This week at Google I/O, we’re likely to learn more about Brillo, Google’s oddly-named new operating system for low-powered devices that are perfect for a smart home or internet of things setup. The news about Brillo is intriguing for two reasons. One, it shows that Google still hasn’t given up on the internet of things dream, which means we can probably expect some smart home devices running Brillo in coming years. And two, it suggests that Google may be trying to distance itself from Nest, its previous smart home product. Nest devices were so horrifically buggy that one of Google’s own engineers, Brad Fitzpatrick, posted a video of himself ripping malfunctioning Nest fire alarms out of his house, throwing them into an ice chest, and tossing them out his back door.
