Yes, Google's much-hyped Internet of Things effort is called Brillo. The company announced it today at Google I/O, where senior VP Sundar Pichai described it as "Android, polished down... an end-to-end functioning operating system."
But Brillo isn't just Brillo---it's also Weave, a communication layer that will enable IoT devices to talk to one another, the cloud, and of course, your phone. Pichai says Weave gives the growing world of connected, smart devices a common language. The actions each of these things is responsible for---smart ovens change temperatures, smart doors unlock and lock---won't be so singular. Weave wants to make it so these devices aren't linked only to your phone, but to one another as well. Weave exposes developer APIs in a cross-platform manner, so any connected device will speak the same language.
Google also wants to use Brillo to refine the IoT user interface. "Any Android device [connected to] a device based on Brillo or Weave, a user will see the same thing no matter what." You can jump into the Brillo platform via your mobile device, add owners for a device, and that's it---that control hub of sorts will look the same to everyone who has the control, no matter the device.
Brillo will be available to developers in the third quarter of the year, and Weave documentation will be announced throughout the year---the developer stack will be released in Q4.
"We want to connect devices in a seamless and intuitive way," says Pichai, "and make them work better for users." This is a tall order for the Internet of Things, which remains fragmented and frustrated---but if Google can pilot real improvement from the software and hardware side, we might finally have a system that makes sense.
