New for Unity Industry: Automotive HMI sample for embedded-style hardware
Shanti Zachariah - Unity Technologies
Senior content marketing manager
Our new Unity Industry automotive HMI (human-machine interface) template, for Unity 6.3 or later, is now available to download in the Unity Hub.
This is an updated version of the HMI template released in 2021. It runs up to 60 fps on a Linux-based Raspberry Pi 5 to show performance on embedded-style hardware. It includes a digital instrument cluster, an interactive 3D vehicle, climate controls, an advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) backed by a live traffic simulation, and a theme system that updates the colors of UI elements.
The new HMI template demonstrates automotive HMI workflows in Unity Industry with swappable data, vehicle features, and UI layers so developers can use it as a foundation for their own HMI projects.
The automotive HMI demo open in the Editor
Why is the HMI template running on a Raspberry Pi 5?
An automotive HMI includes features like the instrument cluster and climate controls. But modern interfaces must also display battery and power information, vehicle status, driver assistance information, media, environmental perception, and more. And all of that has to run reliably on the target hardware.
The vehicle in the template
We chose a Raspberry Pi 5, a small, low-power board, as the target hardware for the HMI template. This demonstrates that production-ready HMIs developed with Unity Industry can run on constrained, vehicle-embedded systems like embedded Linux, QNX, and Android Automotive. Even on low-power platforms, it delivers stable frame pacing (up to 60 fps), predictable memory usage, and responsiveness.
Three layers of architecture make it easy for developers to customize the HMI template
We built the template so the data, UI, and 3D vehicle layers are separated:
- Data: The HMI receives information like speed, vehicle state, climate values, ADAS objects, theme settings, and simulation state.
- Presentation/UI: The dashboard, cluster, HVAC, and body controls visualize and present that data.
- 3D simulation/vehicle: The vehicle and city simulation provide visual context and data for the experience.
With these separate layers, developers can feed in their own data, designers can change the look, technical artists can swap vehicles, and embedded teams can test target performance.
The Unity Industry HMI template is built on modular, data-driven architecture.
Who is this template for?
The template is aimed at automotive HMI developers or those working with other types of embedded HMIs, such as machinery, industrial dashboards, robotics, aerospace, medical systems, and simulation-driven control panels. You might be a Unity Industry subscriber or perhaps you’re evaluating Unity Industry for upcoming projects.
A dashboard that updates with vehicle and environment data
Let’s look at the screens or views that comprise the HMI dashboard.
The instrument cluster: Connected to the driving simulation and providing fast readability, the instrument cluster shows speed, vehicle state, gear and drive information, warnings, or indicators.
The instrument cluster from the Unity Industry automotive HMI template
The ADAS / sensor view: Like the instrument cluster, the ADAS gets data from the driving simulation so it can show visual details like:
- Traffic detection
- Vehicles
- Pedestrians
- Crosswalks
- Lane activity
The HVAC and body controls: These views can show climate controls, seat heat, fans, locks, or vehicle body interactions.
HVAC visualization in the Unity Industry automotive HMI template
A city driving simulation provides a development foundation for users
The built-in city driving simulation provides the HMI with testable vehicle and environment data: spline-based traffic, lane changes, traffic lights, crosswalks, pedestrians, and vehicle movement.
The simulation gives developers something to build against before real vehicle data is available. You can use it to test UI behavior, edge cases, themes, and data-driven screen changes.
The city driving simulation open in the Editor showing live simulated data like traffic controls and pedestrians
Live theming across the whole interface
The template supports live accent color changes across the full interface. Automotive teams need to incorporate brand styling, accessibility modes, day and night behavior, and regional variants into their HMIs, and a centralized theming system reduces rework.
Changing the color of the car
Get access to the Unity Industry HMI template
- Open the Unity Hub.
- Create a new project.
- Select Unity 6.3 as your Editor version and the template will be available to open in the Editor.
Find the Unity Industry automotive HMI template in the Unity Hub.
Finally, you can watch the introduction video to the HMI automotive template here.
