Bringing IoT to LED Lights

Introduction

Our client Ario specializes in building intelligent lighting products that help people lead healthier lives. Using Bluetooth LED technology that mimics natural sunlight, Ario supports the body’s natural hormone production and helps people maintain a proper circadian rhythm that keeps them alert and productive during the day.

Business Challenge

Ario’s patented Smart Lamp product has enjoyed considerable success among residential consumers, but they wanted to market their lights as a solution for improving guest satisfaction in hotel chains. Their vision was to bring the natural sunrise and sunset experiences to hotel rooms to improve guest wellness and promote more restful sleep.

To make their product more marketable, Ario integrated it with software to unlock the full potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). Once their Bluetooth LED bulbs were connected to the cloud, they could monitor all devices remotely and provide timely software updates to enhance the user experience.

To do this, they came to S9 Digital, which built an Android tablet app, set up remote device access, and designed a scalable cloud infrastructure. Wanting to perform customer trials and bring their product to the market as soon as possible, they set a short deadline for the project, but S9 Digital quickly delivered the software that would both delight users and provides Ario with the data they needed to optimize performance.

App Development

The first step in the app development process was to transform Ario’s mockup designs into an appealing, user-friendly UI. However, S9 Digital’s app was more than just a pretty face: it was Ario’s access point to the internet. Ario wanted to eventually monitor and control tablets at a hotel and company-wide level through the cloud. So we used Facebook’s React Native framework, which allowed our developers to build the native app UI, web admin dashboard, and server connections (with Node.js) all in JavaScript.
This sped up development time considerably by simplifying integration and allowing us to reuse code. It also meant that going forward, Ario could use a lean engineering team to maintain their various code libraries.

To integrate Ario’s codebase with the S9 Digital UI, a full audit and testing of interactions were performed. The result was a smooth, responsive, and natural-feeling control to the lighting and alarm systems. One example of the synergy between hardware and software is the app’s transition into a “night mode” that resembles a traditional alarm clock. This transition happens gradually: the lights begin to dim, and the app begins to remove distractions from the user’s view in addition to reducing its own brightness. The app is synced to taps on the screen as well as an accelerometer in the device to give the user instant access to the app’s features. As a result of S9 Digital’s work, not only did the app provide an attractive and intuitive interface for users, the LED lights and alarms were working better than ever.

Remote Access

Ario’s customer trials would occur in many hotels simultaneously, so they needed the capability to immediately provide remote solutions to any problems that may arise. To accomplish this, we set them up with Hexnode, a cloud-based device manager. Hexnode allowed Ario to restrict access to the Android tablet by placing it in a kiosk mode that would limit user error. It also enabled Ario support staff to forcibly restart devices remotely to resolve issues.

An important part of the trials would be collecting data in real time to monitor bugs and track the full life of user interaction with the app. S9 Digital implemented data collection on the app and set Ario up with Papertrail, a cloud-hosted logging service, which would keep the Ario support team alert to error logs and user interaction on the device. Papertrail served as a quick intermediary solution that could easily be replaced with a full cloud database. Cloud services enable a company to incrementally scale up their data collection based on what time and funding allow.

Cloud Architecture and the Next Phase

Once a product has access to the internet and is collecting data, the possibilities are endless. Ario now provides more than just lighting experiences: it provides control and analytics for the entire hotel’s lighting system. Built alongside the tablet app was an admin dashboard website that will serve as the central hub of information on the tablets and lights. When Ario is ready to upscale their operations, data already being sent to Papertrail can easily be pointed to Ario’s Azure Cloud Platform, which provides a wealth of services for securing and analyzing data. Given remote access to their tablets and the Android store, Ario can push software updates and automatically provision new devices. Ario can integrate its customer-facing app, LED light hardware, web admin dashboard, and data collection into a unified IoT platform to meet the full needs of the evolving hotel industry.

Conclusions

S9 Digital was able to architect cloud software solutions to meet Ario’s needs for the right price, on the right timeline. Both the client and their customers were thrilled with the results, and the Ario enterprise is positioned for success as it scales up its business in the future.

Dale Dell’Ario, CTO & Co-Founder at Ario stated, “S9 Digital has worked with us for more than six months on tablet app and cloud infrastructure projects. They have been immediately productive and efficient, providing solid solutions quickly. We consider them to be a valuable development partner and recommend them highly.”

Undeniably, the emergence of the cloud has enabled organizations to innovate and market their products/services easily, without breaking the bank. Its innate characteristics, like scalability, connectivity, and on-demand provisioning, have made it an ideal platform to build applications and manage IoT.  S9 Digital can utilize our knowledge in cloud architecture, mobile development, and UX design to build IoT platforms and system across a multitude of industries.

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