HarmonyOS (HMOS) (Chinese: 鸿蒙; pinyin: Hóngméng; trans. "Vast Mist") is a distributed operating system developed by Huawei for smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, smart watches, personal computers and other smart devices. It has a microkernel design with a single framework: the operating system selects suitable kernels from the abstraction layer in the case of devices that use diverse resources. The latest version is HarmonyOS 6; it was released on 22 October 2025.
From 2019 to 2024, versions 1 to 4.3 (4.5 TV) of the operating system were built by integrating the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) with OpenHarmony, allowing it to support both HarmonyOS and Android apps. The next iteration of HarmonyOS became known as HarmonyOS NEXT. HarmonyOS NEXT was announced on August 4, 2023, and officially launched on October 22, 2024. It also replaced the OpenHarmony multi-kernel system with its own HongMeng kernel at its core and removed all Android code. Since version 5, HarmonyOS only supports apps in its native "App" format.
HarmonyOS NEXT/5.x+ both discards the common Unix-like Linux kernel and replaces the previous multiple-kernel, kernel agnostic system from OpenHarmony with its own bespoke HarmonyOS microkernel as a single framework.
HarmonyOS was officially launched by Huawei, and first used in Honor smart TVs, in August 2019. It was later used in Huawei wireless routers, IoT in 2020, followed by smartphones, tablets and smartwatches from June 2021.
In May 2025, the first notebook with the HarmonyOS operating system was launched by Huawei, featuring "HarmonyOS PC", i.e. HarmonyOS 5 for the personal computer form factor.
On November 19, 2025, the first 2-in-1 with HarmonyOS 5.1 was launched by Huawei, with MatePad Edge supporting both tablet mode and full desktop counterpart in line with Huawei MateBook PC line.
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