Designing a mobile app for smart home automation
Empowering users to effortlessly control, monitor, group, and automate their devices with just a touch.
Project Type
Mobile App Design
My Role
User Research, Feature Scoping, Wireframing, Visual Design
Duration
4 Months
TL;DR
The growing use of smart home devices has left users frustrated with the need to manage numerous apps for each device. In fact, 90% of users report annoyance with juggling multiple apps.
To reduce such frustrations from our user's daily life, I designed Ebode. Ebode is a smart home management platform that simplifies control, automation, and energy monitoring. It lets users group devices into customizable scenes based on moods, events, or schedules, enhancing convenience. With a focus on energy efficiency, security, and device autonomy, Ebode empowers users to make informed decisions while ensuring their home’s safety. Our design prioritizes user control without compromising security.
Device Autonomy
Easy Access and Effortless Control of your all your smart home devices in one interface. Switch on/off, edit settings and automate for a seamless experience.
Color-coded toggles for intuitive usage
Devices
Rooms
Scenes
Add and Control individual devices
Control a room full of devices in one click
Create clusters called "scenes" based on mood, occasion, weather, anything and everything.
Automate devices, rooms and scenes based on various triggers
Home Security
Tap into home security and CCTVs to see live footage, reducing anxiety from theft or safety concerns of loved ones.
Energy Consumption
Enabling sustainable choices by monitoring power consumption and consciously use devices.
Family Access
Easy Access and Effortless Control of your home
Manage multiple homes
Add, remove and manage members in your smart home
Ensure only trusted folks access your home by managing who accesses your home
Give different levels of access to different people, as an admin
The Problem
The growing use of smart home devices, each requiring its own dedicated app, often frustrates users as they must switch between multiple apps to manage different devices
90%
Users find switching between different apps to control devices frustrating
#One App for all Devices
6/10
Users are concerned about the safety of their homes when they are away
#Home Safety
8/10
Users wish they were got to know about their device's health.
#Device Knowledge
70%
Users have no means to observe their energy consumption patterns
#Energy Consumption
What do apps in market offer?
Products Analyzed
Insights Gathered
None
of the apps works devices across brands and uses
Only 2
apps let users automate their devices without using a third party integration
1/5
apps let users monitor energy consumption
40%
apps connect to home security systems and/or offer CCTV viewing platform
While some apps offer the features in question, none provide them all in one place. This gap in the market defines the scope of our solution.
Mapping features based on gaps spotted in research
#Energy Consumption
#One App for all Devices
#Device Knowledge
#Home Safety
The four problem spaces identified through primary research served as the foundation for solution development. The features identified to tackle the four problem spaces are as follows
Device Autonomy
Add Devices, Manage Devices, Group Devices
Family Access
Add Family Members, Access Management
Automations
based on various triggers
Notifications
About device health and performance
Energy Monitoring
Energy Consumption data based on time and device
Security Monitoring
Connect CCTVs and home security systems.
E-bode: your smart home management app
Device Autonomy
Manage and control your smart home devices in one place, without having switch across multiple apps
Customize device settings and save preferences.
Onboarding
Easy onboarding and addition of new devices.
Device -Room Connection
Each device is linked to a room, and a room must have a device. A device cannot be linked to two rooms, or none. A room cannot be empty. It should have minimum one device in it. User's can select from the suggested rooms, or create a new custom room as per their wishes.
Device Clusters
Cluster devices on space, mood and however you want.
Scenes
Scenes allows the users the flexibility of creating device clusters based on whatever and however they desire. Multiple scenes can be created within one room.
Rooms
Rooms are suppose to mimic the actual rooms in a home. It groups the devices based on space.
Energy Consumption
Make conscious decisions about energy consumption and patterns by accessing device power consumption.
Home Security
Tap into home security and ensure round-the-clock safety. Save security footage to go over them later.
How did this project help me?
Problem Space
Working on a personal project allowed me to explore different problem spaces relevant to contemporary world.
User Research
Conducting user research helped me learn how to take interviews without getting suggestive.
Feature interdependency
To create a logically sound app, mapping features together was definitely an educational process for me.
Flexible Design Choices
Letting user's create scene based on any theme made me make decisions which allows customization of scenes.
