Ecotech Mobile App Development Case Study

Zerofy. Zero Carbon Lifestyle App

Mobile development, UX/UI research & QA for Zerofy

Project Highlights

Raised $1.2 million in funding to boost zero-carbon lifestyle in households.

Resolving the ecotech application overload with cloud migration service.

Data preserving while performing huge data migrations within startup growth.

Accurate emissions measurement via real-time connection to smart devices.

Industry: ClimateTech

Location: Estonia

Tech Stack:

Swift
Firebase
CoreLocation
Miele API
Nordigen API
Zaptec API

Timeline: Mar 2020 - Sept 2022

Platforms: iOS

Offered Services: Solution Architecture, Mobile App Development, Cloud Migration

Product overview

Social responsibility

The climatetech project is designed to lead a zero carbon lifestyle in a world concerned about climate change, lots of CO2 emissions, and the warming effect.

The app mission

Average session duration vs. 2.4 min average on the news site alone.

A self-monitoring app

Measures household’s carbon emissions and shows the user the global effect in action.

Target audience

The carbon measurement app is popular among eco-activists who want to make fewer carbon emissions.

App monetization

The app is free. However, there are plans to sell solar panels and other eco-friendly items.

The founders

Individuals with a personal climatetech startup who are fully engaged in the product development and were occasionally involved as a project manager, tester, or engineering mind.

TECH DEEP DIVE

The app was overloaded

The application integrates many services that we constantly monitor and collect data from. For example, we parse transactions in order to determine the approximate expenses and the amount of carbon emissions occurred from them.Given this fact and numerous calculations performed within an app, it results in a huge app load, major battery consumption, and many other issues.

Solution

We have decided to put all these things into the cloud to make it work smoothly and perform at high speeds. Firebase functions became our primary toolset. Complex computing got transferred to the cloud as well. So everything is calculated in the cloud, then the results are entered into databases and the application receives ready-made data.

Emissions calculations

To provide real value to users, the eco measurement app needs to calculate emissions as accurately as possible. We were required to define the viable ways to do so, test all approaches and implement the best ones that fit our objectives.

Solution

We implemented a direct connection with smart devices. For instance, Miele devices provide data over an IP connection related to the consumed water and electricity that help to calculate carbon emissions. Additionally, if users launch devices at a certain moment of the day, the application can inform whether it is a rather busy period and recommend a more appropriate timing concerning a less power load, fewer emissions, and cheaper tariffs.

Preserving data from erase

We actively develop the ecotech product and something may change within the process. But the database must live, constantly change and collect data in order to gather full-fledged statistics in a year, month, etc. so that ecotech startup owners could present their results to potential investors, show the available data and raise another funding for further startup growth.

Solution

Given the chosen architecture, we use databases with a local row. It allows us to connect it to various services, perform huge information migrations and save all data without a problem.

Startup requirements are constantly changing

Everything gets changed over time just like in a regular startup. Once founders or our team find a cool service, we strive to get it tested but it results in numerous changes within a product.
For example, we have tried to connect a Revolut payment solution, but they have demanded so much that it turned out to be inappropriate.

Solution

We have used various fresh tools that move the ecotech product further but require us to step into a code review to understand its intricacies. For example, we have used the Nordigen service which allowed us to connect with various banks. Another service allowed us to quickly recognize the types of activities performed by an app user.

The OUTCOME

The Uinno development team helped to develop a climatetech app from an idea into a well-functioning product that continues to grow and build ambitious plans.

‍

A well-structured and highly-focused approach allowed our app development team to implement an accurate carbon emissions measurement and integrate automatic calculations directly from smart devices. To decrease the load on the application itself, we have decided to migrate all complex computing to the cloud. Despite the riskiness of such a procedure, our DevOps engineers have managed to preserve all user information and ensure the highest standards of data migration security.

‍

Thanks to the highest quality of provided services by Uinno and thorough dedication of our app development team, the ecology preserving app has managed to raise funds of over one million US dollars for its further development within just 2 months after its launch on the market.