The list of shutdowns of various services of Google has increased up to a great extent, and recently the company has added Android Things to the list. The internet of things (loT) subsection of Android has been out since some time ago, with the announcement of Google to scale it back in February 2019.
Google announced at their Android Developers site that they will no longer allow the creation of new Android Things projects with the use of the NXP i.MX7D and Raspberry Pi 3B. The FAQ page of Google breaks down everything that needs to be known by developers about the end of Android Things. It sounds very simple, and it seems to follow the trend for how these types of things are sunsetted.
At first, Google announced that new projects can be created only until 5th January, 2021. After that, Android Things will go into a type of maintenance mode. At that time, developers can use Android Things console for building images and serve over the air updates for their existing projects. The semi-alive state will remain till 5th January, 2022 and it will be a point where the console will be turned down and all project data will be erased. At that time, Android Things will be completely dead.
Google might be saying goodbye to Android Things, but NXP i.MX7D and Raspberry Pi 3B are so much capable that there are many projects that can be done with them. When one service goes away, it opens the door for the other ones instantly.