Working with custom Android devices

Android is now well established outside the world of smartphones. Although usually not officially supported, you can find Android running on all kinds of devices, like home appliances, digital signage, and point-of-sales terminals. Being Android developer today means you are likely to encounter these custom devices in your career.

In this session you will learn the most important parts of working on these devices. We will cover things like developers boards, board support packages, AOSP builds, firmware updates, and much more.

Transcript

1. Erik Hellman hellsoft.se
2. Slides available at speakerdeck.com/erikhellman
3. In 2009…
7. 🧑💻 You Android hardware and suppliers SoC Manufacturer SoM Manufacturer Integration Partner
8. 🧑💻 You Android hardware and suppliers Integration Partner
9. Hardware setup
11. Display
12. Bench Power Supply Unit
14. Configurable WiFi Bridge GL.iNet recommended!
15. CAN Adapter
18. Working with AOSP
19. 🧑💻 You The way of the source… Integration Partner
20. Build server • As many cores as you can • Plenty of RAM • Fast SSDs (PCIe gen 3 NVMe)
22. repo init
23. repo init / create a mirror
24. repo init / use your local mirror
25. repo init / avoid —repo-url
26. repo sync
27. Slow or bad network? Update your .gitcon fi g
28. Proprietary binaries
29. Start your build…
30. lunch targets / AndroidProducts.mk
31. Build variants and common lunch targets
32. AOSP build variants
33. updated lunch targets / AndroidProducts.mk
34. Updated common lunch targets
35. Guidelines for userdebug, source.android.com/docs/setup/create/new-device#build-variants Don't include features that are enabled/disabled by default based on the build type. Developers are discouraged from using any form of logging that affects battery life, such as debug logging or heap dumping.
36. Guidelines for userdebug, source.android.com/docs/setup/create/new-device#build-variants You should enable debugging features only on a limited-time basis until the issue you're trying to debug is resolved.
37. Building and parallel tasks
38. Signing system apps
39. Using the AOSP test certificates
40. Using the AOSP test certificates
41. Calling Hidden System APIs
42. Using Reflections - Slow!
43. Using fake interface - hard to maintain
44. Modify Android SDK • Copy framework.jar from AOSP build • Rename to android.jar • Replace with the android.jar in your local Android SDK
45. Build a custom Android SDK
49. Build app with AOSP / Android.bp
50. Soong build system https://source.android.com/docs/setup/build?hl=en
51. Build with AOSP / device/xyz/mydevice/device.mk
52. Chrome Remote Desktop https://remotedesktop.google.com/
53. Android Studio for Platform
54. AOSP Code Search https://cs.android.com
55. Product Definition in AOSP
58. aosp_bramble.mk
59. aosp_bramble.mk
60. aosp_bramble.mk
61. aosp_bramble.mk
62. aosp_bramble_64.mk
63. System properties / device-bramble.mk
64. System properties / device-<my dev>.mk
65. Resource overlays / device-bramble.mk
66. bramble/overlay/frameworks/base/core/res/res/values
67. Resource overlays / config.xml
68. AOSP framework resources
70. Thank you for listening! :) speakerdeck.com/erikhellman