How To Create A Mobile App For The IoT Industry?
Application development process for IoT development is more or less the same as the process followed by non-connected software development.
It comes with the same elements as any other software development cycle, similar tools, same-ish design standards, and even similar mistakes and considerations for efficient quality assurance.
And still, there are some things which are found specifically in IoT application development. There are several requirements that emerge when preparing for the process of IoT application deployment.
In this article, we are going to look into the ways that must be followed when developing an IoT solution.
The stage of IoT app development starts with understanding how IoT works. Let us delve into the working by looking into the four components that define the working of every Internet of Things solution.
The Pillar of How to Develop an IoT Application: Understanding how IoT Works
An IoT system is made of four prime components:
- Network – It helps in sending data both ways – from a smartphone to sensors and from sensors to back into the device. The network plays a role in linking the devices within an IoT system.
- Cloud – it is one of the most important elements of the IoT structure. It is responsible for processing the data and arranging them. It also saves the efforts of incorporating a physical resource for storing the data in-house.
- Software – It is basically a cloud-based app that gives the functionality to manage and control all the IoT devices connected with the software. It also plays the role of collecting information from the sensors and showing them to users.
- Hardware – It consists of multiple low-energy sensors which work on Bluetooth and connects to the Internet. You will have to choose between a third-party or a custom hardware for deploying your idea.
Now that we have looked into the working of an IoT system, let us move to the part we came to reveal – how to develop an IoT application.
How to Create a Mobile Application for IoT Devices
1. Choose the Best Platform
The first step that a developer would need to take when developing an IoT application would be to choose the right platform that connects both – the application and the component.
These are some of the ideal platforms that have been chosen over a long period of time, like – Thingworx, Xively, and Ubidots.
2. Choose a Prefered Industry
If you go by the IoT trends, the one thing that you will see happening is the adoption of IoT technology across a huge number of industries and sectors. The technology has started making its presence known in the education domain, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, etc.
So, it would be important to first identify which sector you want to serve with your connect solution.
3. Concentrated Focus on User Experience
Irrespective of which type of application you are planning to develop, it is important that you keep the user experience at the top of the list. Generally, within the IoT ecosystem, there are multiple devices, each with their own unique functionality and smart capabilities.
It is important to step into your users’ shoes and draw a journey of how they would interact with the capabilities and the goal they would like to achieve at the end of every interaction.
4. Make Firmware the Center of Your Security Approach
In the case of IoT app development, an application interacts with the device’s firmware. This means that it is very important to give a special focus on perfecting the development and testing of interaction.
In an IoT setup, the hardware is always at risk because of the constant connection with the internet. Thus, it is advisable to keep updating the firmware from time to time to ensure that there is zero scope of online threats.
5. A Sound Data Management Approach
Everything from the existence to the success of an Iot network depends on data. This is the reason why the IoT app developers have to be extremely conversant about data management. Here are the different processes it is made of –
- Acquisition of data – The developers must only allow data from their servers and block all the other unauthorized sources.
- Validation of data – At this stage, it is important to ensure that the data has been cleansed and it is now prepared to be consistent when it comes to merging.
- Storage – The developers must affirm that the cloud is not filled with unnecessary data or served with a poor network service.
- Data processing – This implies that the application must process real-time data, while working around a system that promotes minimum latency.
6. Development of Scalable Apps
The IoT developer you partner with, must keep their focus on developing a scalable application.
Although the mass adoption of IoT is still at a nascent stage, your application must be prepared to match the requirements that will be introduced with high concurrency. While you should not invest in the resources required to make your application 1 million concurrent users friendly from day one, you should, though, ensure that the app has the provision to grow in size when the time comes.
7. A Special Focus on Quality and Speed
Your initial IoT user study research would have shown how important it is for them to have a high quality, speedy solution. While the same is the case with mobile app users, it becomes all the more IoT app users because they almost always use the application to check up on something. It could be their room temperature or their pulse rate. And when they check on something, the end result is almost always action-oriented.
In such a situation, you can imagine how bad an idea it would be to give them a product that is slow and laggy.
Internet of Things, while still at a growing stage, is fast matching the pace to become the biggest next-gen technology. This means that the time is ripe for businesses to work on their connected use case and follow the ways mentioned in this article to ensure their application stands the test of time.
