HARMAN introduces in-vehicle alerts for Euro NCAP 2026

During the Mobile World Congress in 2025, HARMAN, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and HERE Technologies made a significant announcement regarding their collaboration. The two companies revealed their joint efforts to develop advanced, direct, cloud-based vehicle-to-everything (V2X) driver assistance systems. These systems are designed to provide in-vehicle contextual alerts and assist automotive OEMs in meeting the Euro NCAP 2026 standards.

The primary focus of this collaboration is on HARMAN Ready Aware, an innovative digital vehicle-to-cloud software service. This service delivers in-vehicle contextual alerts precisely when needed, thereby enhancing a driver’s situational awareness at intersections and various road hazards. Known for its robust, scalable, and secure nature, HARMAN Ready Aware is now available to OEMs for both new production vehicles and existing connected vehicles in North America, Europe, and India.

According to Anssi Saarimäki, Senior Director Product Management, ADAS and Automated Driving Solutions at HERE Technologies, “HERE and HARMAN will collaborate to deliver accurate, dynamic road alerts that can improve vehicle safety for drivers and support OEMs in meeting evolving NCAP requirements for connected and software-defined vehicles. Our goal is to support OEMs as they address safety challenges, including informing the vehicle about potential hazards ahead, while accelerating time to market for their products.”

One of the key features of Ready Aware is its support for over 15 use cases, ensuring that drivers receive precise, relevant, and near real-time contextual insights to enhance their situational awareness. The system alerts drivers to various potential hazards such as objects on the road, wrong-way drivers, and stationary vehicles. It is also the first vehicle-to-network (V2N) production-ready offering that provides latency-sensitive alerts like ‘hard braking ahead,’ warning drivers of imminent congestion.

Ready Aware leverages data from road hazards, intersections, and connected vehicles to enhance drivers’ contextual awareness. Its cloud-based analytics engine utilizes digital twins and machine learning to better understand the environment in near real-time, providing more accurate insights. This approach generates a confidence score for each road hazard, improving precision and reducing false positives. By automating the entire experience, Ready Aware allows drivers to focus on the road ahead, enhancing their awareness beyond their line of sight or a car’s onboard sensors.

Furthermore, Ready Aware offers seamless integration options, making it easy to deploy, scalable, and cost-effective. It can be deployed to existing connected vehicles through over-the-air (OTA) updates and new production vehicles. The system is hardware agnostic, compatible with both 4G and 5G, Android or Linux, and designed to be future-proof. Ready Aware also supports additional latency-sensitive use cases between vehicles and pedestrians for future upgrades over the cloud.