Qt expands development framework to support connected devices

The Qt Company, which provides a cross-platform framework for companies to write their applications and run them anywhere and on any device, has expanded its framework to make software and device development faster and lightweight. The Qt Lite Project, is built into Qt’s existing framework, but claims to contain a wide range of enhancements that enables developers to streamline the creation and delivery of software and devices for all relevant platforms and any thing regardless of its size. Quoting research from Gartner and MarketsandMarkets, Qt states that with 6.4 billion connected things in use in 2016, the connected device market is expected to grow from $157.05 billion in 2016 to $661.74 billion by 2021 (at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 33.3 percent from 2016 to 2021). Taking this market opportunity into consideration, Qt claims that it has sought to ensure that all devices can communicate over supported protocols and that software can easily be extended to the next-generation device (a concept known as “Future Proofing”) that is especially critical in burgeoning markets like the IoT. With Qt Lite, developers are able to capitalize on this market opportunity by building the applications and devices for present and future connected device and IoT industry. Lars Knoll, CTO, The Qt Company, states that Qt since the last 20 years has been used on a massively wide range of operating systems and embedded devices, but the company has been seeing a growing need for Qt to become a more targeted framework that will facilitate the whole development cycle and lifetime of products for embedded devices.

“By introducing Qt Lite, we’re providing our customers and partners with a lightweight and streamlined version of the Qt framework they’ve come to know and trust. As a result, they’re able to reap the benefits of a shorter and less intensive development cycle, including reduced R&D costs, faster time-to-market for new products, and the ability to dedicate valuable resources towards other strategic business initiatives.”

As with the overarching Qt framework of software and device development tools, Qt claims that the Qt Lite has been specifically designed to enable the streamlined development of software and devices for a wide range of industries, including the healthcare, automotive, avionics, and home appliance and entertainment sectors.

“With Qt Lite, organizations and developers can be at the forefront of technology innovation in these and other industries by building cutting-edge software and devices including in-dashboard screens for connected cars; smart medical devices; and feature-rich user interfaces (UIs) for WiFi-enabled home entertainment systems.”

Qt Lite boasts of containing a comprehensive set of tools that expands Qt’s framework and makes it faster, higher performing, more lightweight, and easier to work with. Its key features include a new configuration system, new graphical configuration tool, a flexible developer workflow, no OpenGL requirement and expanded hardware support.