HarmonyOS, HarmonyOS Next, OpenHarmony and Oniro Explained

Huawei is shaking up the mobile scene with the release of a brand new operating system. They have big ambitions, aiming to reshape how devices connect and communicate.

Harmony Next is the branding that Huawei is using for this new OS, but once you go past the branding, you will soon come across OpenHarmony and Oniro.

What are these initiatives and how do they relate to Harmony Next? More importantly, what do they mean to anyone wanting to dive into developing for this new OS?

In this article we provide an overview of the ecosystem around this new operating system and provide some background on the different initiatives.

OpenHarmony

I find the best place to start is by explaining the original open source initiative behind this new OS.

Similar to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), Harmony OS is based on an open source project. Also similar to Android, Huawei is the main committer to this project (albeit not the sole committer).

Whilst OpenHarmony is a functioning operating system, it’s very bare bones. It isn’t intended as a complete product and certainly not for consumers. In fact, there are no pure OpenHarmony devices for consumers — just like there are no AOSP devices.

Development of OpenHarmony takes place on a few dev kits (which we will cover in a separate article). These can be purchased from outside China — although the development phone that we tend to use is only on sale inside China.

Whilst AOSP is led by Google, OpenHarmony has its home in the Open Atom Foundation, an open source initiated jointly by Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, Inspur, Qihoo 360, Tencent, China Merchants Bank. This isn’t to say that Huawei doesn’t have a leading role in its development, however it is part of a larger open source ecosystems.

You can check out OpenHarmony here. The source code for OpenHarmony is found on Gitee (a Github-like service based in China). The current stable version of OpenHarmony is 4.1 with the 5.0 release in beta.

If OpenAtom and Gitee are not familiar to you, then it is a good reflection of the fact that OpenHarmony is very much a Chinese-based initiative. There is a very active developer community in China and the project is steered by a team in China.

This brings us nicely to Eclipse Oniro.

Oniro

Oniro is a unique collaboration between two open source foundations — The OpenAtom foundation and The Eclipse foundation.

OpenHarmony has been the basis for Oniro since it’s beginning, but recently the Yocto-based approach has been dropped so that there is closer alignment with the OpenAtom efforts.

To a large extent, Oniro represents a bridge for non-Chinese developers to be involved in OpenHarmony. The initiatives (e.g. ReactNative support, Rust support) are currently specific to Oniro.

A very exciting initiative is the work that Oniro are doing on a European mobile device running the OS — this should be announced fairly soon. However, this will be very much a development device and as far as I know, there are currently no commercial products running Oniro — at least not yet.

You can find out more about Oniro here.

EDIT: The Oniro team have pointed out that upstream contributions to OpenHarmony is intended and will form part of the Oniro initiative.

HarmonyOS / Harmony OS Next

Finally we come to the commercial implementations of OpenHarmony.

HarmonyOS is an operating system brand from Huawei and has been in the market already for several years with many phone, tablet, TV and smart devices.

Whilst HarmonyOS is at version 4. 2, the underpinnings of HarmonyOS is OpenHarmony 3.x. This version of HarmonyOS supports both native apps built on the OpenHarmony core as well as Android apps.

It’s important to highlight that HarmonyOS 4.2 is NOT an AOSP based project. Instead, Huawai has brought Android support by integrating the Dalvik Virtual Machine and the Android framework — which it is entitled to do via the Android Open Source Project.

Harmony Next

However HarmonyOS Next is the OS name for the soon to be released version and this removes Android support. In other words, with HarmonyOS Next, only native Harmony apps can run.

This is significant for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it brings a true different OS for devices to the market. HarmonyOS Next includes a new micro-kernel architecture and supports devices from micro controllers through to PCs.

Secondly, this is now an OS that Huawei can claim to be it’s own creation. It also draws a line under their previous relationship with Android.

The launch of HarmonyOS Next is imminent with a public Beta just releases.

Other OpenHarmony Deployments

There have been several uses of OpenHarmony for some specialised cases. This is a sign that OpenHarmony is not just a Huawei based effort and that over time we can expect to see more OpenHarmony implementations.

1. MineHarmony OS (September 2021) — Huawei’s customized OS for coal mining, compatible with a wide range of mining equipment, facilitating data transmission and analysis, marking HarmonyOS’s entry into B2B.

2. Midea IoT OS (October 2021) — Developed by appliance manufacturer Midea, this IoT-centric OS, based on HarmonyOS, enhances smart device compatibility.

3. OpenHarmony in Space (January 2022) — A project focused on integrating OpenHarmony into satellite systems, aiming to advance micro-nano satellite technology in China.

4. SwanLinkOS (June 2022) — A transportation industry OS supporting chipsets like Rockchip, enabling road and maritime monitoring, big data analysis, and search and rescue operations.

5. ArcherMind HongZOS (November 2022) — A system supporting AIoT in industrial sectors, leveraging OpenHarmony and HiSilicon chips.

6. Orange Pi OS (OHOS) (November 2022) — An open-source OS for hobbyists, evolving to include hardware like the Orange Pi 3B board.

7. RobanTrust OS (December 2022) — Developed by Youbo Terminal, this OS integrates with proprietary hardware, offering robust compatibility with OpenHarmony.

8. USmartOS (April 2023) — A terminal OS by Tongxin Software for enterprise use, supporting major chip architectures and integrated into the Tongxin OS family.

9. PolyOS Mobile (August 2023) — An AI IoT OS tailored for RISC-V devices, supporting virtualization on Windows.

10. LightBeeOS (September 2023) — Focused on financial security applications, such as ATMs, within China’s banking sector.

11. KaihongOS — First launched in early 2023 and later powering a humanoid robot, KaihongOS supports industrial and robotic applications, particularly within environments requiring real-time responses.

Republished with permission from Snapp Mobile.