Android Things 1.0 Released with Long-Term Support for New Devices

If you’re an IoT developer, you need some sort of platform to connect devices to the Internet and together, to control hardware, and to monitor and update individual devices. There are a few options out there right now, but Google’s Android Things has been one of the most promising. Pre-release preview versions have been in developers’ hands for a while, but today the Android Things team has reached a major milestone and released version 1.0 of the platform.

Version 1.0 releases are always an exciting step in the development of new software, because they mark the point where the software is deemed to be stable enough for long-term use. That’s evident in the guaranteed three-year support for gadgets certified for production use. There are currently three SoMs (system-on-modules) certified by Google to meet the stability and security for production applications: the NXP i.MX8M, the Qualcomm SDA212, and the Qualcomm SDA624.

However, if you just want to experiment with developing for Android Things 1.0, you have other options that aren’t certified for production support. For now, those are the NXP Pico i.MX7D and maker favorite Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (and presumably B+). If you launch at scale, you’d need to move over to one of the production-supported devices, but using those development-only models is a great way to dip your toes into the ecosystem.

That said, Android Things 1.0 is definitely intended for production IoT systems. It’s already been used to bring products to market from LG, iHome, Lenovo, and JBL, which will start hitting shelves soon. Android Things 1.0 features automatic secure software updates for security and stability patches, and configuring individual hardware modules is handled easily through the Android Things Console. If you’ve been looking for a true production-ready IoT platform, this looks like one of the best options available.

You can also browse the Android Things community on Hackster to see the amazing projects others have already built with the platform.