How to Run Android Apps on Raspberry Pi?
Raspberry Pi is a very powerful, small computer with the ability to run a variety of different software apps–including Android apps. With the right setup, we can use our Raspberry Pi to access Android apps from the Google Play Store, install and run games, stream media content from online sources and more.
In order to run Android on our Raspberry Pi we need to follow these steps.
The first step is we need to download and install Android operating system for our Raspberry Pi. There are a few options currently available, such as LineageOS, PhoenixOS and EmteriaOS.
All of these Operating Systems are open-source and can be downloaded online from their respective websites. For this tutorial, we would use Emteria—it is easy to install and has great support for the Raspberry Pi. So we would download it from EmteriaOS.
Next, we WOULD need to flash the Raspberry Pi with the EmteriaOS. This can be done using a tool called balenaEtcher, which is free to download and use.
- Simply download the zip file containing the OS
- Open Etcher
- Select the zip file and click “Flash!”
- Our Raspberry Pi will now boot up with the EmteriaOS.
Once EmteriaOS is installed, we WOULD need to complete a few more setup steps in order to get the Android apps running on our Raspberry Pi.
First of all, we would need to start up F-Droid, a convenient way to access and download Android apps. F-Droid can be found on our home screen or in the apps menu and simply needs to be started up.
We’d also need to create an account on the Emteria website, so that we could download the appropriate files to connect our Raspberry Pi to any Android device we want. Once we have finished setting up our Emteria account, we could then connect the Raspberry Pi to our Android device using a USB cable.
Data can be written in the form of a file on the filesystem of the Pi or can be sent directly to the device.
Then, we’d need to download and install any Android apps that we have to run on our Raspberry Pi. To do this, we can either download them directly from the Google Play Store, or manually add-them by downloading the APK file and transferring it to the Raspberry Pi.
Once the APK files are on the Pi, they can be installed with the help of an app manager such as App Manager or SDK Manager. Now that all of the setup steps have been completed, we would start running Android apps on our Raspberry Pi.
To do this, simply we have to open the app manager and search for the app we would like to run. Once the app is located, click “Install” and the app will begin downloading and installing automatically just like our android phones.
After the installation is complete, the app will appear in the app manager and can be launched from there.
