What is VEHMI?
VEHMI – acronym for “Versatile Embedded Human Machine Interfaces” – brings modern, high-performance graphical user interfaces built with Flutter to a wide range of embedded devices — without the complexity of traditional frameworks like Qt.
It supports the development of mobile companion apps for embedded applications as well as the development of embedded graphical user interfaces for Linux-based SBCs and industrial PCs with touchscreens.
Across all these scenarios, VEHMI provides a scalable, future-proof HMI platform for appealing graphical user interfaces with a consistent corporate identity — all derived from a single codebase.
This approach streamlines the development process, resulting in faster time-to-market and significantly reduced development costs.
Why VEHMI?
Users no longer compare embedded devices with touch displays to other machines — they compare them to the apps they use every day.
Smartphones and tablets have shaped expectations around responsiveness, clarity, and ease of use. Smooth animations, intuitive workflows, and visually consistent interfaces are no longer seen as premium features — they are expected by default.
Many embedded systems, however, still rely on outdated UI concepts or heavily constrained frameworks that make it difficult to meet these expectations. As a result, user interfaces often feel disconnected from the overall product experience, even when the underlying functionality is excellent.
VEHMI addresses this gap by enabling modern, app-like user experiences on embedded devices — without compromising system architecture, cost efficiency, or long-term maintainability.
One Platform – Several Scenarios
Embedded products come in many forms — from compact devices with minimal user interaction to powerful systems with rich, integrated touch displays. VEHMI is designed to cover this entire spectrum with a single, coherent platform.
Depending on the product requirements, VEHMI supports the development of modern graphical user interfaces for embedded applications — either running directly on the embedded device or as a mobile app executed on smartphones or tablets. All variants are based on the same Flutter-driven UI architecture, enabling maximum reuse of source code, design assets, and development know-how.
VEHMI.Mobile
VEHMI.Mobile enables Flutter apps on smartphones or tablets to connect to embedded devices via BLE or WiFi and act as their modern graphical user interface. The app can be the primary HMI for devices with no or only a very limited built-in display — or a powerful companion interface for systems based on VEHMI.SBC or VEHMI.IPC.
VEHMI.SBC
VEHMI.SBC targets application-specific Linux-based single-board computers and enables Flutter applications to run directly on the embedded device. If the product is additionally intended to work with a mobile app, this companion app can be developed very efficiently, based on VEHMI.Mobile and the same shared source code.
VEHMI.IPC
It supports demanding applications that require higher computing power and larger touch displays — while also allowing major parts of the source code for embedded HMIs and optional companion apps to be shared in this deployment scenario as well.
This flexible deployment model covers a broad range of products and use cases — from devices with minimal on-device interfaces that provide a sophisticated user experience via a smartphone app to systems with rich, built-in graphical user interfaces — while enabling extensive UI and application code reuse across product families.
Why Flutter Instead of Qt?
For many years, Qt has been the default choice for graphical user interfaces in embedded systems and industrial HMIs. It is mature, powerful, and widely adopted — and many existing products will continue to rely on it. However, the requirements for embedded human–machine interfaces have fundamentally changed.
Users now expect the same level of responsiveness, visual quality, and usability from machines and devices that they are used to from modern smartphone and desktop applications. At the same time, products increasingly require companion apps, remote access, and seamless connectivity — often across multiple platforms and device classes.
Meeting these expectations with traditional embedded UI frameworks frequently leads to fragmented architectures, duplicated UI implementations, and rising long-term development and maintenance costs.
This is where Flutter comes into play.
Flutter is a modern, cross-platform UI framework developed by Google and used as the foundation for many popular consumer and enterprise applications. It enables high-performance, visually rich user interfaces from a single codebase and runs consistently across desktop computers, industrial PCs, embedded Linux systems, smartphones, tablets, and even web browsers. By providing full control over rendering and UI components, Flutter ensures predictable behavior, smooth animations, and a uniform look and feel across all platforms.
By embracing Flutter, VEHMI enables a new class of embedded HMIs:
- One UI technology across devices and mobile apps
A single framework for embedded systems, industrial PCs, and companion apps dramatically increases code reuse, consistency, and development efficiency. - Lower development and maintenance costs
No licensing fees and significantly reduced duplicated UI code compared to multi-framework or platform-specific approaches. - Faster time to market
High developer productivity and rapid iteration enabled by features such as hot reload, simpler programming model and a modern tooling ecosystem. - Future-proof technology
A modern UI framework with strong industry backing, continuous development, and a rapidly growing ecosystem.
VEHMI deliberately combines long-standing experience in architecting embedded user interfaces based on Qt with deep expertise in embedded software and Flutter’s modern UI approach — providing a solid, future-proof foundation for today’s and tomorrow’s embedded products.
From Idea to Product – How VEHMI Accelerates Development
Modern embedded products are no longer defined by hardware alone. The user interface plays a central role in how a product is perceived, evaluated, and ultimately adopted — often long before the final hardware is available.
VEHMI is designed to bring the user interface to life early in the development process.
Instead of waiting for hardware prototypes, graphical user interfaces can be created, reviewed, and refined from the very beginning. First functional UI prototypes become available within days — running in a web browser, on smartphones and tablets, and later seamlessly transitioning onto the embedded target system.
This approach fundamentally changes how embedded products are developed:
- Early validation of user experience
UI concepts can be evaluated with stakeholders and customers before hardware is finalized. - Parallel development instead of sequential phases
UI, backend logic, and hardware development progress in parallel, reducing overall project risk. - Smooth transition to the embedded device
The same UI evolves from prototype to production, avoiding costly rewrites. - Faster iterations, fewer surprises
Changes can be implemented quickly and validated immediately across platforms.
By building on proven reference implementations and a unified UI technology stack, VEHMI turns UI development into an accelerator rather than a bottleneck — helping products reach the market faster, with higher quality and lower development effort.
VEHMI – Your Head Start with Flutter for Embedded HMIs
Flutter is already used successfully in embedded applications by major global companies. VEHMI provides the reference architectures, software components, and development approach that make the same technology accessible to smaller teams — without needing to start from scratch.
“Seeing a fully interactive UI prototype running within days — long before the target hardware was available — completely changed how we planned the project. Reviewing the interface early in a browser and on mobile devices helped us align stakeholders quickly and avoid costly late-stage changes.”
Project Manager for Lab Equipment
“Coming from years of Qt-based embedded UI development, I was initially skeptical. But working with Flutter in the VEHMI setup was a revelation. The speed of iteration, the consistency across platforms, and the ability to reuse the same UI logic on mobile and embedded targets significantly reduced complexity compared to traditional Qt projects.”
Senior Embedded Software Engineer
“What surprised me most was how quickly our team adapted. Despite years of experience with Qt, the transition to Flutter was far smoother than expected. Within a short time, the team became more productive, iteration cycles accelerated noticeably, and both UI quality and overall software quality improved significantly.”
Team Lead, Embedded Software
How Can My Product Benefit from VEHMI?
We at redlogix Software & System Engineering GmbH have created VEHMI, building on our long-standing experience as a development partner for embedded software applications for a wide range of target platforms that require some form of graphical HMI.
Although we have a strong background in the Qt framework and C++, we were immediately impressed by Flutter’s outstanding features and development speed when we first used it for a companion app. Because Flutter is multi-platform and can run on embedded Linux targets, we began exploring how to integrate Flutter-based HMIs directly on embedded devices. This included developing solutions to connect Flutter UIs with the real-time functionality of embedded applications — typically implemented in C++ or Rust — as well as enabling communication with other targets via WiFi or BLE.
With VEHMI, you can leverage this experience: it provides a proven reference architecture for multiple platforms, reusable software components, and a development approach that allows us — either independently or together with your engineers in a mixed team — to rapidly design and implement tailored HMIs with your corporate identity and integrate them cleanly with the embedded application’s (real-time) functionality. VEHMI’s clear separation between UI and backend logic also allows existing software components written in C, C++, or Rust to be reused efficiently.
Whether your product relies on a smartphone or tablet as its primary HMI or includes an integrated touchscreen: As your development partner for embedded software, we can use our embedded Flutter framework VEHMI to efficiently and reliably deliver high-quality, modern user interfaces from early prototypes to production-ready systems.
Leverage the power of Flutter for your embedded application