Supported and unsupported libraries

This section describes the state of unsupported Android features and intents on Android Things 1.0, as well as the state of available and unavailable Google APIs on Android Things.

Unsupported features

Given that Android Things is optimized for embedded devices that may not contain the same feature set as an Android phone or tablet, not all the APIs are present. In most cases, this comes from the restriction of not requiring a UI. This table lists the features from Android that are not supported by Android Things and the affected framework APIs:

Feature	API
System UI(status bar, navigation buttons, quick settings)	NotificationManagerKeyguardManagerWallpaperManager
VoiceInteractionService	SpeechRecognizer
android.hardware.fingerprint	FingerprintManager
android.hardware.nfc	NfcManager
android.hardware.telephony	SmsManagerTelephonyManager
android.hardware.usb.accessory	UsbAccessory
android.hardware.wifi.aware	WifiAwareManager
android.software.app_widgets	AppWidgetManager
android.software.autofill	AutofillManager
android.software.backup	BackupManager
android.software.companion_device_setup	CompanionDeviceManager
android.software.picture_in_picture	Activity Picture-in-picture
android.software.print	PrintManager
android.software.sip	SipManager

Note

You can use hasSystemFeature() to determine whether a given device feature is supported in runtime.

 

Common intents and content providers

Android Things lacks some system apps and system providers that are usually installed on Android. This is mostly related to the fact that they require a UI to work, or that they do not make much sense in the realm of IoT. Avoid using common intents as well as the following content provider APIs in your apps:

• CalendarContract
• ContactsContract
• DocumentsContract
• DownloadManager
• MediaStore
• Settings
• Telephony
• UserDictionary
• VoicemailContract

There are also the Google APIs for Android, most of which are supported on Android Things.

Available Google APIs 

Although not all Google APIs are supported on Android Things, there is a good amount that are, and they provide very interesting functionalities. The Google APIs that are currently supported on Android Things are as follows:

• Awareness
• Cast
• Google Analytics for Firebase
• Firebase Authentication (does not include the open source FirebaseUI Auth component)
• Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)
• Firebase Crash Reporting
• Firebase Realtime Database
• Firebase Remote Config
• Firebase Storage
• Fit
• Instance ID
• Location
• Maps
• Nearby Connections
• Nearby Messages (does not include modes that require the user content dialog)
• Places
• Mobile Vision
• SafetyNet 

Unavailable Google APIs

Again, most of the unsupported APIs rely heavily on the UI, so they are absent. Note that Firebase Notifications is not available, but Firebase Cloud Messaging is, which you can use to send and receive messages to trigger actions on your phone:

• AdMob
• Google Pay
• Drive
• Firebase App Indexing
• Firebase Dynamic Links
• Firebase Invites
• Firebase notifications
• Play fames
• Sign-in