Learn how we helped SmartParking's IoT solution scale and remain secure thanks to a serverless, cloud-native application backend.
The Chaos Gears team and SmartParking joined forces to change the way that people rent parking spots. We supported this innovative project by creating a cloud-native solution for a “parking AirBnB” service.
Our specialists built a serverless backend for a Flutter application, enabling our Client to successfully move the project forward. Additionally, the project used a wide range of IoT tools and services, both on the hardware and software elements of the product.
The SmartParking project is best described as a “parking AirBnB” - an application for parking spot management and rental. The solution connects parking spot owners and tenants through the increasingly popular sharing economy - one that revolves around connecting people through online platforms and allowing them to offer services or mutual use of assets, resources, time, skills or capital - without passing on the property rights.
The application allows a tenant to rent a vacant parking spot for a timeframe of their choice: from the short term (for an hour or a day) to the long term (more than 30 days).
The way it works is exceptionally simple: the parking spot owner registers and shares it in SmartParking, and the tenant books it, pays for it and uses it via the app within the selected timeframe.
To make SmartParking a reality, three different aspects of the solution had to be created:
All of the sticking points related to the safety of the app concept were discussed and resolved by the Originators before the project came to us. It was also crucial to guarantee the highest security standards when it came to storing data about users and payments. Our task during this project was to connect all the components of the SmartParking app through a cloud backend that ensured complete efficiency and automation of the renting process.
Development of SmartParking’s backend was delegated to the Chaos Gears team. We turned out to be a perfect partner for the project thanks to our flexible approach to collaboration models, our serverless and IoT technologies expertise and an "easy exit" strategy that allows our Clients to seamlessly take the project over after the initial development.
A team of four Chaos Gears Specialists was dedicated to the SmartParking project. The challenge they faced included two aspects: first, to quickly create an operational prototype for the client to accept, and second, to turn this simple experimental model into the MVP version in the next few months.Â
We were responsible for programming the application’s backend in the AWS cloud with the options of geopositioning search and saving. Additionally, we created a login and sign up elements, a payment system, a gate management device control system and a frontend of the app's administration panel in the AWS Cloud.
The project was completed in 6 months from day one to on-time delivery of the prototype that successfully passed evaluation.
We organized our work and effort on the SmartParking project around monthly sprints.
The project was completed on time and on schedule, it turned out to be a complete success.
We based the solution on serverless components which is our speciality. Thanks to that, the infrastructure cost was almost non-existent during development. At the same time, it shortened the product’s creation time and thus lowered the overall time to market. Instead of spending time on configuration and managing machines or containers, the developers could fully focus on creating the actual business parts of the application. ‍
The product is also automatically scalable and can handle sudden increases in traffic - through AWS AppSync, AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB, it can seamlessly manage a load of thousands of queries per second.
The second aspect worth mentioning is our pioneering usage of Amazon Timestream to aggregate all IoT devices metrics. This allowed us to harvest that data later on, using data science methods in the second phase of the project and improve the way the product works. When we developed SmartParking, this technology was brand new and quite challenging to successfully implement, but our team was quick to adapt and build on top of it.Â
Furthermore, both the backend and the software on the device use a variety of AWS IoT components. This allows safe communication between devices and the cloud, re-transmission of data in case of an unstable connection, cataloging and constant monitoring of all devices as well as providing automatic remote software updates.‍
The devices themselves use 5G technology and Standard NB-IoT sim cards, which allow data transmission in places where the mobile signal is weaker - such as cellars and underground car parking levels.Â
The mobile application for iOS and Android was created using Flutter. This framework allows us to build cross-platform applications from a single codebase. Our participation in the implementation of the solution helped shorten the development time and provide quicker delivery of SmartParking to the client.‍
Lastly, we implemented integration with a leading payment service provider and configured the user authentication and authorization, based on Amazon Cognito integrated with Sign in with Google and Facebook mechanisms.
All project goals were successfully completed and the MVP was delivered on time. After its completion, the research project was evaluated by the Faculty of Transport of Warsaw University of Technology, and its representatives gave it the highest grade.
SmartParking’s launch is scheduled for Q1 2022.
We partnered with Chaos Gears thanks to a recommendation. At the time, we were facing two big challenges: limited time to create a prototype of the application and a lack of resources to write the code for a serverless backend.
There are really few capable companies on the Polish market. The Chaos Gears team implemented the proposed solution according to the schedule, showing us high professionalism and flexibility. Thanks to their expert knowledge and experience in the field of the cloud, specialists built the architecture to handle high traffic in the future. We are currently working together on the final version of the product for launch in the first quarter of 2022.
— Tomasz Kośnik, President, SmartParking24
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