Android Brillo Internals

Dissecting Google Brillo and Weave Written by : Nanik Tolaram

Introduction

Before going through this documentation it is crucial to understand the difference between Brillo (https://developers.google.com/brillo/?hl=en) and Weave (https://developers.google.com/weave/?hl=en). Have a read first to understand it before continuing with this article as it can get confusing sometimes.

This document is by no means a tutorial rather this is just a research document. As of Jan 4, 2016 there isn't that much information from Google regarding Brillo. The findings that are documented are based on available source code (and decompiling of library) to understand how the whole stack works together.

Sample App

Google has released sample Weave application which can be downloaded from https://github.com/googlesamples/android-WeaveLedToggler. Weave is the stack that takes care of the way Brillo device communicates with other devices either via – WiFi (cloud), mDNS or Bluetooth. The sample application shows how to tun ON/OFF led on a Brillo device which currently is a development board (either from Marvell, Intel or other Brillo partners).

On looking inside the sample there is a jar file inside third_party library which contains classes used inside the sample to communicate with Brillo devices.