Challenge

Striving for Innovation

There are a lot of baby monitoring solutions available on the market. Just a few of them are more or less useful and can cover initial parents’ monitoring needs. But none of them are intelligent enough to distinguish baby cry sounds from the noise and react on it depending on the situation. Evo Inc., a US based technology company, was inspired by the idea of creating a baby monitoring solution with an unlimited range that would allow listening to a baby anywhere and anytime and automatically detect baby’s cry.

To make the idea go live, in addition to the baby monitor device the company had designed, Evo Inc. needed an easy to use mobile solution seamlessly connecting parents to the monitor device. Following the main idea, this solution was required to recognize baby cry patterns to distinguish them from environmental noise.

The software would provide additional value by accumulating and visualizing statistics related to the baby’s quality of sleep.

Project Rescue

Initially, a Chinese development company had been selected as an IT partner for the project, but they failed to deliver the complete fully operating system suffering from lack of expertise and skills required by the app’s intricate functionality and sophisticated architecture.

Itransition’s strong and diverse technology competency in IoT development supported by mature knowledge management and work transition procedures convinced Evo Inc. to involve Rayyan Technology in project rescue and further development. Highly ambitious goals were set for the team ― Rayyan Technology had to implement the fundamental part of functionality and enable hardware device to be connected to iPhone via the Internet.

Solution

Mobile App + Web Service + Desktop Utility

The solution delivered by Rayyan Technology consists of the following major components:

• iPhone/iPod/iPad application can be used both as a monitor and for configuring user account settings
• Back-end Web Service enables integration with VoIP provider, contains audio pattern recognition algorithms and allows alert management
• Hardware configuration utility for Windows and Mac OS X helps users setup the monitoring device using standard WiFi networks
• Website integrated with payment gateways faces the Internet audience and allows monitoring baby sleep via web browser

Ingenious Mobile App

The iPhone application is the kernel part of the solution as it provides the ability to get the information from the remote Baby Monitor hardware device by receiving processed data from the server. The mobile interface can also display basic data related to Baby Monitor status and personal usage statistics information.

The application visualizes the collected data allowing parents to track baby’s behavior dynamics and also keeps them connected to the relevant Internet resources and social network groups providing a way to keep an eye on the latest trends and even get a professional advice.

Extended Server Performance

The back-end server part of the application was developed using Java technology stack. It is integrated with VoIP services provider via SIP and was designed with high performance and scalability in mind to support a large number of monitor devices and iPhones. In addition to the primary task of enabling the communication over the Internet connection, the server part stores and process statistics based on monitoring events. The web server tracks, stores, and graphs baby’s cries and uses the information to provide relevant parenting content based on child’s cry patterns.

Cutting-Edge Technology Web Service

Highly professional Rayyan Technology Ruby on Rails team was involved in the front-end website development.

The website’s functionality enables every customer and baby monitor device owner to register and log in to restricted customer area. Parents can listen to their baby right from the user area as well as set up SMS, email, and call notifications in line with personal preferences:

• Remote devices listening right from the website
• Enabled devices current status tracking
• Usage and events history
• Notifications and alerts configuration
• Graphs and charts
• Active subscriptions and additional services management

Consequently, parents can track their baby’s activity and notice changes at any time. The website users can order paid services and extended subscriptions they need through the integrated payment gateways.

Device Configuration Tool

One of the most challenging project tasks was the configuration of the user interface of Baby Monitor Device. We created a desktop application that allows setting up and configuring the hardware device when it is connected to PC or Mac. The configuration tool assisted users to identify and connect to any available Wi-Fi network and manage network settings.

Results

The team successfully overcame the challenges caused by the multitude of integrated technologies and solutions: Java-based server, C++ and C# configuration tools, SIP protocol, RoR based website, PayPal, and ObjectiveC mobile app.

Several months after the official release more than ten thousand registered users took advantage of the monitor in their daily life. More than half of them ordered numerous additional paid services. As a result, we created not just a comprehensive software solution, but also a highly profitable product for Evo Inc.