Afero IoT Platform

As Design Director of Afero, I was integral in the development of an IoT platform that has world-class security and lightning fast onboarding working side by side with product team to launch the company in under a year.

The typically fractured IoT market was dominated by the major tech companies and smaller players-each with their own systems. Major manufacturers of appliances such as Kenmore and Home Depot objected to using Amazon(competition) and Google(ownership of data.) With the Afero prototyping application, it took a day-not years for manufacturers to get their devices connected to the internet. Accomplishments include:

Incredibly fast onboarding UX flow to get Afero-enabled devices connected
Afero fast prototype application plus widget and control component library
Third-party app design assistance for Kenmore Smart, Home Depot Hubspace®. Kenmore shipped over 100 connected devices in 2 years with Afero’s solution
Prototype designs for business development with Honda Power and Kubota

Kenmore Smart App

Wireframes for the Kenmore Smart App
The UX and UI were based on the Afero application prototype app tool. As with Afero, customers can have an infinite number of device added to a smart home, so the system had to be modular, fast and easy to program and schedule. This strawman design was quick to create and Kenmore’s internal staff could quickly show the prototype to upper management for approval. Since the skeleton of the experience was designed to be plug and play, branding had an optimal amount of time to reskin the look and feel.

Wireframe designs for the onboarding experience and capture of a Kenmore device enabled with the Afero chipset. **All Afero-enabled 3rd party apps use this basic navigation template for UX and UI**

Wireframe of the Kenmore Smart Account Creation flow

Kenmore Smart Wireframe with Smart Scheduler and controls

Home Depot Hubspace

Early Design Prototype for Hubspace

Home Depot is Afero’s largest client with 100’s of products connected to their Hubspace Platform. Hubspace was Home Depot’s answer to Amazon Home, their major competitor. Before leaving for my new position at REAL, I created mockups and UX architecture for the business development team.

HUBSPACE basic navigation proposal. Controls and creating schedule programs.

Afero 3rd Party Designs Proposals

During my time at Afero, I was asked on numerous occasions to create prototype application designs for various potential customers. Below are highlights:

**Proposal for Honda Power tools.** Using Afero, Honda was considering tracking telemetry, usage for commercial users of their machinery. The data would be uploaded to the cloud and accessible to dealers and approved maintenance parties for warranty work.

**Kubota RENT Application:** Kubota contacted Afero to discuss the potential to track rental machinery for maintenance and billing. Kubota RENT App on the phone would connect to tractors and upload telemetry,abuse tracking and hours of use for more accurate billing.

I created this technical infographic for Afero to help explain how our connectivity solution would work with the proposed KSAS Agri Cloud. A common ODB port connection uploads telemetry data via BLE to a renter’s phone for billing and service providers.

Afero prototyping tools and applications

The Afero Profile Editor helps developers get their products connected quickly. Afero offers it’s ASR-1 BLE chip set and/or WiFi chip to potential customer hardware and firmware departments. Developers can connect the Afero chipsets to their motherboards and recreate controls on the Profile Editor. My UX proposal to Afero was to make the experience easy for someone like me to use- it should be completely code-free, WYSIWYG and using common web elements.