Original author(s) | Huawei |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Huawei |
Initial release | May 9, 2020 |
Stable release | |
Operating system | Android 10 (EMUI 10), HarmonyOS 2+ [2] |
Type | Telematics |
License | Proprietary |
Huawei HiCar is a mobile app developed by Huawei to mirror features of an Android EMUI and HarmonyOS device, such as a smartphone, on a car's dashboard information and entertainment head unit. [3]
Once an HarmonyOS device is paired with the car's head unit, the system can mirror some apps on the vehicle's display. Supported apps include GPS mapping and navigation, music playback, SMS, telephony, and Web search. The system supports both touchscreen and button-controlled head units. Hands-free operation through voice commands via Celia is available and recommended to reduce driver distraction.
Huawei HiCar is software that can be utilized from a Huawei EMUI Android as well as HarmonyOS mobile device that is bundled on the phone system, updated on HMS on Android as well as AppGallery itself, acting as a master to a vehicle's dashboard head unit. Once the user's mobile device is connected to the vehicle, the head unit will serve as an external display for the device, presenting supported software in a car-specific user interface provided by the Huawei HiCar app. It can be tethered wirelessly via Bluetooth, NFC or USB support. [4]
Huawei HiCar was launched on May 9, 2020, with 18 car manufacturers joining Huawei's tethered head unit platform. [5] [6]
On September 10, 2020, post-launch, Huawei announced the HiCar platform was expanded to 20 car manufacturers targeting 5 million car units. [7]
On July 9, 2021, BYD Han EV systems were updated with the new HiCar platform via OTA update. [8] [9]
In December 2022, Huawei HiCar update brings super home screen with QQ Music service in Chinese markets. [10]
In May 2023, German car maker Volkswagen was in talks to Huawei to use HiCar platform as part of its market expansion in China. [11]
In China, in December 2023 Baidu Maps update brings night driving mode for Huawei HiCar [12]
In March 2024, various GWM vehicle models adapted for Huawei HiCar 4.0 system in Chinese markets. [13]
On January 31, 2022, Huawei HiCar vehicles exceeds 10 million units with 34 car makers with 112 models and products since launch with plans to expand. [14]
BYD Auto Co., Ltd. is the automotive subsidiary of BYD Company, a publicly listed Chinese multinational manufacturing company. It manufactures passenger battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), collectively known as new energy vehicles (NEVs) in China. It also produces battery electric buses and trucks.
The automotive industry in China has been the largest in the world measured by automobile unit production since 2008. Since 2009, annual production of automobiles in China accounted for more than 32% of worldwide vehicle production, exceeding both that of the European Union and that of the United States and Japan combined. As of at least 2024, China is the world's largest automobile market both in terms of sales and ownership.
CarPlay, or Apple CarPlay is an Apple standard that enables a car radio or head unit to be a display and controller for an iOS device. It is available on iPhone 5 and later models running iOS 7.1 or later.
Android Auto is a mobile app developed by Google to mirror features of an Android device, such as a smartphone, on a car's dashboard information and entertainment head unit.
The Huawei Ascend P7 is a high-end smartphone by Huawei running the Android operating system. It was announced in May 2014 and released in June 2014. It received mixed to positive reviews, with most critics noting the slim glass construction, good front camera quality, and slow processor.
The Huawei Mate series, formally the Huawei Ascend Mate series, is a line of high-end HarmonyOS-powered phablet smartphones produced by Huawei, and is one of their flagship products along with the P series.
EMUI (formerly known as Emotion UI, and also known as MagicOS is a HarmonyOS/Android mobile operating system developed by Chinese technology company Huawei. It is used on the company's smartphones and tablet computers.
HarmonyOS (HMOS) is a distributed operating system developed by Huawei for smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, smart watches, personal computers and other smart devices. It has a multikernel design with dual frameworks: the operating system selects suitable kernels from the abstraction layer in the case of devices that use diverse resources. The operating system was officially launched by Huawei in August 2019.
The Honor 8x is a smartphone made by Huawei under their Honor sub-brand. It is a successor of the Huawei Honor 7x within the Huawei Honor series.
Huawei Mate 30 is a line of Android-based phablets manufactured by Huawei as part of its Huawei Mate series, and the successor to the Mate 20. The Mate 30 comprises the Mate 30/5G, Mate 30 Pro/5G, and Mate 30 RS Porsche Design, which were unveiled on 19 September 2019 in Munich, Germany.
Huawei P40 is a line of high-end Android-based smartphones manufactured by Huawei. Unveiled on 26 March 2020, they succeed the Huawei P30 in the company's P series line.
Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) is a collection of proprietary services and application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. Its hub known as HMS Core serves as a toolkit for app development on Huawei devices. HMS is typically installed on Huawei devices running dual-framework HarmonyOS operating system, and on its earlier devices running the Android operating system including devices already distributed with Google Mobile Services.
Celia is an artificially intelligent virtual assistant developed by Huawei for their latest HarmonyOS and Android-based EMUI smartphones that lack Google Services and a Google Assistant. The assistant can perform day-to-day tasks, which include making a phone call, setting a reminder and checking the weather. It was unveiled on 7 April 2020 and got publicly released on 27 April 2020 via an OTA update solely to selected devices that can update their software to EMUI 10.1.
Huawei AppGallery is a package manager and application distribution platform, or marketplace 'app store', developed by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. It serves as the official app store for devices running Huawei HarmonyOS, Huawei EMUI, Microsoft Windows 11 is also supported.
The Huawei P50 and P50 Pro are HarmonyOS-based high-end smartphones manufactured by Huawei. Unveiled on 21 July 2021, they succeed the Huawei P40 in the P series. In March 2023 Huawei released their successor Huawei P60 Series phones in China, and in May 2023 it released the Huawei P60 Pro in Europe.
DevEco Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for Huawei's HarmonyOS operating system, built on JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA software and Huawei's SmartAssist designed specifically for HarmonyOS development. It is available for download on Microsoft Windows and macOS based operating systems.
The version history of the HarmonyOS distributed operating system began with the public release of the HarmonyOS 1.0 for Honor Vision smart TVs on August 9, 2019. The first commercial version of the IoT based operating system, HarmonyOS 2.0, was released on June 2, 2021 for phones, tablets, smartwatches, smart speakers, routers, and internet of things. Beforehand, DevEco Studio, the HarmonyOS app development IDE, was released in September 2020 together with the HarmonyOS 2.0 Beta. HarmonyOS is developed by Huawei. New major releases are announced at the Huawei Developers Conference (HDC) in the fourth quarter of each year together with the first public beta version of the operating system's next major version. The next major stable version is then released in the third to fourth quarter of the following year.
OpenAtom OpenHarmony, or abbreviated as OpenHarmony (OHOS), is a family of open-source operating systems based on HarmonyOS derived from LiteOS, donated the L0-L2 branch source code by Huawei to the OpenAtom Foundation. Similar to HarmonyOS, the open-source distributed operating system is designed with a layered architecture, which consists of four layers from the bottom to the top, i.e., the kernel layer, system service layer, framework layer, and application layer.
HarmonyOS NEXT is a proprietary distributed operating system and an iteration of HarmonyOS, developed by Huawei to support only HarmonyOS native apps. The operating system is primarily aimed at software and hardware developers that deal directly with Huawei. It does not include Android's AOSP core and is incompatible with Android applications.