The process

A key part of the project was the industrial and mechanical design. Petminda were very happy we could preserve the contemporary, curved shape that we put forward to them early on in the project. 

‘Often concept designs start out looking beautiful but the look gets whittled down as the product is realised. We’re pleased that the final design adds a certain fun and artiness to the product,’ said Blake.

Because this product was quickly going into the field, it required a level of testing over and above what’s normally applied to an MVP. To enable this, we created a CNC machined plywood prototype. We were able to use this while the final fibreglass pods were being made. 

As all the project team members are in the same building and we have a large factory floor, we could do integration testing on our premises. We were then able to quickly make changes to any aspect of the connected system before retesting. As a result there were many opportunities to optimise the user experience.

The solution

From the user’s point of view, the Petminda seems simple but it’s a sophisticated connected system. This is not a typical IoT device but a fully integrated sensor and control based technology.  It contains sensors that collect information on temperature and motion, among other things. But it’s also a live system that’s interacting with a user and a pet continuously, ensuring the welfare of the pooch while processing payments, monitoring pod vacancy, and managing the pod’s environment.

This project involved advanced app and Cloud development using Flutter and Google Firebase and the integration of third party apps including Stripe for payment processing. 

‘The app is brilliant, the functionality is amazing. It was a very challenging project, and it takes a special team to bring a world-class product like this to life,’  said Blake.

The solution as a whole also contains features that would typically occur in a very mature (non MVP) product. For example, the ability to remotely update the pod’s firmware and the integration of a third party application, Twilio, for sending SMS notifications to pod administrators.

Beyond our core services, we also conducted research on Petminda’s behalf, designed labelling in line with their brand, provided training and were readily available to address any issues after deployment.