Project Brillo
Project Brillo is the codename for a developer preview of an Android-based embedded operating system platform by Google, announced at Google I/O 2015. It is aimed to be used with low-power and memory constrained IoT devices.[1][2] It will support Bluetooth low energy and Wi-Fi.[3] Along with Brillo, Google also introduced Weave and Thread network protocols, which Brillo devices will use to communicate with other devices and which it hopes will be adopted by other IoT operating systems.
What is Brillo?
Brillo is an IoT platform with three elements: Android-based embedded OS, core platform services, and a developer kit.
The Android OS is an open source software that will get minor updates once in six weeks with the long-term support (LTS) build updated once in every six months. Brillo can be built from source code to target ARM, Intel, and MIPS architecture. The board support package (BSP) adapts to specific boards running one of the supported architectures. The OS can run on low-end devices with at least 128MB of storage and 32MB of RAM. Google is working with hardware partners to certify the boards that are compatible with Brillo. These boards are verified and tested to run the current and future versions of the OS. Each board comes with extensive documentation and samples. This approach ensures that Google delivers better developer experience while keeping the devices up-to-date.
Core services of the platform include Weave, which helps devices to securely connect to the network. It enables users to connect the devices to the mobile and desktops. Weave-enabled devices can seamlessly talk to each other. Metrics component is a part of core services to collect usage data from devices based on the user permission. The data can be viewed and analyzed in the console to understand the usage patterns of consumers. Crash reports can also be analyzed to debug remote devices deployed in the field. Administrators can push patches and the latest version of the software through over-the-air (OTA) updates.
Developer Boards
There are currently a few boards that are Brillo-compliant including the Edison Board for Arduino, DragonBoard, Andromeda Box, and Kylin.