a toner or ink cartridge when, in reality, the useful life of the item is much, much longer that you are being led to believe. Heck, I have a laser printer that has been telling be for 13 months that I need to replace the toner. In that time my family and I have printed hundreds of additional pages with this ’empty’ toner cartridge.

Consider also the existing confusion over the meaning of ‘sell by’ and ‘best by’ designations on other consumables (most notably food). What if vendors add a ‘replenish by’ or ‘order by’ date into the mix? Not a great situation for consumers, especially if they have delegated this to an networked device in the name of ‘convenience’.