Boxlock

IoT Smart Padlock – no more porch pirates

Media / Technology, Product Design + Development

overview

BoxLock is the first internet-connected padlock specifically designed to safeguard home deliveries and track package status. It’s IoT security for last mile delivery – protecting deliveries at home, at work, and everywhere in between.

industries

Media / technology

services

Product design + development

”By building key parts of the app, Digital Scientists has been critical in bringing the solution to market. Internal and external feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Digital Scientists keeps the project moving through constant communication, providing critical status updates throughout the engagement. Their ability to work well with others makes them a valuable partner.”

BRAD RUFFKESS

founder, boxlock

The Challenge

Given the connected nature of IoT products and complexities in hardware, multiple software applications, and firmware integration, it’s tough to find a single partner for IoT development. BoxLock came to us with an early functional prototype and was looking for a local team to build the production version. To address this challenge, Digital Scientists collaborated with other Atlanta-based teams that specialize in industrial design, electrical, and mechanical engineering so we could focus on what we do best – software design and development of the product.

Digital Scientists designed and built the platform, including native mobile apps for iOS and Android, an admin app, and back-end infrastructure.

our role

UX design
Bluetooth schema
API development
IoT app developmen

platforms

iOS & Android app
Admin backend

deliverables

MVP designs
MVP React Native app
Email scanner to track package notifications
Package delivery status analyzer
V2 roadmap & design

Package delivery tracker

To secure BoxLock protected packages, the application needed timely notification of delivery status so it knew exactly when to allow the BoxLock to be opened. With no functional APIs available from shipping providers at the time of our engagement, Digital Scientists created a robust email scanner to reliably collect shipping updates that BoxLock users receive in their inbox. This was done via IMAP, as well as a tight Gmail integration. For users that prefer to keep their inboxes private, we created a shipping update forwarder solution.

Mobile app design and development

Over a series of iterations, our design and product teams worked together to configure the interface design for the BoxLock mobile app (iOS and Android) and to propose and prioritize additional features for the product roadmap. While focusing on MVP ideas, our team came up with long-term developments and future enhancements that were built into the development roadmap.