Are there sensors that are platform Dependent

Question

I want to experiment with some sensors with my Raspberry Pi 3. For that, I searched for sensors to buy online. During the search some websites says "buy sensors for Arduino" and some says "buy sensors for Raspberry Pi". So. if I buy sensors for Arduino, will they work with Raspberry Pi or not?

Answer 1

The short answer is: yes probably it will work on both.

The longer answer is you'll be doing some work arounds. (and each is case dependent).

---

For example the arduino has analog pins, but AndroidThings boards do not - you would need to use a Analog to Digital converter (like this or any other ADC).

---

Android Things also supports GPIO. However if the sensor only uses GPIO, it is likely to require a fast communication speed (in the range of 10's of nano seconds), but Android Things GPIO is slow (the frequency is in the range of 300± nano seconds) - so you'll probably find these sensors are not supported on Android Things (a raspberry pi).

---

If after all that you buy a sensor and it won't work with Android Things - you can still use the sensor with an Arduino board and then control the Arduino Board with a Raspberry Pi as a master (like this).