Mobile App That Tracks UV Levels Gets Code and UX Overhaul

Healthy Lifestyle App

SunSense is an Android and iOS app that connects with wearable SunSense UV trackers via Bluetooth. It promotes a healthier lifestyle by tracking what’s the proper amount of sunlight users should be exposed to.

The app fetches the UV exposure data from the tracker and then matches it with the user profile in real-time to recommend certain actions. For example, if a certain user has been sunbathing for too long, the SunSense app will advise them to find a shade.

Updating and Improving The SunSense APP

Kambu’s team started by assessing the team and preparing suggestions for improvements and fixes. UX improvement and app development ran in parallel to ensure the new version of the app would be both more stable and easier to use.

User Experience

From a list of possible UX improvements, the essential ones were chosen.

The application received a major visual overhaul to make it easier to use and more pleasing to the eyes. 

Code

A main point of attention was clear that a vital feature of the iOS version was not working at all: when the app was sleeping, it didn’t fetch UV levels from the tracker. This was due to two factors.

First, the application was written in Object C, while more and more Swift is favored in the Apple ecosystem. To address this, Kambu’s team considered rewriting the application, but analysis showed the costs outweighed the benefits. 

The solution was a robust combination of both languages where Swift is able to call Objective C methods and vice versa.

Second, the app had not been updated following a new iOS version which changed the behavior of connecting and scanning the device in background mode. That affected the application directly.

It was also possible to follow through with the latest iOS version’s requirements by rebuilding the advertising messages in the code. Kambu’s team also coordinated directly with the programmers behind the SunSense UV device’s firmware to ensure the Bluetooth connection would be smooth.

Overall, the biggest challenge was to understand the structure of the application and the code that creates the views. Updating the Android version, written in Java, was a much more straightforward process.