Industry Insights Blog Series
Richer functionality and higher performance in two-wheeler displays—while maintaining a competitive price point—is the balance micro-mobility companies need to maintain as they try to win over customers.
Two-wheelers in the same category sell at very similar price points. What ultimately makes or breaks the deal are the features and quality that manufacturers can deliver at a given price point. Rising demand from increasingly tech-savvy consumers has driven the micro-mobility industry to offer features previously seen only in cars. Collision avoidance, advanced rider assistance systems, navigation, and real-time diagnostics are all making their way onto two-wheelers and e-bikes.
That said, getting such advanced features to run on resource-constrained embedded devices is a challenge. Achieving near-real-time performance adds to this complexity. Riders make snap judgments based on how fast their display responds, how clearly information is presented, and how user-friendly everything feels. For OEMs and tier-one suppliers, the challenge lies in providing this high performance on a budget.
In the first place, cost constraints dictate strict hardware limitations. The embedded devices used for two-wheelers and micro-mobility need to snap-boot but have only scarce computational resources to run several functions and services in parallel. Nonetheless, the final performance of the application and the quality of its graphics are not dictated solely by the hardware. Lightweight graphics, hardware acceleration, and optimized software can deliver advanced functionality even on highly constrained microcontrollers (MCUs).
On the tooling side, a persistent challenge in delivering high-performance systems is fragmentation. Each hardware vendor comes with its own software development kits (SDKs), and developers must juggle multiple vendor SDKs, each with their own quirks. All this comes with associated costs.
Dual-System Architecture
Dual-system architecture represents a new trend in micro-mobility. In this setup, a lightweight MCU handles instant-on, mission-critical tasks, like speed, warning lights, and error codes. At the same time, a more powerful microprocessor (MPU), running in parallel, takes care of heavier functions like navigation or media playback.
This architecture provides an instantaneous start of the system. It ensures that even if the high-end applications stall or reboot, the rider never loses access to vital information. As electric scooters, e-bikes, and other micro-mobility vehicles grow smarter and more connected, dual-system designs provide a scalable platform, offering fast boot times, fail-safe operation, and future readiness without overburdening entry-level hardware.
Learn more: CrossControl I Built with Qt
Some two-wheelers manufacturers see added complexity in adopting dual-system architecture, as both an MCU and an MPU are needed. But such a choice saves money overall by making the system more reliable, reducing software crashes, and lowering warranty and service costs. It also lets manufacturers build high-performance products for which customers may be willing to pay a premium.
Qt can help both thanks to its cross-platform libraries, which enable the reusability of UI functionality across platforms, and its high performance and low code-footprint, which also makes it suitable for highly resource-constrained hardware.
Many customers today run an MCU for instant-on safety-critical graphics and an MPU for high-end features like navigation. We see the benefits of this architecture for anyone building real-time, robust, mid-to-high-end products.
How Qt Group Can Help
With Qt, no extra complexity is added in handling dual systems. Qt cross-platform capabilities span, so to speak, over multiple “dimensions”. On the one side, "horizontally" Qt works across desktop, mobile, and embedded systems. On the other side, which is now at stake, "vertically" from high-end hardware to low-end microcontrollers. For two-wheelers manufacturers, Qt Quick can provide shared UI components for both sides of the dual architecture.
Qt Quick is the core UI engine of Qt Framework for rapid development of dynamic, cross-platform user interfaces. Among other things, it provides
- robust, ready-made UI components—such as menus, charts, and controls
- animations and visual effects, for clear and responsive UIs
- full integration with QML for fine-tuning the UI via code
- full compatibility with C++ for logic and data handling
Qt Quick allows developers in the micro-mobility industry to build reliable, feature-rich applications with powerful user experiences.
On the MCU side, Qt Quick Ultralite is a highly optimized subset of Qt Quick tuned to MCU performance, thanks to hardware acceleration, a low memory footprint, and ultra-light UI controls.
Learn more: Blue Ctrl I Built with Qt
When combined, the two graphics UI libraries let you deliver robust and feature-rich experiences on the same platform.
-
Qt Quick: Runs on MPUs and enables rich, full-featured applications with full QML support.
-
Qt Quick Ultralite: Runs on MCUs and lower-powered, resource-limited MPUs, and delivers lightweight UI functions using QML, optimized for minimal memory and CPU usage.
Solving Hardware Fragmentation
OEMs in the micro-mobility sector typically work with several different vendors. This can lead to a proliferation of systems. One MCU might need a specific display driver; another might need a different memory setup. Some boards boot differently, manage power differently, or have unique bugs you must work around. Changing hardware often forces developers to rewrite or heavily adapt their software.
On the MPU side, Qt 6 runs on every MPU supporting embedded Linux. This is a key aspect of Qt technology and one of the main reasons for its introduction. Developers write their Qt code once, and Qt handles the board-specific details in the background. On the MCU side, Qt for MCUs tackles the same goal of hardware compatibility on microcontrollers and low-end resource-constrained microprocessors.
With Qt, teams can move faster, scale products across different devices, and avoid getting stuck rewriting software for every new device.
Building micro-mobility dashboards that riders trust and rave about requires both strategic architecture and optimized runtimes. Qt Group gives micro-mobility OEMs a clear path to powerful yet cost-effective product design.
Explore our products today, try Qt online, or reach out to us to see how we can speed up prototyping in the micro-mobility business.
Learn more about Qt in Micro-Mobility.
When a customer compares two models side by side, priced similarly, they will pick the one with a faster, sharper, and more responsive UI. Performance becomes a critical differentiator, even if the hardware budgets are almost identical.