Android Things is a new operating system specifically built for IoT. At the time of writing, Android Things supported four different development boards:
- Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
- Intel Edison
- NXP Pico i.MX6UL
- Intel Joule 570x
In the near future, more boards will be added to the list. Google has already announced that it will support this new board NXP Argon i.MX6UL.
The book will focus on using the first two boards: Raspberry Pi 3 and Intel Edison. Anyway, you can develop and test all the book's projects on the other boards too. This is the power of Android Things: it abstracts the underlying hardware providing, a common way to interact with peripherals and devices. The paradigm that made Java famous, Write Once and Run Anywhere (WORA), applies to Android Things too. This is a winning feature of Android Things because we can develop an Android Things app without worrying about the underlying board. Anyway, when we develop an IoT app there are some minor aspects we should consider so that our app will be portable to other compatible boards.
