Building mobile apps for IoT Devices: a case study of our work with the Holiday by MooresCloud

Presented by Secret Lab (http://www.secretlab.com.au)

Connected devices that support ‘hackable’ software development are becoming increasingly common: the Lifx, the Holiday by MooresCloud, Philips Hue, and so on.

This talk will explore the development of a number of iOS apps built for the Holiday by MooresCloud, including a device discovery app and a musical visualiser. The talk will summarise the best practices for developing IoT-related apps for iOS, how to talk to such devices in a reliable and network-friendly way, and best practices for UX and interaction with IoT devices.

We’ll showcase our past work, demonstrate what we’re working on now, and present a number of demonstrations of our approach to building mobile software for IoT devices.

Presented at YOW Connected 2014 in Melbourne, September 2014.

Transcript

1. Designing Apps for the Internet of Things SECRET LAB
3. @parisba
4. @desplesda
5. Kerbal Space Program Book (!!) Unity Mobile Game Development
7. The internet is made of hardware
8. The internet of things is made of user facing hardware
9. A pretty old field
10. Regular people now have access
11. You’re either building a device and need an app, or you’re building an app for existing hardware
12. Making apps for existing hardware is less common but very cool
13. We’re talking about stuff that applies to both
14. Our experience
15. • Seamlessness! • Performance! • Working with the App Store
16. Seamlessness
18. The ideal user story
19. The Ideal User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On It Does Something Good
20. Most Things Do This Already
22. The Heater User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On Now Your House Is Warm
23. The Microwave User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On Last Night’s Curry
24. Configuration Adds Work
26. The Xbox One User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On Play Video Games
27. The Xbox One User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On Play Video Games Sign In to your Xbox Live account
28. The Xbox One User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On Play Video Games Sign In to your Xbox Live account Create an Xbox Live account OR
29. The Xbox One User Experience Buy The Thing, Take It Home Provide Wifi Details Play Video Games Sign In to your Xbox Live account Create an Xbox Live account OR Turn It On
31. Plugging stuff in is easy
32. HARD MODE
33. Configure a device… • It has only one plug, for power • It needs wifi • It has no useful display • It has no useful input
35. Most use a temporary ad-hoc network
36. Buy The Thing, Take It Home Turn It On Disconnect from the wifi, connect to the device Open a web browser, go to a weird URL Provide Wifi Details
37. Disconnect from the wifi, connect to the device Open a web browser, go to a weird URL Provide Wifi Details Reboot Reconnect to the wifi If it worked, awesome
38. This is awful
39. Also really scary
41. Other approaches
42. Got a camera? Show a QR code
44. You generally can’t get away from this stuff
45. Takeaway:! Make the rest of the experience as simple as possible
46. Performance
48. Internet-connected holiday lights
50. Each light individually configurable
54. Smooth movement = ~20Hz
55. We achieved 5Hz
56. Problem: 
 Designed for sporadic access
57. Original design was HTTP
59. Two problems: 
 latency and throughput
60. Latency
61. Latency: server was handling requests one at a time
62. Throughput: 1 HTTP request per light update
63. It sucked
64. Solution: UDP!
65. UDP: Low-level networking
66. Works fine for this case
67. Both problems fixed!
68. Achieved 100Hz
69. The HTTP method is still good!
71. Takeaway:! Have a high-level API, and a performance-focused low-level API.
72. You might not be able to make this happen, but if you’re a hardware dev, please do it
73. IoT apps ! on the App Store
75. If you’re making the official app, make it free
76. If you’re making a third- party app, charge a premium price!
77. Third party app customers have loyalty to the hardware
78. Takeaway: Keep in mind that you’re part of a bigger picture when making apps.
79. Making apps for hardware is fun!
80. 1. Reduce the workload 2. Consider both performance and flexibility 3. Remember the bigger picture