4 ms·

a few years back, android was used "widely" in the embedded space where a GUI touchscreen is needed other than phone and tablet, now it's pretty much just for p

a few years back, android was used "widely" in the embedded space where a GUI touchscreen is needed other than phone and tablet, now it's pretty much just for phones, and to some extent tablets. the reason is, unlike phone and tablet vendors, small players just can't catch up the new changes from Android, which is very complex, gradually they moved away.

dagi3d 3y ago
What are they using instead?
- hugs 3y ago
  Raspberry Pi using Chromium in kiosk mode and a small touchscreen is my go-to for stuff like this.
  - tentacleuno 3y ago
    Out of curiosity, how performant is Chromium on rPI in your experience?
    - i5-2520M 3y ago
      I tried a pi3b for stuff like this and it is fine on 720p if you don't need many/complex animations. Fine, but not good.
    - kps 3y ago
      Some years ago I worked on software for the Google Home Hub (v1), which according to this teardown¹ has a quad Cortex-A53, same as a Raspberry Pi 3. Before Flutter and Fuchsia, they ran Chromium² on Linux, and they were fine. There was some tuning, but Chrome's performance tools³ are not bad and work decently on remote targets. ¹ https://www.edn.com/teardown-google-home-hub-smart-speaker-and-display/ https://www.edn.com/teardown-google-home-hub-smart-speaker-a... ² Chromecast builds, which are slightly less than full Chrome: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chromecast/ https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chr... ³ https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/trace-event-profiling-tool/ https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/trace-event-prof...
- leonheld 3y ago
  Linux with compositors (sometimes custom ones) for graphical applications. Weston is fairly popular, for example. Or even nothing at all, you can run Qt6 standalone and have a very nice touch interface.
- slimsag 3y ago
  ~~Moblin~~ ~~Maemo~~ ~~MeeGo~~ Tizen and other Linux+compositor OS, with custom app stacks
  - meiraleal 3y ago
    All of them are discontinued. PostmarketOS seems to be the only well maintained mobile Linux distro
    - slimsag 3y ago
      Tizen is still in development, a new version was released just yesterday[0]. Samsung still uses it in their smart TVs and smart fridges. [0] https://docs.tizen.org/platform/release-notes/tizen-8-0-m2/ https://docs.tizen.org/platform/release-notes/tizen-8-0-m2/
- gjadi 3y ago
  At my company we develop SDK based on a JVM for small devices (https://developer.microej.com/supported-hardware/ https://developer.microej.com/supported-hardware/). We also have a compatibility layer with Android applications.
  - synergy20 3y ago
    Android requires really large memory and storage, I can hardly believe it can run on lightweight CPU systems, unless it's running elsewhere and just talk to this MCU via some layer or API.
    - gjadi 3y ago
      Yes that's how some of our customers use it: have the heavy computation done on one CPU and use another light MCU when possible to save battery (for example for smartwatches). We have our own JVM tailored for MCU.
aembleton 3y ago
I think DJI still use Android for their controllers
- synergy20 3y ago
  no way, for GUI yes, android is not good for real time control at all, it can work with some RTOS though

dagi3d 3y ago

What are they using instead?

hugs 3y ago
Raspberry Pi using Chromium in kiosk mode and a small touchscreen is my go-to for stuff like this.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, how performant is Chromium on rPI in your experience?
  - i5-2520M 3y ago
    I tried a pi3b for stuff like this and it is fine on 720p if you don't need many/complex animations. Fine, but not good.
  - kps 3y ago
    Some years ago I worked on software for the Google Home Hub (v1), which according to this teardown¹ has a quad Cortex-A53, same as a Raspberry Pi 3. Before Flutter and Fuchsia, they ran Chromium² on Linux, and they were fine. There was some tuning, but Chrome's performance tools³ are not bad and work decently on remote targets. ¹ https://www.edn.com/teardown-google-home-hub-smart-speaker-and-display/ https://www.edn.com/teardown-google-home-hub-smart-speaker-a... ² Chromecast builds, which are slightly less than full Chrome: https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chromecast/ https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:chr... ³ https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/trace-event-profiling-tool/ https://www.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/trace-event-prof...
leonheld 3y ago
Linux with compositors (sometimes custom ones) for graphical applications. Weston is fairly popular, for example. Or even nothing at all, you can run Qt6 standalone and have a very nice touch interface.
slimsag 3y ago
~~Moblin~~ ~~Maemo~~ ~~MeeGo~~ Tizen and other Linux+compositor OS, with custom app stacks
- meiraleal 3y ago
  All of them are discontinued. PostmarketOS seems to be the only well maintained mobile Linux distro
  - slimsag 3y ago
    Tizen is still in development, a new version was released just yesterday[0]. Samsung still uses it in their smart TVs and smart fridges. [0] https://docs.tizen.org/platform/release-notes/tizen-8-0-m2/ https://docs.tizen.org/platform/release-notes/tizen-8-0-m2/
gjadi 3y ago
At my company we develop SDK based on a JVM for small devices (https://developer.microej.com/supported-hardware/ https://developer.microej.com/supported-hardware/). We also have a compatibility layer with Android applications.
- synergy20 3y ago
  Android requires really large memory and storage, I can hardly believe it can run on lightweight CPU systems, unless it's running elsewhere and just talk to this MCU via some layer or API.
  - gjadi 3y ago
    Yes that's how some of our customers use it: have the heavy computation done on one CPU and use another light MCU when possible to save battery (for example for smartwatches). We have our own JVM tailored for MCU.

aembleton 3y ago

I think DJI still use Android for their controllers

synergy20 3y ago
no way, for GUI yes, android is not good for real time control at all, it can work with some RTOS though