GlowStone Lighting Plus

GlowStone Lighting needed an easy to use way for their customers to interact with their permanent outdoor lights. Working closely with the client, we developed the GlowStone Lighting Plus (GSL Plus) application.

After our initial competitor analysis, it was obvious that the market is full of overcomplex and challenging user experiences. We identified to strong requirements for LED applications: easy scheduling and live updating.

We designed GSL Plus as an LED scheduler with a simple and established user interface approach inspired by Google Material Design and the highly functional and intuitive Google Calendar. The application allows for a high level of granular control, but aims to make it easy to play with your lights, live, and schedule different lighting patterns.

The playful design by Natalia Kataoka was created to be approachable and inviting; a quick and easy way to distinguish GSL Plus from the austere and utilitarian/ tech competitors. Illustrations and bright colours were used to tie the user interfaces to a consistent theme and keep the human-feel.

After extensive functional prototyping in Figma the application was built in React Native. The application connects various web-services with a custom hardware controller and an ESP32 based server. The project is fairly unique in it's use of services such as AWS Amplify, Cognito and DynamoDB to connect to physical lighting.