Google Developing 'Brillo' OS For Internet of Things

An anonymous reader writes: A new report from The Information (paywalled) says Google is working on an operating system called "Brillo" that would be a platform for Internet-of-things devices. It's supposedly a lightweight version of Android, capable of running on devices with extremely limited hardware — as little as 32 MB of RAM, for example. The company is expected to launch the code for Brillo at its I/O event next week. This is particularly relevant now that Google has acquired Nest, Dropcam, and Revolv — a trio of "smart home" companies whose devices could potentially by unified by Brillo.

Comments

32MB?

[SuricouRaven]

32MB? Bah. I remember the days when you could fit a whole OS in a hundred K! And 640K was enough for anyone!

On a more serious note: The 'internet of things' hype is supposed to be about putting sensors in just about everything. 32MB is a lot of data for a sensor.

Re:32MB?

[Sebby]

32MB is a lot of data for a sensor.

Not if you're a spy agency.

Re:32MB?

[NotInHere]

No, the sensors are already there. The 'internet of things' hype is about giving control over machines and private information from sensors to large companies.

Re:32MB?

[phantomfive]

For comparison, here is a typical microcontroller with a few kilobytes of RAM. No wonder the Nest is so expensive.....it's vastly overpowered for what it does.

Re:32MB?

[phantomfive]

I've been putting sensors into everything since the 1980's and AFAIK, was one of, if not the first person to put a coffee machine on the internet (sorry MIT guys) and I have no idea what the internet of things is.

Just like the cloud, everything that becomes a buzzword is merely a repackaging of something that already existed, palatable for ignorant consumption (usually by investors).

Re:32MB?

[bug1]

Not if you're a spy agency.

Such an old fashioned term, they called advertising corporations now.

Re:32MB?

[Okian Warrior]

32MB? Bah. I remember the days when you could fit a whole OS in a hundred K! And 640K was enough for anyone!

Pfft, I remember running 40 users on terminals on a machine with 16K that probably had less than 1/10,000th of the cpu power a laptop has today.

Luxury!

I remember putting the boot card at the front of my deck, placing it in the card reader, and pressing the "load" button on a system with 4K of core memory(*).

Who'd have thought 40 years ago, we'd all be sitting here drinking chateau de chatillon.

(*) That part's actually true. I started on an IBM-1130, predecessor to the IBM-360.

Re:32MB?

[thegarbz]

Yeah it seems like only yesterday where whole OSes fitted on 10k.

Oh Wait...

Re:32MB?

[thegarbz]

IoT is nothing of the sort. A few questionable corporations are creating that product that way but just because it says IoT doesn't mean that you need to give anyone else data.

Re:32MB?

[NotInHere]

Yes it doesn't mean, but when it says "google", your data land at their servers. And from a security standpoint, they have control.

Re:32MB?

[TheGratefulNet]

likely its the magic 32k number, which happens to be the size of the atmega 328 (arduino classic) chip!

still, 32k is too large for many sensors. attiny chips are now in the 8k range and even that is asking a lot. 4k used to be more typical.

android? HAHAHAHAH! google, you are teh funny. the security nightmare and complexity of android for IoT sensors? wow, I needed a good laugh today.

Re:32MB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who'd have thought 40 years ago, we'd all be sitting here drinking chateau de chatillon.

(*) That part's actually true. I started on an IBM-1130, predecessor to the IBM-360.

(I was using a 360 in college, but I don't know how much memory that had).

Yeah, and now I can get 1000s of times the CPU power and memory in the palm of my hand.

Cheers! Pour me a bit more of that chateau de chatillon.

Really does amaze me though... putting all that power in a toaster or fridge seems ridiculous, it should just be an Arudino, BasicStamp, etc, some small processor with memory in the KBs... seems like total overkill to me to need 32MB to run a f**king toaster.

Re:32MB?

[TheGratefulNet]

these days, the IoT term has been hijacked to mean 'we mine your personal info along with smart sensors we convince you to buy and install inside your private LAN.'

that's really a bad idea, of course. I'm very into IoT things right now, myself, but NOT cloud-based shit! not for me! MY iot stuff is about device to device and device to small server, ALL staying local and nothing going across to a WAN. nrf24l01, xbee, even esp8266 - all neat wireless protocols. but all meant to stay local, too.

if your iot solution leaks info, you picked some cloud-based thing. DONT DO THAT!

iot != cloud

Re:32MB?

[unixisc]

32MB? Bah. I remember the days when you could fit a whole OS in a hundred K! And 640K was enough for anyone!

On a more serious note: The 'internet of things' hype is supposed to be about putting sensors in just about everything. 32MB is a lot of data for a sensor.

For today's process geometries, it isn't. One can easily have on-board flash that contains the OS, and then have the sensor's baseband work off that

Re:32MB?

[ustolemyname]

In bulk it is easy to purchase microcontroller with 32MB of ram for $7 (though the closest my lazy digikey search turned up was $11.50 for 24M).

The cost of the microcontroller has a negligible cost on the nest retail price, and darn near every other embedded system sold to consumers.

Re:32MB?

[ZeroWaiteState]

32 MB for the device, several GB's of RAM for the VM in the data center that is remotely steering the device via TLS. The marketing is a bit deceiving.

Re:32MB?

[93 Escort Wagon]

In bulk it is easy to purchase microcontroller with 32MB of ram for $7 ... The cost of the microcontroller has a negligible cost on the nest retail price, and darn near every other embedded system sold to consumers.

The Internet of Things isnt really about expensive geek toys like the Nest. The idea is that, a few years from now, all of our little devices will be on the Internet - including things like commodity fire detectors and cheap toasters. Seven bucks is a big deal when you're talking about something that sells for ten or twenty dollars.

Re: 32MB?

[93 Escort Wagon]

I shudder when I think about Google wanting to embed a Java runtime in my coffee pot and microwave...

Re:32MB?

[ArchieBunker]

IoT is going to fizzle out just like X10 did. Nobody asked for this technology.

Re:32MB?

[chipschap]

I can beat that :) I started on an IBM 1620 (in 1966) with 2k of core memory --- old fashioned doughnut core. 2k was the "big" machine, by the way.

Re:32MB?

[DamonHD]

I'm more used to working with 1*k* of RAM and 32*k* of code for a sensor node.

32MB? Goodness. I used to run a Sun workstation as a firewall on 4MB!

Rgds

Damon

Re: 32MB?

[BorgDrone]

Windows 95 ran in 4MB, although 8MB was recommended.

Re:32MB?

[GNious]

Started writing my own IoT library, to access various IoT-things in a generic, abstracted manner - one thing I haven't even bothered with, is cloud-based stuff.
LAN works just fine, as does VPN'ing into your home to read stuff.

Re:32MB?

[Hognoxious]

[Home|Industrial] automation is nothing of the sort. IoT is that with marketing BS and ads plastered on.

Re:32MB?

[thegarbz]

That's the typically over generalized anti-Google crap we've come to expect.

Just like Chromium and Android varieties don't communicate with Google there's no reason to expect that every device like this will either.

Yes it's likely that many such devices will, but I'll reserve freaking out for facts and data rather than anti-corporate speculation.

Re: 32MB?

[AchilleTalon]

For few bucks you get a chip that offload the TCPIP layer and the whole TLS/SSL protocols and encryption from the processor. That is how the IoT should be done. IoT is about cheap, skinny thin platform. Not about bloated OS using 32 MB of memory just to run, 32 MB of RAM is a lot of RAM just for housekeeping and provide unneeded services. Another Google project that will be withdrawn in about a year.

Re: 32MB?

[mrchaotica]

The trouble is that just about every fucking "IoT" device is designed to communicate over the Internet to the manufacturer's servers, even when it would make more sense for it to just communicate with a base station/server over the LAN and have the data never leave your house. Allegedly it's for ease of use, but that's bullshit -- it's for data-mining.

Re:32MB?

[mrchaotica]

iot != cloud

No. "IoT" most definately == cloud. Everything that actually respects your privacy came out before "IoT" was a thing.

"IoT" is a euphemism for "home automation, except trojaned so we can steal your data."

Re:32MB?

[hairyfeet]

If you don't learn from your history? Then you sir are a dumbass, because datamining is what Google does and if its one thing they love its gathering more and more intel on you.

I mean have you really already forgotten the stink over google trying to ram G+ and real names down on YouTube? From Google Drive to even spying on kids emails the simple fact is Google is all about connecting the dots, its what they do, where their income is coming from, and the more they can gather on you the more money it can make from its REAL customers, the advertisers.

Re: 32MB?

[itzly]

For few bucks you get a chip that offload the TCPIP layer and the whole TLS/SSL protocols and encryption from the processor. That is how the IoT should be done.

Makes no sense. The chip that does the TCP/IP can also do all the other work.

Re: 32MB?

[SuricouRaven]

Can make sense if the TCP/IP chip is produced in such vast quantities that it benefits from economy of scale: It might work out cheaper to use a really tiny chip plus a TCP/IP support chip than it does to use a more powerful microcontroller that has enough capacity for the TCP/IP.

Re: 32MB?

[SuricouRaven]

"Thank you, google!"
  - The black-hat community.

Re:32MB?

[SuricouRaven]

I was designing myself a UPS controller for a lead-acid battery bank. Thanks to you, it just got an internal datalogger so you can dump voltage/current information and draw pretty graphs of power usage.

Re: 32MB?

[itzly]

Any ARM can do TCP/IP, and is cheap and tiny. Having two chips talk to each other only makes things more complicated, and in the end, more expensive.

Re:32MB?

[mdm42]

I was doing the same thing, but on a Univac 1108. As I recall it also had a 4K drum (not disc) for cache.

Re:32MB?

[ustolemyname]

Well, the person who I replied to originally called out the Nest as expensive because of its included micro, under the claim that it had 32MB of ram (IIRC it actually has 64MB).
But I'll take on you're argument that this scale of device won't work on the low end, with the counter-claim that IoT can't work on smaller than this scale (mostly due to a lack of qualified developers).
A few years from now I'd expect to find a micro-controller with 32MB of ram for under $3. In theory a commoditized embedded platform would provide:

• Much better tooling, particularly for testing.
• Lower expertise requirements, allowing a company to employ application developers instead of firmware engineers.
• Decent, standard available libraries - You won't fit a good SSL library on 32KB of flash.
• Upgrade infrastructure, employable without bricking the device. Imagine if heartbleed were to happen on the IoT world, it would be epic levels of bad news to not have remote upgrade capability. All the companies I work with who do anything like this in industrial applications have remote upgrade capability, leading to much duplicated work that too frequently has errors.
• A large enough common market to push the prices of beefier microcontrollers even further down.

It seems likely a platform like this, even with mildly higher per-unit functionality would save costs and reduce time to market. I base this claim on the requirements for remote upgrades and secure communications channels — without which the whole IoT idea will never get anywhere — and the fact that there is not a glut of capable talent to build such infrastructure on bare-metal systems.

Of course, IoT could just be a fad buzzword that never amounts to shit for consumer products.

Re:32MB?

[lister king of smeg]

Could you tell us which percentage of Chrome-based browsers and Android phones do not communicate with Google?

From your misleading post it sounds like the number should be 90. If that was so, nobody would care, but the reality is the other way around.

well my amazon tablet runs android and doesn't use google services for anything but search and i was given the option to pick theirs amoung a list of several competing services. Same with chromium I choose to use google search because the competitors are shitty and/or and even more evil.

Re:32MB?

[DocHoncho]

They need all that CPU power to run their ad platform. What, you didn't think you'd get an internet connected toaster without advertisements did you?

"This toast has been brought to you by Preparation-H, soothing your asshole since 1926. If you've got a pain in your ass, try Preparation-H!"

Re:32MB?

[DocHoncho]

The biggest problem with the "Internet of Things" is that it doesn't have any real use cases other than collecting more data to feed the voracious apatite of advertisement companies. Add to that the ever decreasing cost of display technology and you've got a wide open space of possible ad sales. Get your foot in the door on this IoT thing and you can sell advertisers on how many ad impressions they'll get on refrigerators, coffee makers, toasters, and any other common kitchen appliance they feel like slapping a SoC and LCD display on.

I'm sure there are legitimate use cases for these network connected household devices, but don't fool yourself: Silicon Valley is full of fly-by-night scumbags who would jump at the opportunity to sell ad space and intrude on consumers personal space in every way possible.

Re: 32MB?

[snowsnoot]

Yea but to their credit they have developed some kickass stuff and if they are using your data to generate ads who gives a shit

Re: 32MB?

[exomondo]

It is for ease of use, people don't want to set up a base station or server, it's just another thing then need to have. However there are people - like me and probably you - that don't mind setting up a server to connect these things, that want to set up a raspberry pi to control the lights and heating/cooling and we can do that.

Then there's the other side of it, if you're using a thermostat connected to Google then the data about when you use and don't use energy could be used to recommend an energy company that gives you the best rate for those times. How is that a bad thing?

Re:32MB?

[Agripa]

To be fair, it takes a lot less than 32 MBytes to support ethernet and an IP stack. Some MicroChip PIC microcontrollers can do it in about 32 kBytes.

I think the sweet spot would be an ARM microcontroller with 256 kBytes or less.

Re:32MB?

[Agripa]

The R7S721021VCFP is ARM which is good but it has 24 Mbits of RAM arranged as 3Mx8 or 3 MBytes.

Re: 32MB?

[mrchaotica]

It is for ease of use, people don't want to set up a base station or server, it's just another thing then need to have.

Exactly: "it's just another thing [they] need to have." It's an entire extra product that these companies could be selling them (and profiting from!), but aren't. The question you should be asking yourself is "why are they foregoing that profit?"

The answer, of course, is "they aren't." The violation of privacy is more valuable!

Then there's the other side of it, if you're using a thermostat connected to Google then the data about when you use and don't use energy could be used to recommend an energy company that gives you the best rate for those times. How is that a bad thing?

1. First of all, my electric company is a monopoly, so that alleged benefit is irrelevant.
2. Second, have you ever heard of the term "confusopoly"? I don't really want to have to choose between 10 different electric companies with 10-different time-of-day-varying rate plans (none of which will actually match my usage pattern, of course). I already have to choose between natural gas providers, and it's a pain in the ass!
3. Third, I don't want Google to know about my hypothetical grow-op, Bitcoin mine, particle accelerator, or whatever the fuck I'm using the electricity for, not only because it's none of their damn business as a general principle, but also because I don't want them to report me to the DEA, SEC, or Department of Energy (respectively) and I don't want them showing embarrassing ads (for drug paraphernalia or plutonium) in my browser search results at work!
4. Fourth, but not least, I don't want Google to know about my lack of electricity use, either. The last thing I need is some Googler using his "20% time" to develop "Google Burglary," a tool for criminals to find out when I'm not using electricity and thus probably on out of town.

Re: 32MB?

[exomondo]

It is for ease of use, people don't want to set up a base station or server, it's just another thing then need to have.

Exactly: "it's just another thing [they] need to have." It's an entire extra product that these companies could be selling them (and profiting from!), but aren't. The question you should be asking yourself is "why are they foregoing that profit?"

Because people know they don't need to pay for it, they could sell you all kinds of different dependent devices if they wanted to but it's a bit ridiculous to do that and the barrier to entry is that much higher so you have less customers. High volume rather than high margin.

The answer, of course, is "they aren't." The violation of privacy is more valuable!

Could you detail that more accurately, how exactly is this "violation of privacy" - does anybody really give a shit about who knows when they use electricity? especially when your utility company already has this information - is so beneficial? Also why it's not simply high volume rather than high margin?

First of all, my electric company is a monopoly, so that alleged benefit is irrelevant.

Yes it was an example, it wasn't meant to be tailored directly to you.

Second, have you ever heard of the term "confusopoly"? I don't really want to have to choose between 10 different electric companies with 10-different time-of-day-varying rate plans (none of which will actually match my usage pattern, of course).

And precisely the point is that you can save significantly if you want to expend the effort, or you can use a service to do it for you.

I already have to choose between natural gas providers, and it's a pain in the ass!

So something like this resolves that issue.

Third, I don't want Google to know about my hypothetical grow-op, Bitcoin mine, particle accelerator, or whatever the fuck I'm using the electricity for, not only because it's none of their damn business as a general principle, but also because I don't want them to report me to the DEA, SEC, or Department of Energy (respectively)

Oh of course, because your energy company totally doesn't have that information already.

I don't want them showing embarrassing ads (for drug paraphernalia or plutonium) in my browser search results at work!

Plutonium? Really? Why the hell would they be doing that? That's just reductio ad absurdum. But even if I take that seriously the answer is just don't log in to your personal google account or use an ad blocker. Really really really simple stuff here.

Fourth, but not least, I don't want Google to know about my lack of electricity use, either.

Again, this information is not private, your utility company has this information too and you're kidding yourself if you actually believe they aren't using third parties to aggregate that data.

The last thing I need is some Googler using his "20% time" to develop "Google Burglary," a tool for criminals to find out when I'm not using electricity and thus probably on out of town.

If you're hanging the security of your house on the perceived obscurity of your energy usage data then you're very stupid indeed.

Soooo

[binarylarry]

It's Android.

Yay!

I mean Brillo, sorry Google.

The ultimate...

[Sebby]

... spy OS.

Re:The ultimate...

[MightyDrunken]

The Internet-of-Things, the ultimate spy infrastructure.

Re: The ultimate...

[DocHoncho]

The device IS the spyware. That's the whole point of the IoT fad. Reading your GMail isn't enough, they want to know every last possible detail about your day to day existence. All to provide "useful services" of course, nothing to do with leveraging their ad platform, that would be nonsense.

32MB

[Dwedit]

32MB is not "extremely limited hardware". I've programmed on devices with 32KB of RAM before.

Re:32MB

[serviscope_minor]

32MB is not "extremely limited hardware". I've programmed on devices with 32KB of RAM before.

That's nothing! I've programmed on a device with 64 bytes before! Specifically a PIC12F675. I think some of the attiny and PIC10F have even fewer bytes (32?).

But yes, typical things like radio microcontrollers (like the TI and Nordic ones) have RAM measured in the tens of k, and those are the backbone of small, low power wireless devices.

Re:32MB

[ArcadeMan]

32KB of RAM? That's luxury. Try 8KB.

Next up: someone who's programmed devices with less than 8KB of RAM.

Re:32MB

[Anon-Admin]

32k, Im working on an Arduino (328p) with 2k of SRAM and 32k of flash storage.

So far, I have a webserver running on it that controls a light switch up to 10A.

Re:32MB

[Ignacio]

8kB? Many RAM such luxury.

It's amazing what you can squeeze into 512B of RAM.

Re:32MB

[russotto]

Next up: someone who's programmed devices with less than 8KB of RAM.

Yep. 128 bytes. With 4K of flash, granted. And we did have to upgrade to the 16K version eventually (still 128 bytes of RAM, we got 256 in yet another revision though)

Re:32MB

[ArcadeMan]

Web server on a 328p? I'm betting it can't do any server-side scripting at all...?

Re:32MB

[thegarbz]

Not quite the same. When you consider who to connect one of these microcontrollers an an IoT device you need all sorts of additional parts. We're basically offloading the software from the OS to specific hardware / firmware combinations that handle it for us. There's a lot more than 64bytes of code running on your project.

Re:32MB

[larwe]

There are plenty of single-chip solutions that incorporate a micro, radio, and sufficient flash+RAM to implement an entire wireless sensor. Look at the ESP8266 for example, which is becoming very popular in makerspaces. https://www.sparkfun.com/produ... - you can easily source a complete module for under $5 at retail. Note that the external chip is the application code, which gets loaded into on-chip SRAM at boot time. It's unclear how much RAM is in it; definitely not megabytes, though. The chip has a 64K factory-programmed ROM with basic UART-to-WiFi functionality, but it can also boot a user application off external SPI flash. This new thing from Google appears to be trying to take the scaled-down code in the Chromecast and scale it down further (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Chromecast+Teardown/16069 - Chromecast has quite a bit of memory in it).

Re:32MB

[FranTaylor]

Web server on a 328p? I'm betting it can't do any server-side scripting at all...?

Sure you can. An Arduino WizNet adapter has the whole TCP/IP stack on it, so all you need on the 328p is the TCP client code. 32K is more space than you might think when it's all your code.

Re:32MB

[Anon-Admin]

Im doing it on the enc28j60. It does not contain the tcp stack on the unit, you have to handle it in the CPU.

The current code uses 27,626 bytes (89%) of program storage space and 1,543 bytes (75%) of dynamic memory.

Handles web interfacing for the switch, network config, rebooting the unit, and offers a json API call for pulling current state.

That is a wired connection version. I am also working on one that uses the ESP8266 wifi unit which does have the TCP stack on it. That one is much smaller code.

Re:32MB

[Cederic]

First PC I used was a zx81 with 1KB of RAM. Saw my first code on that.

Re:32MB

[serviscope_minor]

OK so slashdot has now eaten two attempts to reply to you!

GAH!!!!! I'm really annoyed now, but not with you.

The 12F675 has more than 64 bytes of code: it has has 1KiWord of 14 bit memory for the program. It's very much a Harvard architecture, so there's a lot more than 64 bytes of code.

Pretty much all uCs run code straight out of NOR flash.

I'm using a TI CC2541, which has the usual slew of integrated peripherals, a 2.4GHz radio, 8k RAM, 128k ROM (optionally 256K, and room for external flash) and is a 32MHz single cycle 8051 core. It's quite capable and able to run an entire bluetooth stack on board. You could easily fit a TCP/IP stack in there if you wanted genuine internet access, too.

It's more than capable of operating a dimmable lamp for example (smart lamps are a classic IoT example). My device has a dimmable status LED as a minor feature, and the uC also operates some other hardware and does some DSP on board. 8k/128k is more than capable of an awful lot of control and logging functionality.

The BLE113 (a module using this chip) dev board operates a whole slew of hardware including buttons, a two line alphanumeric display, accelerometers, an altimeter and some other bits and bobs, and operates this while doing two way comms with another bluetooth device (either as the client or server).

By comparison the 32MB memory device is huge. I can't think of many IoT uses for such a device which don't involve driving a reasonably high definition screen with full colour graphics. Quake II ran happily on a P133 with 16MB of RAM, so I imagine the device for this OS is very much more than capable of such graphics.

Re:32MB

[DocHoncho]

But your zx81 wasn't a "modern self-hosting ad platform" which "delivers relevant ads to consumers based on their consumption patterns, derived from the shit loads of data we gobbled up from our other shitty platforms"

The Internet of Things is nothing more than an obvious ploy to stick more ads onto more eyeballs. If Google has taught us anything, it's that they will stop at nothing to embiggen their capacity to deliver advertisements while shutting down services that fail to deliver the appropriate number of users. Consumer benefit is an afterthought, eyeballs are paramount.

Let's not forget that so far the existing IoT-type devices have considered security an afterthought, and we can easily imagine a future where your son pisses off some shithead on Call of Duty 54 who then hacks your oven to catch on fire. I look forward to the glorious future where we have to worry each and every day whether some far away hacker is going to make our lives miserable because our appliance vendor considered security a useless afterthought.

I can't fucking wait.

Re:32MB

[Cederic]

It's a shame you replied to my post several branches down a conversation, as that security point is extremely pertinent.

Between the data slurping, the ad provision and the security concerns I'm reluctant to tread too heavily down the IoT route.

Then again, I have a smart tv with built-in camera and voice commands. You could argue I've already lost.

32MB vs 10KB

[Sebby]

This or that

Re:32MB vs 10KB

[ArcadeMan]

U.S.A.: 32MB
China: 10KB

Guess who's more efficient and guess who's trying to cram spyware into everything.

Re:32MB vs 10KB

[93 Escort Wagon]

U.S.A.: 32MB
China: 10KB

Guess who's more efficient and guess who's trying to cram spyware into everything.

The Chinese stuff might just have a one-line routing table pointing everything to one of their government servers - that wouldn't require many bytes.

Re:32MB vs 10KB

[DocHoncho]

China doesn't need to control things on the device level, they control the entirety of the Chinese internet. So I guess you could say that China is more efficient at controlling free speech, while the US struggles to keep pace. I'm sure the NSA would love to have the absolute power that the Chinese government has over the Chinese internet, it would make catching "terrorists" so much easier, especially if they didn't have to deal with Congress trying to take away their toys every now and again.

Sigh

[ledow]

"as little as 32 MB of RAM, for example"

I'm getting old.

My first full PC had 2MB of RAM.

My first computer had only 48Kb of RAM.

Hell, I have an "computer" next me to capable of connecting to the Internet (even to act as HTTP server, DHCP client, NTP client, etc.), controlling relays, performing some computations, etc. It has 32Kb of Flash, 2Kb of SRAM and 1Kb of EEPROM. It's called an Arduino UNO.

By comparison, then, 32Mb is over 1000 times more than needed for IoT crap.

Re:Sigh

[drinkypoo]

Not only various other variations of this (my first PC in particular only had 448kB of RAM, and only 64kB of that was on the mainboard) but my first computer that ran Linux was a 386DX25 with 8MB of RAM and a 120MB disk. And while I threw it away recently, I used to have an iOpener with some kind of rinkydink Linux with an ancient browser on it in just 32MB of disk. ISTR it having 16MB RAM. If anyone would like the wizztronics adapter, I have one here along with a low-profile cooler that fits inside the iOpener's case and is probably worth more than either the machine or the adapter board.

Re:Sigh

[Ailicec]

For the heck of it, I'm posting this from a 386 with 32 megs of RAM. Pretty sure it could run on half that without serious mods to Debian 2.2 Potato - and probably far less, with the loss of usefulness as a general purpose Linux box at some point.

Re:Sigh

[FranTaylor]

for the heck of it, remove the disk drive to even the playing field with an IoT device and then tell us how well it runs

I'll get that right away

[PopeRatzo]

Google is definitely the company I want making the OS that will be in every fucking electronic device in my house, because they're so serious about my privacy.

Re:I'll get that right away

[thegarbz]

You jest but I'll bite. Google most definitely care about your privacy. In the number of companies willing to share your information with 3rd parties Google is right at the bottom of the list for one simple reason, control. There are a lot of companies out there that share the data they collect. Google keeps the data and provides an API to let someone target your anonymised data set.

Google is the number 1 offender for collecting my private data.
Google is also the number 1 company I trust not to simply sell it or share it.

Re:I'll get that right away

[Show me I'm wrong]

Idiot. That Google most definitely cares about any person's privacy does NOT follow from their practice of not selling or sharing your personal habits. I'm glad you are in no position to legislate, you moron.

Re:I'll get that right away

[ZeroWaiteState]

New Google app download process: Generic Email Checking App needs access to the following services: Internet Contacts List Gmail Device Storage Built-in Camera GPS Location Browsing History Facebook Contacts Refrigerator Defrost Cycle Residence Lighting State Thermostat Program Schedule Sprinkler Activation Schedule Home Security System Gateway Roku API Near Field Communication Services Toilet Flush Counter Smart Water Heater API Netflix Streaming Queue

Re:I'll get that right away

[thegarbz]

Idiot. That Google most definitely cares about any person's privacy does NOT follow from their practice of not selling or sharing your personal habits. I'm glad you are in no position to legislate, you moron.

I thought your country had a no child left behind policy. Guess I was wrong.

Re:I'll get that right away

[DocHoncho]

Doesn't matter if they sell personal data or not, they're still going to use it to try and best position their ad delivery services. The only benefit you can get from Google is relevant ad placement. Oh boy, what a gift to humanity that is!

SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[lesincompetent]

My italian friend says 'brillo' means 'tipsy' in italian and told me about the time when microsoft created a touch calculator app (where you could use your finger to write expressions).
They called that app 'inkulator' which in italian sounds very, very, VERY and i mean, seriously WRONG!

As little as 32MB?

[rnturn]

I can recall when an entire Linux -- not "pared down" -- ran in "as little as" 16MB. (No X Windows; server only.) It was the Anaconda installer that forced me to upgrade systems to 32MB. (At least temporarily; after getting Linux installed I could pull out that extra memory.) Of course, this was a "few" years ago. Nowadays, I have more memory than that in my old Laserjet. What's limiting these devices to have only 32MB? Power?

Re:As little as 32MB?

[FranTaylor]

do you recall running linux on a system with no disk drive?

Re:As little as 32MB?

[Bing Tsher E]

Lots of us do. Why are you spamming the whole discussion repeatedly with this single point?

Correctly named?

[chrism238]

Shouldn't we call this Brillio Beta, so that we can all invest heavily in it for 2 years before Google changes their mind and withdraws it?

Re:Correctly named?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it gets scrubbed.

Jerry Sandusky is pleased

[Ol Olsoc]

This should be just about enough for that Pedo-Teddy they patented. Jerry's asked for a computer, and plans on becoming a l33t h4x0r.

32*M*B?

[Mirar]

I regularly work with devices having 32*K*B or RAM. That talks TCP/IP. (And much smaller than that, but they do very limited amount of networking, like CAN.)

And I remember running Linux on devices with a lot less than 32MB...

What's the challenge with 32MB? And how is that extreme in any way?

Re:32*M*B?

[thegarbz]

but they do very limited amount of networking .... snip .... What's the challenge with 32MB

You answered your own question in the example. You want networking you either need to implement a network stack or offload that stack to another component in which case you're just cheating by moving code around and ultimately still using the same amount of resources.

Though I admit that 32MB sounds high for what we're talking about, I'll happily callout anyone who compares it to programming a simple PIC micro and thinking they are badass.

Re:32*M*B?

[fwc]

See the PIC18F67J60. I currently sell a product I developed which includes a complete software TCP/IP stack, HTTP server, SNMP server, ICMP client and server, NTP, and and so on which fits in this device which has 128K of flash and 3.808K of ram. 32MB is enormous.

My total code + static web page storage (in a small external flash) is around 196KB. That isn't anywhere near 32MB.

I'm in the process of moving to a PIC32 platform to be able to support HTTPS and IPv6, along with a lot of other functionality that needs to be in the next version of this product. This is still going to have a code size of well under 1MB (and probably more in the 3-400K range). So I'm not sure where people get off with saying that 32MB is "extremely resource constrained".

Re:32*M*B?

[ZeroWaiteState]

It's all marketing people nonsense. The challenge is Google wants to build an "ecosystem" on it, which is business-technical-eese for bloat city. It doesn't take a lot of RAM to implement a network stack; folks like you were doing it before it was considered cool. It *does* take a lot of RAM to implement a loss-leading "platform" for gathering usage stats, pushing targeted advertising, and generating partner monetization opportunities. Putting Google's idea of IoT in 32 MB is like putting a 300 lb fat guy into a Mini Cooper. The only way you do it is by making the device "thin" (i.e., it doesn't know how to do anything on its own but phone a central data center for instructions), and let the data center have complete control over the device (like Siri, only for everything).

Re:32*M*B?

[itzly]

3.8K of RAM results in piss-poor networking performance, since it can only hold two full sized network packets.

Re:32*M*B?

[Mirar]

How much is the current zigbee and zwave devices using?

TCP is a bother in itself - UDP and UDP-based protocols are much easier, since they don't require a buffer for the transport stream, you can just reuse the packet space to answer on so you only need one MTU of space (1.5k). TCP needs the buffer for resending, and to buffer data before sending. Much hungrier... but still, where 32kB is well enough. :)

If anything, I would like devices that comes with a nice amount of non-volatile RAM for logging and backup purposes. (Where nice amount would be something like 128k. I'm fine with that. I currently have an EEPROM with about 64 bytes for logging. I have to be a little bit too creative then...)

Are they serious?

[rev0lt]

32MB of RAM? Many semi-modern UNIX systems can run with that amount of RAM without any modification... Many IoT applications require an OS that can work with 32KB, not 32MB.

Re:Are they serious?

[Cederic]

All of them. Why are you asking such a silly question?

uCLinux

[Anonymous Coward]

uCLinux will run happily in a megabyte of ram without too much trimming. It runs on the Gameboy Advance with far less ram than that (although plenty of rom).

Why would this need 32Mb? That's insane.

Pauli

Re:uCLinux

[FranTaylor]

Why would this need 32Mb?

Gosh, who would ever want any more than an 80386 processor? After all it has every feature necessary to run modern 32 bit software.

typo?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

I hope that's 32 kbytes of RAM, not 32 MB of RAM, because most IoT devices don't need and don't have that much memory.

Re:typo?

[thegarbz]

What you need depends on the application, what you have depends on you meeting your design criteria.

32MB memory chips cost $5 in quantities of 1. If you have an IoT application that needs a full Android OS on it for some reason then the memory won't break the bank.

Re:typo?

[larwe]

Yeah, but that's hardly the whole story. That $5 RAM chip is LPDDR, so you need a micro with both an LPDDR controller, and enough address space to make use of that 32MB without contorted bank-switching bullshit. It's a very significant jump in both component and design cost when you from single-chip SoCs to ASSPs that require external ROM and RAM. Package size, pin count, EMI considerations.

Re:typo?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

It's not about cost, it's about power and size.

Re:typo?

[thegarbz]

Yep, interestingly the Raspberry PI fits a Dual core 32bit ARM and 512MB of RAM on the same surface area as an 8bit AVR or PIC. Power wise it all depends on the devices ability to enter low power states.

Neither of the features you mention are trade-offs that we need to have. Not at the scale we're talking about, and not with today's technology.

Re:typo?

[FranTaylor]

Power wise it all depends on the devices ability to enter low power states.

Yeah AVR chips consume 0.001 mA in sleep mode (https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/309)

and Raspberry pi consumes 320 mA when linux is idle (https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/341/whats-the-current-draw-and-supply-voltage-tolerance)

so AVR consumes 320000 times as much power as Raspberry Pi

Re:typo?

[FranTaylor]

oops backwards, should say "times less power"

Re:typo?

[FranTaylor]

so you need a micro with both an LPDDR controller

STM32F429 is about $5 in large quantity

Re:typo?

[thegarbz]

Thankyou for cherrypicking a result without any understanding.

I invite you to power-down an AVR some time and see exactly what they are capable of when drawing your mythical 1uA. Here's a hint, you can't get that power usage using a normal system clock, in fact you can't get that usage with the clock running at all, or anything else, in fact there's very few things that can wake and AVR when it's using that little power, not even the watchdog. An Internet of useless Paperweights is what you're going to have.

While you cherry pick your chips without actually figuring out if they'll do something practical I'll wait for someone to write a statement of requirements for their device first. That may show things like the only 3 IoT devices in my house being hard wired and thus no one could care less if they use 1uA or 320000 times more power.

But feel free to keep generalising.

Re:typo?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Arduinos can get by with as little as 5 uA in standby:

https://github.com/petervojtek...

Part of long battery life is also to have an OS that allows the system to sleep most of the time.

A Spec mote takes a few cubic millimeters of space. Those are the kinds of specs we're heading for, and a 1000x difference in memory and the nature of the OS matter a great deal. Android doesn't cut it.

That may show things like the only 3 IoT devices in my house being hard wired and thus no one could care less if they use 1uA or 320000 times more power.

You're confusing cause and effect: the reason they are all hardwired is that getting things to be low-powered is tricky.

I have dozens of IoT devices around my house, and they are almost all battery powered. They also last at least a year each. Even cameras are moving to battery power now, making installation much easier. Ideally, eventually, they will be lower power enough so that they can run on light or beamed power.

Re:typo?

[itzly]

enough address space to make use of that 32MB without contorted bank-switching bullshit

In other words: any kind of ARM CPU, which is fine because they are cheap and easy to use.

Re:typo?

[itzly]

Arduinos can get by with as little as 5 uA in standby:

And how much for the wifi ?

Re:typo?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

None.

IoT devices use Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or a number of other, far better suited networking standards. All of those can be switched on and off as needed too.

Re:typo?

[thegarbz]

IoT devices use Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or a number of other, far better suited networking standards. All of those can be switched on and off as needed too.

There you go with the generalising and cherry picking again. You can't help yourself can you?

Also my devices are hard-wired for reasons that have nothing to do with their smarts. They are hard wired because it is cheaper to make them hardwired in a service where power is available.

Re:typo?

[larwe]

Kinda missing the point. There is a step change in the system cost when you move from an all-in-one micro to external memories. So your micro is $5, and your DRAM is $3, and your external flash is $3, and some external bus logic is $1 and your PCB now needs to be six-layer or more to handle fanout of the uBGA packages, and you now have extremely high-speed signals on your PCB (previously confined within the micro), and... and... and... - it all goes hand in hand. You can't just say "micro X is cheap" because by itself, a micro without memories is useless. And, to continue down this line of thought, here's what our Atmel rep explained when I asked him "why can't you make a micro with 8MB of internal flash?": The silicon of a micro is complex (ESPECIALLY these mixed-signal chips we're talking about with radios and ADCs and so forth); they have many layers and process steps and consequently low process yield in terms of defects per square millimeter of die. So, the larger each chip on a wafer, the smaller the percentage of those dice that will be defect-free and saleable. If you just add a massive NOR flash array baked into the side of the artwork, you wind up with a die that's a) low yield because it's made on a process way too exotic for the simple flash array, b) consequently way too expensive. There is a complex break-even point calculated between the price the market will pay for a part with X amount of internal memory vs. die size, yield, the cost of packaging devices that have many pins, the possibility of stacking dice, and doubtless many other factors he didn't tell me about. So that's (part of) why manufacturers only make all-in-one chips up to some flash/RAM size. In other words: don't expect to see a chip with 32MB flash and 512MB RAM internally any time soon. I'm sure you could put together a *system* that can run Brillo somewhere in the sub $10 BOM cost, but this is an order of magnitude more expensive than one would put in, say, a door sensor contact. So Brillo seems intended for the expensive side of the smart/connected device landscape, or for hub type devices, not cheap ubiquitous sensors.

Re:typo?

[larwe]

See my reply to FranTaylor. It's not the core that adds the cost.

Re:typo?

[larwe]

> There are a few IoT devices that are WiFi based. You cherry-picked those. They are a temporary solution for legacy environments. Actually no, WiFi solves specific networking needs such as "connect to the Internet without a special hub device being required". Until BTLE repeater support or Z-Wave/Zigbee is built into every domestic WiFi router [as given away by FriendlyCableCo, Inc], and probably not even then, WiFi will be a major force in home networking and it is assuredly the lowest common denominator technology today. There have been a great many advances in tricky WiFi implementations for battery powered sensors, by the way. Cablecos won't pick a technology (unless they are selling a specific set of widgets that go with that technology) because there is no clear winner. There's probably _never_ going to be standardization on one radio technology for home automation, because of the strong desire for proprietary locked-in systems - having worked at a company that made, and makes, home automation equipment, and being in the meetings where technology is chosen, I can tell you any system that currently exists is a decade away from achieving critical mass for bulk consumer acceptance. This has always been the case for home automation, and always will be. The same comment goes for operating systems (at least two were released in just the last week),

Re:typo?

[larwe]

Same surface area? What sort of ruler are you using there; is it graduated in numbers or in unicorns? The RPi is a board-scale solution that's massive compared to an 8-bit PIC or AVR. You're aware that there are PICs in SOT223 packages, right? And even the very largest PIC is smaller than the combination of ROM and RAM and required support circuitry in the RPi.

Will there be an SOS OS as well?

[jpellino]

So we can keep separate internet-things kosher?

Re:Will there be an SOS OS as well?

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

No, they will never be kosher. Well, there isn't any actual limitation on silicon in Leviticus, but I doubt any Rabbis will say that the consumption of internet devices will ever be kosher.

Re:Will there be an SOS OS as well?

[jpellino]

Ah but would it be permissible to scan both the embedded sensors for spoiled milk and spoiled meat on the same device? The story I always heard was that there was an unspoken agreement that Brillo and SOS were different colors so that you could have one to clean cooking utensils for meat and one for cleaning milk product utensils. Only glitch is that SOS pads didn't go from red to blue until 1960 or so, and the relatives who told me that were keeping kosher long before 1960.

... and then there's The Information

[NothingWasAvailable]

I like to pay for content, and I was curious. Nowhere on their site does it list a cost without signing up first.

Hmmm ... If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Turns out it's $399/year.

Too Big

[pubwvj]

32MB? Bill Gates said nobody would ever need more than 640KB. That's not the size of the OS but the total system memory. Let's work within reasonable memory limits...

Re:Counter attack

[ChunderDownunder]

I'd rather JanOS gain traction.

The video from the JSConf is fun. A "software guy" smashes open his €60 phone to extract the main board, fully scriptable from JavaScript accessible via the Firefox development tools.

This could see a hobbyist after-market for phones with cracked screens... Built in wifi, bluetooth, GPS, 4G, camera etc.

Re:Android = Java =/= lightweight, Tizen is better

[ChunderDownunder]

The Z1 comes with 768MB of RAM which is 24 times the requirement here - you accuse Google of bloat?

LOLWOT?

[BringMyShuttle]

> It's supposedly a lightweight version of Android, capable of running on devices with extremely limited hardware — as little as 32 MB of RAM, for example.
LMAO, Google. Try harder. Huawei have got an entire OS down to 10Kb: http://rgscomputing.com/2015/0...

Re:LOLWOT?

[greenfruitsalad]

this is what i came here to say. how dare you steal my 30 seconds of glory!!!

Trademark dispute waiting to happen

[ZeroWaiteState]

Remember, I called it.

Re:Trademark dispute waiting to happen

[Headw1nd]

Seriously, why would you use an active trademark for something like this?

Re:Trademark dispute waiting to happen

[FranTaylor]

yes because customers will clearly be unable to distinguish a stainless steel pad from an operating system

Mars has a trademark on the letter M. Does that mean that other companies cannot use the letter M? No, because the trademark pertains only to candy.

Re:Trademark dispute waiting to happen

[FranTaylor]

Because trademarks are only exclusive to their industry. Anyone who isn't making a product meant for cleaning can use it.

32 MB for something running Java?

[ZeroWaiteState]

They're going to have to find something other than Dalvik if they want applications to run inside 32 MB, unless they're thinking of a really aggressive GC. Time for LLVM to have its day.

Re:32 MB for something running Java?

[FranTaylor]

java can run in very small devices:

http://www.mikekohn.net/micro/java_grinder.php

he's got java running on Commodore 64 and MSP430!

wow

[FranTaylor]

computers are faster and have more ram

amazing

can we stop already with the "I remember when" crap?

'Brillo' OS for IoT?

[jd2112]

Cool! An OS for my pots and pans that can also scrub them clean!

CIA devloping brillo OS for internet of things

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean the CIA is developing brillo OS for internet of things.

Please why does slashdot keep calling the CIA "Google" ?

Re:CIA devloping brillo OS for internet of things

[Khyber]

If there were sources to back all of this up, I'd be more inclined to believe it.

Re:CIA devloping brillo OS for internet of things

[FranTaylor]

try typing "brillo" into google and see what you get

Re:CIA devloping brillo OS for internet of things

[Khyber]

I get:

1. Advertisements for Brillo scouring pads
2. Advertisements for Brillo OS

I get NOTHING regarding anything mentioned in that Medium article.

Also, Medium is a known shit source of information.

Arduino can do RSA and others

[raymorris]

> If you use those on an Arduino (I am) I guess it lacks the juice to do proper encryption?

Arduino can do RSA and others. Good algorithms are generally quite feasible on very small devices, at least for small amounts of data. Which goes to show 32MB is rather high for current IoT devices.

  However, there is a $9 board about to be released which has 512MB and runs Linux. So while it's not NECESSARY to have megabytes of RAM in a "thing", it's not all that expensive either. The price per byte keeps going down, so in five years an MCU with 64 MB may cost the same as an MCU with 1MB does today.

Dishwashers. See Apple Records vs iPod & iTune

[raymorris]

We already know this is designed to be used in dishwashers and other appliances. Google doesn't know what else it'll be used for. It IS kind of silly to pick such a well-known trademark when the POTENTIAL for a possible conflict is so obvious. Brillon, Billo, or Belo wouldn't have the same problem. One of those could be a trademark, but being far less well-known, it would be a much smaller problem.

I recall in the early days when Apple (computer) chose their name, they thought there would be no problem with Apple (records) because they weren't in the music business. Then, iPod suddenly accounted for 90% of their revenue. Oops.

Waste of resources

[Khyber]

Sensors, simple damned commands, and a TCP/IP stack should not need anywhere NEAR 32MB of RAM to run.

Google needs to step back and re-learn some goddamned Assembler.

Re:Waste of resources

[FranTaylor]

Sensors, simple damned commands, and a TCP/IP stack should not need anywhere NEAR 32MB of RAM to run.

Google needs to step back and re-learn some goddamned Assembler.

we should all throw out our systems with Intel core processors and go back to 8086 chips, after all they are totally capable of handling keyboard input, network connections and color displays, so really who needs any more than that?

Re:Waste of resources

[itzly]

A TCP/IP stack is simple, but there's a lot more to networking than just TCP + IP. You also need a web server, security protocols, zeroconfig, DNS, and plenty of other things.

Re:Waste of resources

[itzly]

Assembler doesn't help you save data memory, which is going to be the biggest part in a simple networked device.

Re:Waste of resources

[Khyber]

DNS should not be necessary for devices that aren't going to run web servers.

You can have a limited TCP/IP stack with defined functions specifically for the device, IoTs aren't trying to serve webpages, they're trying to get quick 4KB data packets with the info they need telling them to do something, or they're sending out the packets. You don't need a server, a simple daemon would do the same job.

You don't need Zeroconfig. That in itself is a shit security weakness.

Security protocols are not necessary if you keep the TCP/IP stack simple and hard-bake in what is allowed to connect to what.

Re:Waste of resources

[itzly]

Assume the device sits in your house behind a NAT router, and you want to access it with your PC at work. How does that work, without zeroconfig, without security, wihout DNS, and without a web server ?

Re:Waste of resources

[Khyber]

These things are going to need some sortof centralized control, anyways. That's what stuff like nest, etc are for. That one thing should have the webserver, etc. None of the other devices should, at all.The other devices should be very simple and dumb send data/receive data. I don't need my thermostat to have 32MB of RAM to receive a signal that says "As soon as you register 72F or lower from all sensors, stop the AC and not kick back on until 76F is shown on all sensors."

Re:Dishwashers. See Apple Records vs iPod & iT

[FranTaylor]

We already know this is designed to be used in dishwashers and other appliances.

Brillo pads are not appliances.

Re:Impressive

[FranTaylor]

and any real programs you try to run will fail with memory allocation errors

IoT -- more gadgets, less intelligence?

[swb]

Some devices like Nest seem to add more intelligence to things we already use, but some devices just seem to add gadgets without actually making things more intelligent.

Where are my outlets with an integrated, network accessible power meter? Or the smart electrical panel that can have circuit priorities and acceptable power source types assigned to it so that when I run off a Tesla PowerWall I get maximum utility from the power? Or even the main power meter that lets me see my electrical utilization in real time?

So much of the IoT just seems to be about adding new gadgets whose utility seems limited while ignoring the rest of the house which is dumb.

Re:Dishwashers. See Apple Records vs iPod & iT

[Bing Tsher E]

Right. Brillo software will presumably be used in appliances. Brillo pads are used in appliances.

Yeah, 32MB sounds nice

[codeButcher]

Yeah, 32MB sounds nice, but what about limited bandwidth?

What's in a name?

[lissnup]

In the UK at least,"Brillo" is a brand of soap-infused wire wool pot scrubbers.

Just sayin'

LP3

[LP3]

Completely off-topic and I apologize for that but I am trying to reach TheGratefulNet who posts in this forum. I would like to purchase your LP3 MP3 player (by LP3music), if you still have it and would like to part with it.

player

[toss the turtle]

Assume the device sits in your house behind a NAT router, and you want to access it with your PC at work. How does that work, without zeroconfig, without security, wihout DNS, and without a web server ?