Fixn:
A New Digital Ecosystem for Contractor Services

The Challenge

Their idea was to build an MVP for a solution that would put all household-related help at clients’ fingertips and, in turn, enable contractors by giving them an easier way to do business and providing them with a larger client pool.

One Solution – Three Products

As a newcomer into the tech world, our partner came to trust our input on the project, because they appreciated the fact that we don’t start with the what – we start with the why. Combining their research along with our own, we created a digital representation of the key messages and functionality with a UX/UI designed to incentivize the membership service.

Our challenge was to create a digital experience ripe with customization, ease of use, and security. To that end, we created 2 applications – one for clients to request contractor services and one for contractors/companies to list their services, respond to client requests and inquiries, and earn money. We also built a backend with an admin panel for ease of management.

Thus, the main solution consists of two apps. The app for the clients allows them to

search for technicians by the category of the help needed, distance, rating, price range and the urgency of the request
schedule the service and track the progress
communicate with technicians about the actual issue and describe it with text and images
review and leave feedback for the technician
pay for the service provided via the app

The app for the providers allows the companies or self-employed individuals to

register their company on the platform with a seamless registration flow
add/remove employees and manage the company-wide commission rates
choose the service range provided by the company and respective prices for each service provided
have an overview of the company revenue via the app
see employee activity and availability
employees themselves can use the same app too and accept/deny requests, change availability and so on

As for the separate Admin Panel, it lets

the admins review the registration requests made by companies and manage the overall setup flow
choose the categories of services that may be provided by the companies
choose the locations that the services may be provided at (County level in the US)
suspend/remove companies
manage the commissions for each company separately or overall and review the financial status of each provider company/the app

Services Provided

Mobile App Development
UI/UX Design
Quality Assurance
DevOps
Project Management

The Solution

The end product was designed as a means to simplify the complicated process of healthcare, similar to Alexa and Siri, but focusing specifically on healthcare. It covers essentially everything:

Medication and appointment reminders
Drug recalls
Medicare benefits
Initiating emergency calls
Locating key facilities and services
Renewing prescriptions

Many elderly patients have caregivers, which is why the virtual assistant also has the option to inform caregivers on when or whether the patient has taken their required dosage of medication, what appointments the patient has coming up or has missed, etc.

The mobile app provides for the easy and secure setup and management of the voice-activated assistant. To use the device, you set up a Virtual Household, to which new users can be added upon registration. Through the app, you can then create roles (e.g. caregiver, care receiver) and assign the appropriate permissions to those roles to be able to perform this or that action.

Product Overview

All in all, in the process of our ongoing, long-term partnership with our client, our team has managed to build a comprehensive software tool, that comes with the following technical features and functionalities:

Mobile Applications and IoT Device Setup: To ensure seamless integration and user-friendliness, we created a mobile application capable of managing system information and IoT device setup. The application would allow users to connect their IoT devices to their user accounts by leveraging Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology, establishing a direct connection between the mobile app and the IoT devices. Additionally, we implemented an alternative remote setup process that utilized the 4G cellular network, enabling users to interact with their smart devices even when out of BLE range.

Speech-to-Text Functionality: To enhance user convenience, our solution incorporated speech-to-text functionality. The mobile application processed user speech, formulated queries, and transmitted them to our cloud-based healthcare assistant. The assistant then provided the necessary information, which was converted into speech and relayed back to the user through the application.

Voice Training Solution: Recognizing that IoT devices may be used by multiple individuals, we implemented a voice training solution. This process enabled users to teach their smart devices their unique voices, allowing for personalized responses. By recognizing individual voices, the devices could provide customized answers and tailor recommendations to specific users. This feature is also color-coded in the device, meaning that each person’s voice activates a certain color in the app.

Integration with Smart Home Providers: Understanding the importance of a unified ecosystem, we integrated multiple smart home providers into the mobile application. This integration allowed users to manage and control their IoT devices alongside their existing smart home devices, providing a seamless all-in-one solution.

Alerting System: To ensure timely and critical notifications, we developed an alerting system using push notifications. We equipped our client’s IoT devices with the capability to send push notifications to users' mobile and IoT devices, notifying them of important alerts such as medication reminders, vital health updates, or emergency situations.

OTA Firmware Updates: To maintain the performance and functionality of the IoT devices, we implemented an Over-The-Air (OTA) update solution. This allowed us to remotely distribute and install new firmware versions on the devices, ensuring that users always had access to the latest features and improvements.

Smartwatch Application: This features an embedded Android OS launcher application (system user interface) for smartwatches with special emergency abilities and a special healthcare functionality. Since the application is embedded into the Android OS as an admin app, technically, it aims to solve a lot of challenges related to Android OS which are not common in usual Android applications. With its user-friendly UI, the app also monitors the users’ step count and heartbeat with the option to place emergency calls with the users’ location report.