Get Started with Kits

We provide a few options to get you started developing for Android Things.

Recommended kits

We recommend one of the following kits, which provide the SoM, carrier board, and peripherals to get started quickly:

NXP i.MX7D

The NXP i.MX7D is a cost-effective and security-certified development platform for Android Things. This means you can prototype and go to production on this platform.

Buy kit See tutorial

Raspberry Pi

The Raspberry Pi is a widely-available and cost-effective carrier board. However, when you're ready to go to production, you'll need to select a certified SoM, such as the NXP i.MX7D. The Raspberry Pi is only supported as a developer platform.

Buy kit See tutorial

Other kits

If you don't want to buy a complete kit with additional peripherals, you can buy standard developer kits that include only the SoM and carrier board. Android Things provides you with a wide selection of developer kits that come with a supported SoM (system-on-module) and a development board to get you started quickly. You can compare the available boards on the Supported Platforms page.

See the next few sections to learn how to flash and bring up a particular kit and install your first sample.

Flash Android Things

Once you select a kit, flash and bring up your hardware for your particular kit:

• NXP i.MX7D
• NXP i.MX6UL
• Raspberry Pi 3

Set Up Your Development Environment

1. Download or update to the latest version of Android Studio.
2. Open Android Studio and start a new project. In the new project wizard, keep the default settings except for the form factors:
   • Select Android Things as the form factor on which to run your application.
   • Select API 27: Android 8.1 (Oreo).

3. Connect your board and verify you can access the device via adb:

   $ adb devices
   List of devices attached
   4560736843791520041    device
   

4. Deploy the sample project to your board and verify that you can see the activity messages with logcat.

Next steps

Congratulations! You've just installed and ran your first sample on Android Things. Now that you know you have everything set up correctly, you can start learning more about development and doing cool things with your developer kit in Building Your First Device.

For assistance building more complex applications with Android Things, see more examples in the Samples section.