Google Wants You To Make Your Own Android Accessories

Buying a smartphone or tablet does not just stop there. I am pretty sure that there are tons of people out there like me who upon purchase of their brand new shiny device have spent hours researching accessories for it, whether it be a simple casing to a casing that charges your phone, hands-free kit, earphones/headphones, docking cradles and etc. Sometimes you might even come across a concept accessory that just hasn’t been made yet but at the same time you think to yourself, “I got to have that!”

Google’s answer to this is to launch the Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) which lets anyone create their own hardware and accessories, limited only by your imagination and assuming you have some knowledge of electronics to begin with. To make this even simpler, Google has allowed the Android interface to work with Arduino kits which is basically open-source hardware and what this means is that all you would require is the Arduino board and components that are easily accessible.

On top of all this Google will also be providing tools and information to support developers interested in creating their own accessory. Coupled with Sony Ericsson releasing their source code to software developers, will we be seeing people on the street with their own Frankenstein Android devices?

If you ask me, I smell an Android accessory website version of Etsy coming soon.