Project Brillo is Google's platform for the Internet of Things

Google wants to be everywhere in your home, not just hiding inside your thermostats and smoke alarms. That's why, as rumored, it's just announced Project Brillo, a super-slim operating system that's designed specifically for devices collectively known as the Internet of Things. If you're feeling a sense of deja vu, don't — the company has already dipped a toe or two into this market before, with 2011's quietly abandoned Android@Home project. As expected, Project Brillo is based on Android, but pared down enough to operate on a wide variety of day-to-day (and traditionally dumb) objects — doorbells, baby cameras, ovens and so on that speak to each other via Bluetooth and WiFi.

If you were hoping for juicy, consumer-friendly details about what Project Brillo means for you, then sadly we didn't get much — this is a developer conference after all. Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai spent most of the allotted stage time discussing Weave — the way these connected devices will communicate. Weave will allow your smart objects to define events such as unlocking or locking a door and letting other devices understand what that event should mean (Door locked? Turn off the oven, etc.). There was one blessing for us regular folks though: Brillo includes tools for understanding voice commands. "Make me some coffee" could be all you need to do to get a cup of joe, soon(ish). How soon? Well, the developer tools for Project Brillo won't be available until Q3 this year. Weave (for you developer types) will follow a month or two later.

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