Google has announced that it will bid goodbye to Android Things, its Android-based operating system for IoT (Internet of Things) products, starting earlier next year. Read on to know why.
Android Things OS shutting down
Google made the decision by official via its FAQ page for developers. The company wrote on the FAQ page, “We are turning down the Android Things Console for non-commercial use.”
It is suggested that the Android Things Dashboard, which is used for managing devices, will stop accepting new devices and projects in just three weeks on January 5, 2021. Developers will, however, be able to continue updating existing deployments until January 5, 2022, the company said in a statement.
After the given date, the console will be shut down completely for non-commercial use and all project data will be permanently deleted, including the build configurations and factory images.
The only products that can run Android Things will be the ones built on commercial hardware SoMs (system-on-modules) from vendors like NXP, Qualcomm, and MediaTek.
To recall, Google launched Android Things back in 2016 under the name Brillo, which isn’t a long time ago. It came as a toned-down variant of Android for smart home products, sensors, and more. However, it only started being used in some IoT products in 2018. Following this, in 2019, Google announced that it will relaunch Android Things to focus specifically on smart speakers and smart displays.
Android Things was supposed to reach more IoT devices with regular updates and easy access to Google’s cloud platform. The search engine giant originally wanted to create an Internet-of-Things OS where it would handle the “heavy lifting” of maintaining a platform so that developers could just focus on products.
However, instead of all the updates, it was expected to get, it just got shut. Android Things joins various other Google products that have died.
With inputs from IANS
