Transforming mobile devices into Internet of Things (IoT) devices have been gaining traction in the IoT space. Mobile devices have a wide range of sensors and a big screen, but most importantly, they are ubiquitous and they are getting cheaper. After releasing native iOS support in April 2018, we have been improving our support for Android. We are happy to share that the Azure IoT Java SDK has the following updates:

• Improved testing on the Android platform with every release including unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests.  For updated information in regard to platform support, please check out our documentation, “Azure IoT SDKs Platform Support.”
• New samples for Device SDK and Service SDK using Gradle and Android Studio.
• New quickstarts to jump-start your development.

How do mobile devices fit into the IoT story? Our customers shared different scenarios, including using a mobile device as the gateway between other Bluetooth sensors and Azure IoT Hub, and using mobile devices as the end IoT device to send telemetry. Some of our customers are also using mobile devices as the controller for IoT operation, but please beware of the security risk in the case of a lost or stolen device! To reduce the risk, customers can build a backend application to handle cloud to device operations and only use the mobile devices as a display. Learn more about how to turn your Android device into an IoT device by visiting the below resources:

• Send telemetry from a device to an IoT hub (Android)
• Send cloud-to-device message from an application (Android)
• Azure IoT Samples for Java on GitHub