Pros and Cons of Using Embedded Android for a Non-Mobile Device
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You have access to very cheap prototype boards such as raspberry pi and few others.
You can easily get CPU/SOC, camera, sensors, for somewhat low price curve of the cell phone ecosystem.* Instead of writing for Linux, you write for Android. Forget about prototyping on your desktop with plethora of debugging tools (strace and ltrace being the most basic ones), you'll also need an emulator or the target device even for something that doesn't talk to hardware.
* You're pretty much stuck with any brain-dead Android behaviour you hit. OS needlessly killing your service when network cable is disconnected? Fsck you, suck it up.