Build an Andoid app to support the Aura Frame. The app needed to be able to upload photos, connect to the frame via bluetooth (BLE), and interact with the Aura API. The design followed the existing iOS app.

As the company grew, so did this app. New ideas, new projects, new things to discuss. Bug squashing, code refactoring, code optimization. Release strategies. Adapting to a changing Android environment.

My job was to build this app and assume responsibilities for its maintainance and performance. But the entire team at Aura was great. We were all able to help out with other projects when needed. So I was not the only person writing code for this app.

In the steady state, this app was subject to the team organizational dynamics. This included agile methods. Two week sprints. Two week release cycles. Collaboration with design came early and could go on throughtout the project. Projects were disucussed with all of us and appropriate schedules were drawn up.

• Trello -> Jira -> Notion
• Figma

• Java (95%), Kotlin (5%)
• Job service to run photo operations
• BLE to connect with the hardware
• Activity / Fragment controller based
• Data layer
• Reactive views
• SQLite and SharePreferences for persistant data
• Crashlytics / Firebase for stability monitoring
• Mixpanel
• Glide
• Fastline builds
• Staged rollouts

I didn't record any specific stats from when I was working on this app. Here are some high level, rough numbers

• Total Downloads: 500k+
• Daily Active Users: 20k+
• User reviews: positive, averaged over 4.5 (stars)
• Crash free users: 99%+
• Frame setup rate: 70%+

The Aura Frame is the main product that Aura Home sells.

There are many very talented people involved in the design, production, and programming of the Aura Frame. I was lucky enough to be able to contribute to the frontend of the Aura Frame.

• Increase code flexibility: RecyclerView over ViewSwitcher
• Photo display flexibility: Optionally display two photos
• UX: Menu changes
• UX: Setup WiFi on device

• Ruby on Rails
• Docker
• AWS
• PostgreSQL

Adding endpoints to the ruby on rails API. Every endpoint was thouroughly tested. Making database migrations, adding indicies. Interfacting with AWS. Working with Docker.

Some of the projects:

Update the Android app to target the latest Android SDK and migrate to Firebase crash reporting. Fix some of the large bugs.

Help build a new version of the website using React and Redux.

Build a photo sharing app that interfaced with MediaFire's backend services. Built to design specs. Allowed sharing photos with other Android and iOS devices running this app. Photos were grouped accoring to a k-means clustering algorithm and uploaded to MediaFire's servers.

Help with the maintainance of the MediaFire Android app.