99.9% of the HW projects that have a modestly complex display/networking need run on Android. It's a no-brainer. OEM the HW from China, even if moderately custom and they can get you something for cheap.
The only thing Android sucks at is native support for keyboard interaction, anything big screen or touch screen related may as well be presumed Android until proven otherwise.
There's one exception, which is Samsung, who is still pushing Tizen to its products, though their smart watches switched from Tizen to Android not too long ago.
Bonus points because then they get to re-implement Spotify integrations et al instead of using an existing APK.
I don’t really care that it runs Android, but it seems like it runs on Android _and_ locks you out of said OS which I don’t love. By all means, build on Android, but then let people use Android. Let me slap a SIM in it and make calls, or install a stupid clock face or something.
I’d say the same thing of most appliances. I don’t care what OS it’s built on, but I want access to that OS as much as possible. Eg I liked that Bluecoat devices have a custom SSH shell for managing them, but you can drop into a regular bash shell with the root password. Can’t say that I used it, but it was reassuring to know that I could get vi or something if their shell fell apart.
Personally I figured it was running Android but likely a heavily modified fork.
Especially after how many times they seem to have buckled down on it not being possible as just an app.
(Unless I am misunderstanding and it is indeed a fork and not just an App? ).
But if you are going to make claims about how its impossible to be an app, maybe you should be making sure that it isnt just an app and you are going down the route of it being its own distro.
I am not saying it should have been its own android distro, but it was my expectation given how they were talking about it.
I mean did they really not expect people to dig into it once it was in the wild and find their exaggeration (lies)?