Smart homes that only used to be a fictional scenario in the past are now becoming more real than ever. This trend is expected to take over the average households in the upcoming years. Such homes have two key components, the high-end hardware and the software that connects it all. We will cover the most fundamental steps you have to consider in your IoT mobile app development journey, in this article.
A smart home is made up of multiple interconnected devices. They are all remotely controlled by an app usually. Such devices are part of IoT so they share all data among each other to enhance your overall experience. This is possible through different protocols. However, you need a mobile app that ties it all together. You need to keep a few things in mind when developing an IoT app.
Choose the Purpose
The whole purpose of a smart home app is to enable the user to interact with smart devices. When developing such an app you need to decide on the number of supported devices. Based on your goals, this can greatly vary.
You can create a single-purpose app to manage a single device. They are usually easy to develop and can provide a great user experience. However, they can be quite limiting if the user wants to interact with multiple smart devices as he will need more apps. For such a scenario you need a multi-purpose app that can cover different systems. This will require more development.
Choose the Platform
When creating an IoT app you can either develop it on top of a ready-made platform or you can build it from scratch. An already developed platform has its upsides and downsides. For once, it is easier and often cheaper to develop an app based on an already-existing system. This can provide more scalability and better user experience. However, you will always be limited to the platform’s functionalities.
If you want to create something custom to your needs, developing an app from scratch is your best choice. Such a development process requires lots of time and money but it provides personalized results in the end.
Decide on the Features
Features represent the thing that’s going to power up your smart home app. You need to provide great functionalities while keeping things simple. About half the users consider IoT apps to be too complicated. This might make them avoid your product altogether.
For that reason, smart home apps should be as simple as possible while providing basic functionalities to users. A secure registration screen that ensures data privacy is a feature that must be present in all IoT apps. Access to configuration and an onboarding guide are also essential to give the user a good understanding of the app.
Your app also needs to include different screens to manage all of your home’s devices. Each device should have its page. You can even allow the user to group similar devices, like lightbulbs. If you add push notifications on top of all this your user should have enough features while keeping things simple enough.
Conclusion
A smart home is a complex living thing powered up by different devices. To ensure its functionality you need to develop a high-quality app. You must consider many things when creating an IoT app but, following the three steps mentioned above should represent the bare minimum.
