MicroEJ, leading provider of software containers for IoT and embedded devices, has announced the availability of Android Compatibility Kit, connecting global electronic things manufacturers to a fast-growing ecosystem of Android Studio and associated developers.
This new release consolidates MicroEJ’s positioning as the ‘tiny sibling of Android’ for small and constrained smart devices. By enabling the same software to run on either MicroEJ or Android execution environment, manufacturers can easily switch from a powerful processor to a smaller one (from ex.: Arm Cortex-A to Arm Cortex-M) to dramatically reduce energy consumption.
MicroEJ Android Compatibility Kit brings many benefits to the manufacturers of smart devices, such as the following:
- Android compatibility and Android Studio support
- MICROEJ VEE shares the same technology principles as Android. It now also supports the development of applications with Android Studio and integrates with the Gradle build system.
- Accelerated development using virtual devices
- MicroEJ enables development on virtual devices to parallelise hardware and software development and speed up specification validation. Android Studio can launch MicroEJ Virtual Devices just as Android Virtual Devices.
- Greater energy efficiency
- MicroEJ Android Compatibility Kit enables two processors to coexist and distribute same tasks between a very powerful processor powered by Android and a low-power processor powered by MicroEJ to dramatically reduce energy consumption.
- Leveraging hardware innovation by removing software-hardware inter-lock
- By using standard software containers, application code built with MicroEJ is portable on the best hardware, independently from RTOS/OS combinations. It accelerates hardware evaluations and fosters the development of derivative products thanks to software API reuse.
- Large developer ecosystem
- The large ecosystem of Java/Kotlin developers can now use popular tools such as IntelliJ IDEA, Android Studio and Gradle to build MicroEJ applications, leveraging low-power features embedded at the heart of MICROEJ VEE for highly optimised resources usage.
- Leveraging hardware IP’s for vector graphics
- MICROEJ VEE eases the usage of graphics processing units, enabling a similar look and feel as smartphone apps. MicroVG provides support for Android Vector Drawables and SVG (Scalable Vector Graphic) formats for impeccable UI/UX on any type of screen and leverages any vector GPU when necessary.
- The MicroEJ Android Compatibility Kit is especially valuable in battery-operated industries such as smartwatches and thermostats, allowing the development of cost-optimised and energy-efficient products. MicroEJ is a lightweight option that enables to expand product lines with the same user experience from low-end to premium devices.
As Joe Yu, Vice President and General Manager, IoT Edge Processing Line at NXP Semiconductors explains: “With this new offering from MicroEJ, developers can utilise processor capabilities while minimising software development costs.
“This is of great value to our customers, particularly for those who build multiple product families using the breadth of our advanced portfolio of secure and energy efficient embedded processors from MCUs, to crossover i.MX RT and i.MX applications processors. For example, our recent collaboration with MicroEJ to enable the i.MX RT500 crossover MCU has been highly successful in simplifying access to its unique architecture of low-power and graphics. It’s a win-win for our customers.”
Says Dr Fred Rivard, MicroEJ’s CEO: “We are proud to release Android Compatibility Kit to enable the vast community of Android developers to design Android compatible applications for microcontrollers and small, low-power microprocessors. With this new release, MicroEJ is reinforcing its leading position on the ‘smart things’ market for its global, easy-to-use and secure MICROEJ VEE application container, which provides a modern development process for any kind of software-enabled electronic project.”
Android Compatibility Kit is currently successfully used with lead customers for the production of mass-market electronic products. Visit Android Compatibility Kit webpage to stay tuned.