Your own Google Home with Android Things on Raspberry Pi

Using Android Things (0.5.1 dev preview) and gRPC Android Assistant API to build your own Google Home clone

Transcript

1. Build your own Google Home using
   Raspberry Pi and Android Things
   A powerful electronics platform running the familiar
   Android stack with full Java API support
   Arnav Gupta
   Co-Founder & Android Mentor @ Coding Blocks
   

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2. THE ANDROID FOR IOT
   ARCHITECTURE
   

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3. Familiar Android Stack
   

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4. Android Things High Level Overview
   

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5. WHAT BRILLO HAD PROMISED US ?
   

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6. What part is used from Android ?
   

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7. What part is used from Android ?
   

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8. HOW ANDROID THINGS FINALLY
   PANNED OUT
   

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9. The full Android Stack
   

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10. What is present on Android Things
    

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11. PREPARING FOR THE ANDROID
    THINGS ADVENTURE
    

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12. Requirement 1: The Board (any one)
    • Raspberry Pi 3
    • NXP Pico MX6
    • NXP Pico MX7 (Recommend this)
    • Intel Edison
    • … or crack open an old Android phone you’re
    not using :P
    

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13. Requirement 2: Lights and Buttons
    • 1xLED + 1xButton + Breadboard + Resistors
    • Or, get a Rainbow Hat
    

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14. Requirement 3: Audio (In & Out)
    • Speaker + Mic (if needed, use a 2 to 1 plug)
    • Protip: Search for “office conference room
    speakerphones”
    

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15. GET YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM
    

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16. Go to “Android Things Console”
    LOL ! Google SEO Fail :P
    

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17. Create a new product
    there
    

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18. Select your board
    

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19. Create new factory image
    

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20. Flash it
    • For NXP devices, fastboot flash (like you flash
    Nexus/Motorola devices)
    • For Raspberry, flash SD Card with Etcher
    

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21. WRITING ANDROID THINGS APPS
    

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22. Tell Gradle that this is Android Things
    

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23. Usually you’d want your app to be
    default and only app
    

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24. What not to use ?
    

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25. Supported Google APIs
    

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26. Unsupported Google APIs
    

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27. Wait a sec . . . Runtime permissions ?
    • Normal Permissions = At install time
    • Dangerous Permissions = After device reboot
    • No runtime dialog boxes (duh, no display)
    

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28. Cloud IOT Core = The Firebase for
    Android Things
    

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29. LET’S TAKE AN ELECTRONICS CLASS
    

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30. Basic Electronics supported
    • GPIO – Digital Inputs and Outputs
    • PWM – (Fake) Analog Inputs and Outputs
    • Serial Communication
    – I2C (Synchronous, Low Speed, 2-wire)
    – SPI (Synchronous, HighSpeed, multi-wire)
    – UART (Asynchronous, Only 1 peripheral)
    

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31. GPIO: Active High vs Active Low
    

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32. PWM: Analog using Digital
    

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33. BUTTONS AND LIGHTS
    

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34. The Button driver
    

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35. Using the Button
    

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36. Using the Button
    

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37. Lighting up LED via GPIO
    

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38. THE GOOGLE ASSISTANT API
    

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39. https://developers.google.com/assistant/sdk/reference/rpc/
    

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42. DEMO
    

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45. Links and Resources
    • https://github.com/androidthings
    • https://github.com/championswimmer/googl
    e_assistant_iot (This project I demoed)
    • My Slides:
    https://speakerdeck.com/championswimmer
    

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46. Weighing Pros and Cons of Android
    Things
    • We get > 50% of powerful
    Android Stack
    • Code sharing with
    Android applications
    • Easier to attach ad-hoc UI
    • Future: Easy delivery via
    Play Store
    • Google Backing (duh!)
    • Uses a lot of resources (vs
    Linux Kernel + C/Cpp bin)
    • Dodgy async and multi-
    threading (electronics are
    always sync)
    • Can make similar projects
    using JS libs in < 5% code
    • High code complexity trap
    

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47. @championswimmer
    a@cb.lk
    

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