Huawei on Thursday announced HarmonyOS 5, its first-ever self-developed operating system (OS) for PCs at the HarmonyOS Computer Technology and Ecosystem Communication event in China. It is said to be based on the company’s HarmonyOS Next mobile OS which was announced in October 2024 and has been developed independently of Android. Huawei claims it has been rebuilt from the kernel with enhancements made to HarmonyOS Base, HarmonyOS Ecosystem, and HarmonyOS Experience. It can support up to 1,000 external peripherals.
The OS leverages Ark graphics for delivering a smooth performance, while the onboard AI assistant can summarise and translate documents, and deliver query responses. Huawei says its upcoming PCs will be powered by HarmonyOS 5 although it did not reveal if any existing models could support it too.
HarmonyOS 5 Features
As per Huawei, it has developed and optimised over 150 applications for computer ecosystem use. More than 2,000 universal ecosystem applications have also been integrated. HarmonyOS 5 uses the Ark graphics engine for delivering visual experiences, providing dynamic effects in wallpaper, multi-windows, and during multitasking. It enables customisation via personal themes.
Multi-window view in HarmonyOS 5
Photo Credit: Huawei
Similar to a Windows-based experience, users can open windows and adjust their icon and size as per their preference. Additionally, the status bar and the task bar can be customised too. There are gravity effects for the home screen and photographic effects for various app icons. The OS supports gestures like a three-finger slide for returning to desktop as well as opening the multitask centre interface.
HarmonyOS 5 features an upgraded Smart Office suite which is said to improve collaboration between multiple devices, enable AI features, and link with other ecosystem devices.
A big part of the OS relies on AI for carrying out various tasks, providing personalised content and smart services based on different scenarios. There’s a built-in AI assistant with understanding and interaction capabilities. It can translate documents into 21 languages, summarise them, generate reports, and even create travel itineraries. The assistant supports multi-modal interactions, accepting voice commands, text, and images as prompts. It has on-screen content awareness which can analyse the content currently displaying on the screen and provide responses to queries based on that. There’s also a Circle-to-Search-like functionality which users can toggle to highlight a part of the screen and ask the AI chatbot about it or toggle its web lookup.
Leveraging the new star shield security architecture, the HarmonyOS 5 is claimed to deliver robust user privacy protection. The company emphasises that rigorous security checks take place before an application is made available on the App market. The OS is aimed at delivering a unified ecosystem, comprising smartphones, tablets, PCs, and other devices. As per Huawei, users can share peripherals like keyboard and mouse across devices. It also supports high-speed file transfers between devices.
