Google’s Android moving into homes

Google wants Android to move into people’s homes with the open-source software powering everything from smart light bulbs to sound systems.

More than 5,000 software savants at Google’s annual developers’ conference in San Francisco were shown an “Android@Home” software platform for making dumb devices smart and robots manageable.

Among the innovations on display were light bulbs that can be controlled by Android-powered gadgets and a Tungsten sound system that could be synched to Google’s freshly-launched internet “cloud” music storage service.

Android light bulbs are to hit the market by the end of the year and developers were invited to turn them into smartphone-controlled alarm clocks for waking people up in the mornings.

“We are extending the Android platform into the home,” said Google senior vice president of mobile Andy Rubin.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he continued. “The power of Android is that it can be used by a lot of people in a lot of different ways. We are going to see some pretty interesting stuff.”

The technology has the potential to turn Android smartphones or tablets into remote controls for lights, appliances, irrigation systems, thermostats and more, according to Google.