CHALLENGE
A digital tool for users to manage their private spa directly from their smartphone.
SOLUTION
A mobile app that communicates with a wellness area through IoT technology, making its management functional and optimized.
Starpool | Wellness in your home
Starpool is an Italian company that has been designing and creating innovative Wellness solutions since 1945, including saunas, steam baths, and relaxation techniques equipped with IoT technology. The company holds a deep expertise in the field of wellness culture, which it translates into solutions aimed at helping people live better and longer lives, primarily through innovation and technical-scientific research.
IMPACT
The need was to harness the capabilities of IoT technology to allow users to interact with the spa installed in their homes.
Need | Mobile IoT App
In synergy with Starpool’s R&D team, we created a digital product to manage the home spa of their clients with ease and efficiency. By home spa, we mean a combination of Starpool products that the customers can customize according to their needs, choosing from services such as the Turkish bath, Finnish sauna, Mediterranean sauna, and much more.
The goal was to develop an app capable of configuring and preparing the spa via a smartphone, handling:
- Cabin activation and deactivation;
- Settings management (temperature, humidity, lighting);
- Access to usage programs.
Furthermore, the idea was to provide personalized wellness experiences through brain training audio content and suggest wellness paths based on the available products. Building upon these insights from the Starpool team, we developed My W-Place, a mobile App that allows the company’s customers to enjoy their domestic wellness area with total comfort and autonomy. We leveraged mobile development, backend, and frontend expertise.
Development | How an IoT App is Born
We developed the App with Flutter so that the client could quickly have access to two native apps for Android and iOS. The development process was not straightforward as it required creating an application integrated with an existing IoT device, namely a Logbot board that controls Starpool products through probes and sensors.
The App sends and receives data from the board to allow it to control the spa (turn saunas on or off, adjust temperature, etc.) and monitor its operation, displaying the status of the Starpool products to the user.
Communication is possible thanks to a middleware, a module within the App that sends data packets to the board, which are then forwarded to the Starpool devices. Our development team proposed this solution to ensure maximum component reusability: the middleware is agnostic, meaning we can integrate it into other apps that interface with other Logbot boards.
Development | Structuring the Back office
We have also developed a back office to allow the Starpool team to independently manage the content and services that users see in the App. Through Strapi, we customized the backend so that Starpool administrators could manage customers accounts, assign them products, configure wellness paths, and set up available audio content for multimedia playback.
It is essential not only for updating content and services for users but also for enabling customers to manage their own spa experience. Once a user purchases Starpool products, the company creates their personalized account: it is a virtual spa composed of the purchased products, assigned to the user. When the user logs into the app, they will see this virtual spa on the home screen and can interact with their installed products at home. Through the back office, Starpool administration facilitates the connection between the app and the device.
Advantages | Why an IoT App?
Thanks to My W-Place App, Starpool empowers customers to communicate with their spa easily and faster. The user can:
- Read the temperature of each product in their home spa.
- Configure parameters of their products, such as adjusting temperature, turning on lights, and setting intensity.
- Control the spa remotely or from their home’s WiFi.
- Detect errors and malfunctions in the products.
- Add users to their virtual spa as guests, granting them control over the spa functions.
- Schedule personalized dates and times for turning the spa on and off using a customized calendar.
One of the greatest advantages of IoT technology is the ability to interact with products remotely. In the specific case, users who own a Starpool wellness area can activate the spa even when they are not at home, receive notifications about its status, and monitor it from wherever they are.
Thanks to the back office system, the company has full control over the update of content and services that users receive through the app. This enables direct engagement with customers, personalizing the user experience with advice and suggested activity packages.
With My W-Place, Starpool ensures its customers a comprehensive and cutting-edge wellness experience.