Google announces Brillo, a cut-down Android-based OS for the Internet of Things, and Weave, a communications layer for those devices
Ross Miller / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
Brillo is Google's attempt to take Android below the phone: a cut-down OS for low-power devices, paired with Weave so those devices can actually talk to each other. The move extends a strategy Google was already running at the edge of Android — chipmakers like Broadcom were building Android Wear platforms with 3G and NFC months earlier, showing silicon vendors wanted one Android codebase across device classes.
The arc that follows is well documented: OnHub becomes the first Brillo device in Google's own smart-home ecosystem within months, the platform matures into Android Things with a three-year update pledge, and eventually Google narrows it before shutting it down — making this 2015 launch the starting gun for a seven-year experiment in owning the IoT operating layer.
First-order effects
- Device makers get a supported, lightweight Android derivative plus a standard communications protocol, lowering the cost of shipping connected hardware instead of rolling their own firmware and pairing stacks.
- Google immediately anchors the platform in its own hardware: OnHub is positioned as the first Brillo device, tying the router — the hub of the home network — to Google's smart-home stack from day one.
Second-order effects
- Chip and module vendors such as NXP, Qualcomm, and MediaTek gain a new Android-derived market to target — though the same vendors are the ones whose hardware support gets cut years later when Google refocuses the platform toward OEMs.
- A public developer platform that later narrows strands the hobbyist and startup builders who shipped on it, pushing them toward rival protocols and proprietary ecosystems for device-to-device communication.
Third-order effects
- When the OS-level play ends, Google doesn't abandon device interoperability — it rebuilds it as a services and features layer, culminating in the expanded Fast Pair and cross-device software features of 2022 that make existing phones, watches, and speakers work together without a dedicated IoT OS.
- The broader lesson for the industry: controlling the ambient computing layer may matter less through an embedded OS than through the cloud services and phone ecosystem the devices report to.
The trend: Smart-home platforms are migrating from dedicated embedded operating systems like Brillo toward interoperability delivered as software services layered over existing consumer devices.