Korean company LG Electronics Inc. will be showcasing its own car OS in an upcoming electronics convention.
LG, which is most widely known for its mobile devices and home appliances, will be adding automobile entertainment systems to their portfolio. They plan to showcase their new webOS Auto during the upcoming CES 2020 this coming January. CES is the largest gathering where companies come to showcase their latest electronic devices for consumers. Other companies attending the event include Google, 3M, Arduino, GIGABYTE, Jabra, Procter & Gamble, Omron, and Sennheiser, among others.
Driving Ahead of the Competition
LG's webOS Auto will be met with heavy competition upon release, most notably Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. These two giants will welcome webOS Auto to a market that the two control together. The competition is fierce; as an example, LG will find it hard to penetrate certain automobile brands like BMW, as the car manufacturers currently only offer their vehicles exclusively with Apple CarPlay. A 2020 integration of Android Auto has been announced, but not until BMW has offered Apple CarPlay to go along with their cars for years.
However, LG is confident that its software could hold up on its own against its competitors.
The webOS Auto will be extending LG's webOS Open Source Edition (OSE) to the automobile platform. The OSE expands the webOS Auto's automobile capabilities with new features like multi-display support, Firmware-Over-the-Air (FOTA) support, and Smack (Simplified Mandatory Access Control Kernel) integration.
As detailed on their website, LG claims that its webOS Auto is going to be the ideal automotive infotainment system. LG is selling its platform on account of its white-label, among other useful features, allowing car manufacturers to customize it based on the needs of their vehicles easily.
The adoption of the firmware is easy, according to LG. The webOS Auto is advertised to be ready out-of-the-box, featuring all the basic components of an Auto OS while still being scalable based on the specific needs of its clients. Finally, LG also offers various online resources to serve as a reference for their clients on the different ways they could customize webOS Auto to tailor-fit its features. Sample cases on how these features are applied are also laid out on their website.
Standing on Giants
The webOS Auto makes use of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Automotive Development Platform, which allows webOS to integrate with services such as iHeartRadio, Cerence, and Mapbox at launch.
Aside from Qualcomm, LG Electronics also collaborated with Microsoft, who combined the webOS Auto with their own Microsoft Connected Vehicle Platform to showcase its Audio, Video, and Navigation capabilities. Finnish software company Qt also pitches in, introducing a human-machine interface for the webOS Auto. Luxoft, a software engineering firm, will also be developing a concept car using webOS Auto.
Finally, LG also partnered with Adient, a car seat manufacturer, to prepare a demo of the webOS Auto during CES 2020. The demo will showcase the OS's various services and features, including video streaming and internet connectivity. LG also says that conference-goers will be able to see the demos on other partner booths during the CES 2020.
