Category: News

Human-machine interaction (HMI) is evolving faster and more fundamentally than ever before. Users no longer think in terms of devices. They expect a seamlessly connected user experience. Touch, voice, gestures, and data streams merge into a multimodal interaction that spans cars, homes, workplaces, and even wearables. Devices communicate with each other and take on increasingly complex tasks.

Why today’s HMI development processes are no longer sufficient

For HMI developers, this shift is a major challenge. Traditional development processes are too rigid, too slow, and too isolated to enable this demanding digital future. Silos between disciplines – especially between UX design and interior design – slow innovation down.

At the same time, the requirements and range of hardware that must be supported in vehicles and other products are increasing. Different resolutions, formats, input methods, and system environments make development even more complex and resource-intensive. Many companies are already struggling to keep pace with the growing complexity of cross-device user experiences.

Incari Studio as a bridge between UX and Interior Design

The solution lies in involving designers and engineers in a shared development process right from the start. This means breaking down silos and bringing all stakeholders to the same table, even if each continues to work in their familiar environment. With Incari, HMIs can be designed, developed, tested, and adapted collaboratively.

One orchestrated user experience

This collaborative approach with Incari Studio enables teams to validate ideas faster, iterate more efficiently, and move from prototype to series production without detours. The future of HMI is no longer UX on one side and interior design on the other. It is one single orchestrated user experience – with Incari Studio as the stage where all instruments play together in harmony.

Under the title “Beyond the Screen: Rethinking HMI for the Next-Gen Driving Experience” we will give insights into the cockpit of tomorrow and how HMI development must adapt to new challenges.

The next generation of drivers expects smart HMIs that go beyond screens, enabling seamless interaction across all senses. That means less complexity, higher user experience, intuitive operation — and above all, faster, simplified development cycles.

🗓 Tuesday, Sept 9, 2025 – 5:00–5:10 PM
🎤 Alexander Grasse, CPO Incari GmbH

✖️ Can’t make it to the RESET? – Watch Alexander’s interview on the Car Design News couch to get insights into the future of HMI development.

Read more about the RESET here. 

The automotive industry has stalled: Long development cycles and complex processes are slowing down especially software innovation. Rigid structures prevent fast developments and flexible adaptation. The driver of tomorrow doesn’t primarily want to own, but they want to experience. The TikTok generation expects easy-to-use, smart systems tailored to their needs. Connected, context-aware HMIs that anticipate and support those needs will be a decisive factor for brand loyalty and brand experience.

For the HMI systems of tomorrow, this means: less complexity, higher user experience, intuitive operation and above all, simplified development with significantly shorter cycles. It’s about full multimodality, engaging all five human senses. HMI doesn’t just mean “interface”. It means “interaction.” The trend is moving toward fewer, even no screens, towards smart surfaces, next-gen head-up displays, and intelligent HMI surfaces that may require no physical touch.

To achieve this, HMI development must become faster, more integrated, and more user-centric, moving away from a screen-focused approach toward seamless interaction between human and machine. The goal is an experience where interaction is so natural and context-driven that screens may no longer be needed at all.

Incari’s CPO Alexander Grasse joined the “Car Design News” couch at the Autodesk Automotive Innovation Forum 2025. In the interview, he explains why the future of HMI goes beyond screens and how Incari Studio enables seamless, next-generation user experiences. Watch the video here.

The Autodesk Innovation Forum 2025 (AIF) brought together industry leaders to shape the future of design, visualization, and digital prototyping. We were proud to take the stage alongside our partner FORVIA, showcasing how design and HMI development go hand in hand with Incari Studio.

FORVIA is an automotive technology supplier pioneering transformative solutions: safe, sustainable, customized, and affordable. With a history stretching back more than a century, they are a global sustainable mobility leader. A position giving them a decisive role in shaping the future of the industry.

Fragmented Workflows Due to Late UI/UX Integration

Classic development processes are often fragmented, with late-stage UI integration, tool-switching, and multiple alignment loops. To fully realize FORVIAS vision, HMI development needed to become more integrated into their existing design workflows, using trusted tools like Autodesk VRED.

The goal: a smoother, more connected process that starts much earlier, running in parallel with overall product development. FORVIA set out to transform this approach by integrating HMI development directly into their toolchain, with Autodesk VRED continuing to play a central role.

That’s where Incari Studio came in.

With the native integration into VRED, Incari Studio brings visualization artists and UX/UI designers together on one shared platform. Workflows run in parallel from day 1, enabling seamless collaboration and faster feedback loops. Multimodal interactions such as lighting, audio, haptics, and sensors can be implemented and tested in real time from the earliest stages of development. That makes Incari Studio the ideal tool for prototyping.

The challange: Fast rebuilt of the CES 2023 demonstrator

To put Incari Studio to the test, FORVIA challenged us to integrate the UI of their CES 2023 demonstrator — fully functional and multimodal — within a short timeframe and to rebuild the interaction logic from scratch based on FORVIA’s specifications. All UI design assets were provided by FORVIA and seamlessly integrated using Incari Studio. Together with VRED, we delivered the updated demonstrator in just 1.5 weeks.

This success story was presented live on stage at AIF 2025 and was met with enthusiastic feedback from across the industry. It proved that the vision of a more efficient, agile, and streamlined development process, starting from the earliest design stages, can become reality through the combined strengths of Incari Studio, and VRED.

AIF 2025 Presentation:
“From Concept to Demonstration – Seamless Integration of Incari Studio and VRED in Automotive Design”

In this joint presentation, Gert-Dieter Tuzar (Senior Expert UX / HMI at FORVIA) and Osman Dumbuya (CEO at Incari) demonstrated how HMI development can be fundamentally improved.

Gert-Dieter Tuzar highlighted the typical challenges of traditional HMI workflows, from late UI integration to fragmented tools and misaligned processes. Osman Dumbuya presented Incari Studio as a powerful tool: a visual, no-code development platform that integrates directly with Autodesk VRED.

Together, they showed how FORVIA and Incari successfully rebuilt a fully functional HMI demonstrator in just 1.5 weeks, proving that design, prototyping, and validation can happen faster, earlier, and more efficiently than ever before.

Thank you, FORVIA, for taking us along on this journey.

FORVIA is currently evaluating how Incari Studio can be integrated into their standard development workflow. This partnership marks a shift in thinking, away from siloed workflows toward integrated, collaborative, and accelerated HMI development. What FORVIA and Incari presented on stage at AIF 2025 wasn’t just a success story, it was a real-world example of how modern HMI development should work.

“Working with Incari has been a positive experience,” said Cédric Habert, Industrial Design Director at FORVIA. “Incari Studio as an HMI development platform has exceeded our expectations. It clearly demonstrated added value in terms of time and cost efficiency. The entire development process becomes leaner, more flexible, and significantly more agile. What we’ve seen so far is so promising that we’re now evaluating how Incari Studio could become a standard part of our internal processes. Thanks to its seamless integration with VRED, already a core part of our workflow, Incari Studio appears to be the ideal addition. It closes exactly the gaps that have slowed us down in the past and enables us to develop the multimodal cockpits of the future: Faster, more flexibly, and on an entirely new level.”

Speech Recording now Available!

“From Concept to Cockpit – Setting New Standards in HMI Development”
Gert-Dieter Tuzar, Senior Expert HMI & UxD Forvia, and Osman Dumbuya, CEO at Incari

Incari cooperated with Factory Unit, 2CV Méhari Club Cassis, L2Concept and R-FIT to electrify a Renault 5 GTL for the television show, Vintage Mecanic on French channel RMC Découvert. The Incari team took on the challenge of integrating 1970s instrument signals alongside the requirements of the EV drivetrain and modern convenience features in a classic car.

From analog to digital with Incari Studio

To tackle the R5 project, the analogue speedometer was replaced with a digital screen, which provides relevant information at all times to enhance the driving experience. One of the key features of this instrument cluster is the possibility to change the design from classic (analog style) to modern (digital). Incari Studio played a key role in bringing the project from concept to reality in a very short timeframe. This led to a lower cost for the entire project.

Celso Albuquerque, Managing Director of Incari Labs, Incari´s innovation hub in Sophia Antipolis, France, commented: “Incari´s development platform has allowed us to “Restomod” the Renault 5 in a sensitive fashion, keeping the look and feel of the original instrumentation but bringing in driver displays that the original Renault engineers in the 1970s could never have dreamed of being possible. We had a bespoke task, with a short time frame and a limited budget, and Incari delivered a stunning driver information system that feels perfectly suited to this updated classic.”

The finished restomod Renault 5 EV was featured on the Vintage Mecanic TV program, which was broadcast at Christmas 2024 in France.