New device support has been added with the arrival of Android Things Developer Preview 4.1, which Google has just announced is now available for all developers to get a hold of if they want to begin work with the new tools and changes. With this new release of Android Things Google notes that one new device is now supported and this is the Pico i.MX6UL revision B board. It also notes that there were a small number of prototype boards for that particular model that were sent to a few developers to beta test, but that these versions aren’t compatible with the new version of the Android Things Developer Preview.
Google covered Android Things and some of its upcoming changes for developers during Google I/O 2017 back in May, and from the developer conference it has created a playlist of different videos, which includes six videos in total, that cover the various topics that were discussed during the event. This includes highlighting new things that have been added to Google’s IoT platform, teaching developers how to use Android Studio to develop for Android Things, and how to use things like Google Cloud and TensorFlow on the Android Things platform just to name a few of them.
For developers who have already worked with Android Things before now, for example, with the Android Things DP4 that was released earlier this year back in the middle of last month, there are some improvements to the platform to pay attention to. Google says that hardware which is based on the i.MX7D boards should see some significant improvements in how the device performs. Google also optimized a version of Google Play Services that is meant strictly for IoT devices and has included it in this version of the Android Things platform. Google says the benefits of this new optimized version of Play Services is that it’s smaller than what was being used before, and a smaller footprint should mean less power consumption and less use of other resources. If you’re a developer interested in checking out Android Things Developer Preview 4.1, you can grab the necessary images for your device from the button below.
Android Things System Image Downloads