In 2021 when our customer TomTom launched its brand-new open digital cockpit software platform, TomTom Digital Cockpit, Intellias joined as a launch partner. As such, the team received early access to the platform and its software development kit, including its powerful APIs, supporting documentation, and code samples.
The main goal of TomTom Digital Cockpit is to transform the connected in-car experience by creating a flexible digital cockpit platform that would unite automotive features, vehicle interfaces, and apps. TomTom Digital Cockpit, as it turns out, is the only open modular platform in the industry, enabling seamless integration, hardware configurations, and risk-free in-house software development.
Intellias: Integration partner of choice
The Intellias team supported the launch of the new platform in late November 2021 by building a climate control feature. More importantly, as part of that development process, Intellias gained vast experience as a system integrator for TomTom Digital Cockpit.
As such, Intellias supports customers with integrating the Digital Cockpit platform into their existing hardware and software ecosystem and customizing features. While working with the platform, we were impressed by the flexibility and scalability of the SDK architecture and the compatibility of Digital Cockpit APIs. Now, as TomTom Digital Cockpit is paving its way into the market and vehicle cockpits, Intellias is constantly expanding its role as a system integrator of TomTom’s new platform.
4 questions to Cesar Arego Business Development Manager – Automotive Digital Cockpit at TomTom
Cesar, what is the concept and USP of the TomTom Digital Cockpit?
TomTom Digital Cockpit is the world’s first open digital cockpit software platform. It provides carmakers, system integrators, software development companies, and content providers with an open, secure environment to develop software and apps for automotive applications. TomTom Digital Cockpit is unique in offering hundreds of applications and services that can be used as building blocks for a complete IVI digital cockpit system. This means carmakers can now access standard Android libraries and a huge collection of reusable, commercial-grade applications and services, specifically designed and developed for in-vehicle use.
What does this mean for the software architecture?
TomTom Digital Cockpit uses a strict model-view paradigm for applications. This means that user-facing software components are separated from their application logic components and can be easily adapted.
Our ever-increasing set of partners, are the backbone for a powerful digital cockpit solution.
The key to a unique, immersive, branded experience lies in integrating and modifying the user interface. We are proud to see how easily TomTom Digital Cockpit can be scaled across multiple brands, regions, and car lines. We aim to offer our customers these vast customization opportunities. So, we rely heavily on Intellias as an integration partner to bring these solutions to life in an end-to-end manner.
What made you choose Intellias as an Digital Cockpit integration partner?
It all comes down to capabilities,experience and scalability. The Intellias team has Digital Cockpit-specific knowledge on the SDK level combined with vast experience building HMI solutions. Intellias’ experts are working with the most robust tools and technologies like Android Automotive frameworks and components like Android Jetpack Components, Kotlin, and Kotlin Coroutines. We have also been working with Intellias for quite some time, so there’s a strong relationship there already. These insights and the Intellias capabilities showcased during a couple of joint projects made us believe and trust in Intellias as a partner.
During the launch of TomTom Digital Cockpit, we expressed our belief that the platform is paving the way for a new era of digital cockpits. What is the progress so far?
I think our joint effort is already paying off. The overall response to our solution is huge, and we are experiencing a lot of interest and uptake. Just a few weeks after the official launch of TomTom Digital Cockpit, Intellias and TomTom signed a first contract to build an infotainment system for an all-new E-SUV to be launched by the end of 2022. And we already see more and more requests coming in. So, we are most surely set for success.
Snapshot: The climate control feature for the Digital Cockpit platform
As an initial feature for the product launch of Digital Cockpit, Intellias took over end-2-end responsibility for creating a climate control application that is deeply integrated into the overall Digital Cockpit user experience.
Using the Digital Cockpit SDK and the existing Digital Cockpit climate application, Intellias experts designed, developed, and tested the solution to full production readiness and gained hands-on experience with the new TomTom solution.
The result is an easy-to-use and state of the art in-car climate application that covers all essential comfort parameters like
- Temperature
- Airflow
- Ventilation and air distribution
- Seat heating and seat cooling
- Steering wheel heating
The intuitive UX can be accessed using control buttons or the touch screen. To increase comfort and driving safety, features like defrost and demist of windshield and windows are available from any screen of the HMI. The solution was introduced together with the official launch of the Digital Cockpit at the end of November 2021.
