Google empowers hardware hackers with the Android ADK

Google wants thousands of peripherals connected to Android devices; if you don't see what you like, you can build it yourself.

The annual Google I/O developers' conference has always been a hot spot for mobile devices. In recent years, Google has taken to giving out the latest Android smartphones free to attendees, sending gadget lovers into a feeding frenzy as the show approaches. Tickets to this year's event, which took place this week in San Francisco, sold out in under an hour. But next year, the hottest Android hardware at the conference might not be what Google hands out, but what attendees bring with them.

Past Android devices could only interact with other hardware in a limited way, via Bluetooth and some rudimentary USB functions. But beginning with Android 3.1, an update for Android tablets that ships this week, Google has greatly expanded the USB capabilities of its mobile OS. Devices running Android 3.1 will be able to interact with the full range of existing USB input devices -- including keyboards, mice, and game controllers -- further cementing Android as a general-purpose OS not limited to smartphones and tablets.

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Even more tantalizing, however, Google envisions a whole new class of USB devices, ones purpose-built to interact with Android. Google is calling these devices Android Open Accessories, and their capabilities go far beyond what you'd expect from your everyday PC peripheral.

These peripherals are PCs
To demonstrate the power of Android Accessories, Google presenters showed off an exercise cycle that could interact with an Android handset via USB. When plugged into the bike, the handset automatically launched a game that players could control by varying their rate of pedaling.

That such a device could connect via USB should come as no surprise. But to connect to the full range of USB peripherals, a PC must act as a USB host. According to the USB specification, a device that supports USB Host Mode must supply 500mA of power at 5 volts. That's no problem for a PC, but it's too much for the humble batteries of most phones, so handset manufacturers typically don't built the hardware necessary to support USB Host Mode into their products.

To get around this limitation, Android Accessories take on the role of USB host themselves. In effect, an Android device plugged into an Android Accessory becomes a kind of smart controller, with the Android Accessory doing the major work. This means the Android Accessory must supply enough power for itself and the Android device, but that's easier to do when the device isn't designed to travel everywhere in your shirt pocket.

All the tools you need
This is no pie-in-the-sky concept. Google wants developers to start building their own Android Accessories today. To get them started, Google has released the Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK). There's no fee to download it and no developer plan to join. Everything about the ADK is offered under an open, royalty-free license -- right down to the plans and specifications needed to build the reference hardware.

Of course, if you don't want to build the hardware yourself, you can buy it. Google I/O attendees received a free version of the reference hardware built by RT Corp., a Japanese manufacturer of robotics equipment.

The base board of the ADK hardware is derived from the popular Arduino open source electronics prototyping platform. Attached to that is a second board that provides the Android interface, along with a range of sensors and input devices, including a joystick, three buttons, three LEDs, a light sensor, a temperature sensor, a touch sensor, two software-operable relays, and three connectors for servo motors.

The variety of components available on the reference hardware should give you an idea of the breadth of peripherals that can be built to interact with Android devices. Google envisions a world full of Android Accessories of all kinds, from toys and robots to tools, sensors, and even household appliances. As Google engineering director Joe Britt said at the conference keynote, "We'd like to think of your entire home as an Android Accessory."

To that end, Google is developing a new framework it calls Android@Home, with the aim of extending Android interactivity into areas not normally associated with computing. To demonstrate, Britt showed off an app running on an Android handset that could dim the lights onstage.

Has ubiquitous computing arrived?
Google isn't the first company to have this vision. "Ubiquitous computing" has been the Holy Grail of computing vendors for years. As far back as 2001, HP Labs launched the Cooltown Project, aimed at developing "systems that support the users of wireless, handheld devices interacting with their environment, anywhere they may be."

Back then, however, handheld devices were hardly ubiquitous themselves. Palm PDAs had generated a lot of buzz, but they were still used mostly by white-collar tech workers. What's more, they had no broadband wireless data capability. (Cooltown actually proposed communications between devices via infrared pulses, like a TV remote.)

Today, smartphones are becoming commonplace, with mobile carrier subsidies pricing them within the reach even of lower-income consumers. And with the near-universal availability of high-bandwidth wireless data networks, the ways in which smart handsets can exchange data with smart appliances and peripherals are virtually unlimited.

There's a third piece of the puzzle, though, and that's the advent of cloud computing. When smartphones can connect not merely to peripheral devices, but also to powerful computing services that can store and process data and make it available wherever you go, it enables an entire new range of applications that yesterday's ubiquitous computing initiatives never imagined. As such, Android is rapidly becoming one of the most important tools for ushering in the post-PC era, and the ADK is just the next step in its ongoing advance.

This article, "Google empowers hardware hackers with the Android ADK," originally appeared at InfoWorld.com.