Pillar: No-Code OSS
Brillo, Internet of Things OS
Brillo, based on Android, is the most spread mobile OS in the world, and it has a lot of key partnerships, like Intel, Qualcomm, or Freescale.
IoT
Usually the internet is associated with computers, and more recently with smartphones, but currently almost every electronic device has the capability to connect to internet; from cars, to kitchen electronics like coffeemakers or freezers, but the Internet of Things is more than that, a “thing” can be an animal, even a person, as long as they complying with this four conditions: unique identity (in the Internet), connectivity, sensors and a microprocessor.
The list it’s only growing every day.
Source (The Future X Network: A Bell Labs Perspective By Marcus K. Weldon)
A savage new world
Right now a lot of companies are into the IoT world, creating devices as well as protocols, standards and everybody is claiming that theirs is the chosen one to lead the IoT revolution, but the truth is that no one is.
The complexity of this situation is becoming monstrous, and the odds are in favor of the rise, according to Cisco by 2020 there will be about 50 billion devices, and only 7 billion of tablets, PCs and smartphones, according to Gartner.
Source (The Future X Network: A Bell Labs Perspective By Marcus K. Weldon)
IoT OS in the market
The IoT has a lot of needs, in communication technology, network technology, and software, the internet and its protocols are unsuitable for this new gruop of devices, between the software needs Micro Operating Systems (OS), all the major parties in the software industry are creating their own.
Apple has Apple Homekit, Samsung Artik, ARM mbed, AllSeen Alliance Alljoyn, and Google Brillo.
Google was the last one joining this competition, but they have a huge advantage, Brillo is based on Android, the most spread mobile OS in the world, and a lot of key partnerships, like Intel, Qualcomm, or Freescale.
IoT Platforms
Brillo OS
Brillo is an OS, built to work in low-capacity devices, as low as 128MB of storage and 32MB of RAM, its main features are the core services, and the developer kit.
The OS is based on Android, open source and is updated every 6 weeks for minor updates and every 6 months for long term support (LTS). Brillo builds from source, has a board support package (BSP), this component do all the magic between the hardware and Brillo, so in order to use Brillo in a not yet compatible device, changes should be made in the BSP. Some supported devices are Intel Edison or Qualcomm Dragonboard 410c development board.
One of the core services is Weave, a communications platform that allows to connect a device on the network, interact with mobile and desktop applications, also machine to machine interaction. Another services are metrics, to collect user information (with the users permission), crash reporting for debugging and the OTAs for updates.
Source (http://developers.google.com/brillo/)
Weave
Weave is a JSON based communication platform that provides a way to interact with the universe of devices that comprehends the IoT, this allows that cloud services and applications can interact with the device.
The main features of Weave are provisioning, device discovery, authentication and interaction all this through a protocol that is implemented by a library, it has a mobile SDKs, and a Web Service. With the SDKs (Android and iOS), mobile apps can be build to interact with te devices. The interaction feature is key, because the setup would be standard and that will make it easier for users to learn how to use it.
Source (http://developers.google.com/weave)
Is Brillo the chosen one?
Brillo is still in its early stages, so is a little to soon to answer that question, but, Google allways builds amazing things, besides Intel is a partner in this project, as well as Qualcomm and Freescale, only Intel and Qualcomm have half of the tablet and mobile chip market, besides Intel has been allways a big fish in PC chips. So Brillo its really something to care about, and profiling itself to be the chosen one.