Guest Editorial of the Special Section on Human Machine Interface for Next Generation Consumer Electronics

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Hongxu Zhu, Hao Ran Chi, Xinyuan Qian, Rui Liu, Qi Liu

Published: 2025, Last Modified: 19 Jan 2026IEEE Trans. Consumer Electron. 2025EveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY-SA 4.0
Abstract: In the past decade, benefiting from the exposure of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and information and communications technology (ICT), consumers are experiencing an increased link to electronics in the digital world and enjoying the drastically convenient and smart applications. The human-machine interface (HMI) serves as a channel for users to communicate their intentions, get feedback, and manage numerous systems and gadgets. For consumer electronics, the graphical user interface (GUI) has been widely adopted and continues to be dominant. However, with increasing sophisticated functions has been integrated in consumer electronics, GUIs sometimes become complicated and time-consuming. In most cases, users need to read the instruction or be pre-trained on how to operate the GUI. Thus, people have been forced to adapt to devices in this manner, which is inefficient, indirect, and more machine-centric than human-centric. Meanwhile, the continuous innovating breakthrough in AI (artificial intelligence) has been the focus for technical research across the globe. Deloitte survey indicates that the global AI market has reached USD1.9 trillion by 2019 and is expected to exceed USD6 trillion by 2025, with a compound growth rate of 30% from 2017 to 2025. Artificial intelligence has a profound impact across industries, especially since people are beginning to implement its capabilities across verticals. This is truer in the case of HMI design. One of the most seamless ways that AI is enhancing HMI design is with the use of AI-powered assistants. This includes Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and more which allow human interactions with devices using natural language. Indeed, technologies such as touchscreens, voice recognition, gesture control, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), brain-computer interfaces (BCI), are all included and expected to diversify the next generation of HMIs.