Embedded GUI Development

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A user-friendly interface is essential for every connected device. Whether the user interacts with the device with a button or a touchscreen, a mouse, a keyboard, with their voice, or with another third-party device, the user experience needs to be smooth, intuitive, and ‘sticky’ enough to keep the user engaged and happily using the device.

At Witekio we are experts in embedded GUI development and design. Our engineers develop GUIs for handheld and freestanding devices of all sorts ranging from coffee machines to vending machines, kitchen devices, and industrial IoT networks. 

We understand the impacts of technical, physical, and financial constraints around an IoT project and help you and your teams to develop the embedded GUI that best suits your device and meets the needs of your end-users. 

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Understanding Constraints and Trade-Offs 

While the look and feel of a GUI is important, developing the right look and feel for your software requires an understanding of your hardware (read our blog on GUI STM32). Today’s Graphical User Interfaces  / GUIs on embedded devices are richer than ever and include the full range of buttons, screens, and sensors through which users interact with a device. The constraints that the hardware puts on the embedded GUI design need to be overcome to offer the best possible user experience.

One Witekio project stands out as a good example of expert embedded GUI engineers designing an interface within the constraints of the device hardware. Evoca, a world leader in manufacturing specialized food and beverage vending machines, came to Witekio seeking a new embedded GUI for a new range of coffee machines. The interface needed to be able to process payments in a variety of ways (touchless, credit card, online/offline, and cash) as well as facilitating different ordering interfaces (touchscreen, connected web application). Witekio engineers worked within the technical constraints of Evoca’s hardware board, its connectivity choices, and its processing power to deliver an embedded Linux GUI that offered a fast, clean, and intuitive interface for users desperate for their caffeine fix on the go. 

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Making the Right Choices 

Witekio’s long experience in designing and developing embedded GUIs for clients and their IoT and connected devices allows them to advise on the selection of the most important components and elements that help to deliver the best user interface, including: 

  • the right hardware: in early discussions, Witekio engineers can advise clients about the best hardware choices to make to support the embedded GUI that is envisaged for the final device 
  • the right software and embedded stack: Witekio engineers can architect the optimal stack for powering the device and ensuring its connectivity to a public or private cloud 
  • the right development language: depending on the project and the goals of the client, Witekio engineers can recommend developing the embedded GUI in one of several development languages 
  • the hard coding: Witekio engineers can design, develop, and deliver the embedded GUI coded in the language best suited to the client’s specific connected device 

Embedded GUI Libraries 

Witekio engineers have experience in using a range of different tools and libraries to develop the embedded GUI. Among the options and libraries that our engineers regularly deploy for client projects are: 

Qt is one of the premier toolkits for developing graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and cross-platform applications. Dozens of the best-known consumer and industry applications are built with Qt, including Google Earth, Adobe Photoshop Elements, VLC Media Player, and the secure messaging application Telegram. Witekio is a Qt partner and has recently developed advanced embedded GUIs using Qt on an MCU. 

Read more – Graphic User Interface: Qt or Altia?
Read more – Qt GUI Development

Flutter is an open-source framework developed by Google that allows you to design multi-platform applications from the same codebase with performance close to native applications. Flutter sets itself apart from its competitors by building its graphical interfaces not with a mark-up language (XML, HTML), as do most other frameworks but with a programming language. 

Read more – Pros and Cons of Flutter

GTK is a long-established toolkit for developing graphical user interfaces first deployed in April 1998. Though considered somewhat ‘old school’ by some developers, it has a proven track-record for embedded GUI projects ranging from small, one-off efforts through fully resourced platforms. GTK is free and open source, offering some advantages for projects where FOSS components are preferred. 

In addition to Qt, Flutter, and GTK, Witekio engineers increasingly develop embedded GUIs using the mainstream Angular JS libraries common in web apps as well as building native Android UIs for devices using the Android OS. 

Your Embedded GUI Can Make or Break Your Device 

A well-thought-out and executed embedded GUI can be the reason your device launches with success, grows its market share, and retains a leading position in the consumer and enterprise markets. Witekio has been designing and developing embedded GUIs for decades and can bring its long experience and engineering expertise to bear to ensure you have a GUI for your device that respects all your constraints and delivers an optimal user experience. 

one-stop IoT software development, design, and delivery shop that easily pivots between individual device development projects and industrial-scale IoT networks spanning countries or even continents. We serve clients in every industrial vertical whether small or large, OEM or device owner, and we offer both IoT app development and mobile app development expertise.

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