Kivy is a Python-based open-source library for writing GUI applications, for touch-screen based systems. Kivy supports both desktop environments and mobile operating systems like Android and iOS. In our previous article, we talked about porting Kivy to Yocto, on the Colibri T-20. In this article, we demonstrate what Kivy features make it suitable for building UI for handhelds, with the case study of a barcode based asset tracker.

Linux is the most popular operating system in embedded devices, it is being used in various products including hand-helds, medical and Industrial HMIs devices. When it comes to natural user interface, people tend to choose the Android framework, but Android, is too heavy for buiding just a HMI. A popular alternative is the Python based Kivy.