The Qt Company announced a significant expansion of its partnership with LG Electronics, with Qt and LG’s CTO Division launching a large-scale collaboration to make the open source webOS operating system the platform of choice for embedded smart devices. Through the extensive business and technical partnership, Qt and LG will be able to offer their customers the most comprehensive operating system for smart devices in the automotive, robotics and smart home sectors.
The partnership allows customers to leverage webOS’ mature set of middleware-enabled functionality, including features for automotive, connectivity, media and content services, which saves customers significant time and effort in their embedded development projects. Meanwhile, Qt’s feature-rich development tools – including Qt Creator, Qt Design Studio and Qt 3D Studio – support webOS by the fact that webOS will be Qt’s reference OS.
In order to meet and exceed challenging requirements and navigate the distinct market dynamics of the automotive, smart home and robotics industries, LG selected Qt as its business and technical partner for webOS. The most impactful technology trends of recent years, including AI, IoT and automation, require a new approach to the user experience (UX), and UX has been one of Qt’s primary focus areas since the company’s founding.
Through the alliance, Qt will provide LG with end-to-end, integrated and hardware-agnostic development environment for developers, engineers and designers to create immersive apps and devices. In addition, webOS will officially become a reference operating system of Qt.
Smart devices – such as smart watches, voice-controlled robots, and connected cars’ in-vehicle infotainment systems – make consumers’ lives easier through their constant connectivity, highly intuitive user interfaces, and ability to learn their users’ patterns and behaviors.
The webOS platform powers many of the smart home devices in circulation, including LG Smart TVs and smart home appliances, and has potential to deliver greater consumer benefits in high-growth industries such as the automotive sector.
“Smart devices have the potential to deliver an unmatched customer experience wherever we may be – in our homes, cars, and anywhere in between,” said I.P. Park, president and CTO of LG Electronics. “Our partnership with Qt enables us to dramatically enhance webOS, providing our customers with the most advanced platform for the creation of highly immersive devices and services. We look forward to continuing our long-standing collaboration with Qt to deliver memorable experiences in the exciting areas of automotive, smart homes and robotics.”
“LG has been a technology leader for generations, which is one of the many reasons they’ve become such a trusted partner of Qt,” said Juha Varelius, CEO of Qt. “With the company’s initiative to expand the reach of webOS into rapidly growing markets, LG is underscoring the massive potential of Qt-enabled connected experiences. By collaborating with LG on this initiative, we’re able to make it easy as possible for our customers to build devices that bring a new definition to the word ‘smart’.”
Earlier this year, the Qt Company partnered with LG Electronics Vehicle Component Solutions Company to enhance LG Vehicle Component’s development of highly advanced in-car experiences. The collaboration expanded Qt Company’s partnership with LG Consumer Electronics to also cover software development of in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) systems for a range of automotive manufacturers.
The automotive industry is undergoing a transformation due to an entirely new wave of consumer-driven demands. Manufacturers must still observe the legacy requirements that have made the industry reliable and trustworthy to date, balancing regulation compliance with dynamic innovation that boosts the in-vehicle driver experience.
The automotive market is rapidly evolving through the adoption of new technologies that add more screens and software into the car. As a result, premium IVI development projects now require more advanced technical capabilities to support and maintain a cohesive driving experience.
