IQWear

Why is IQWear’s mission so important?

According to the data, construction is the second deadliest industry in the US, behind transportation. HSE estimates that, in year 21/22 in the UK, £1.3 billion and 2.6 million working days were lost in the construction industry due to work-related health issues, making it not only a safety issue, but also a financial liability. In heavy industries accidents often lead not just to injuries, but to fatalities. It’s clear that there is much to be done to increase people’s health and safety in the field, because lives are at stake.

How does IQWear solve the problem?

IQWear uses smart wearables to keep construction workers safe and alert their supervisors in case of any accidents. IQWear’s helmet-mounted device registers the position and movement of the workers, sending a mobile push notification to their foremen whenever it detects sudden movement, free fall, or long periods of inaction – all of which may indicate personal injury. The sound and vibration of the notification is different, depending on the severity of the accident, allowing the people responsible to take quick and appropriate measures to rescue their teammates.

Accompanying mobile app allows foremen to access data about all their teams and individuals, as well as information whether they are currently wearing their hard hats, complying with safety regulations. In the future it will also give them tools to monitor the overall efficiency of their teams.

That’s impressive! How did Gorrion help?

IQWear decided to work with us as a trusted partner of AIUT – a company with which we’ve delivered several IoT projects before and which was responsible for the hardware and backend development for this project.

We were responsible for designing and developing an intuitive mobile application for the end users (construction foremen), integrating it with the backend and external APIs. Apart from design and development itself, the process also included workshopping ideas and coordinating works with other teams, automatic testing and quality assurance, as well as development of documentation.

Our whippy designer-developer duo was able to quickly align with and work alongside a larger team and deliver exceptional results under the budget. Aside from ongoing maintenance and periodic updates, in the future we plan on further developing the app.

Project highlights

Product discovery workshops

We kicked things off with product discovery workshops, gathering client stakeholders, developers, a designer and product owner to align the team on our shared goal for the project. After a session of brainstorming ideas, we’ve created user personas and outlined their pain points, discussed advantages over the competitors, and business goals. We also established our development goals and then prioritized workload. Sprinkle in some wireframes and user journeys prepared by our designer and you have a recipe for a smooth development roadmap!

External integrations

The idea for IQWear smart hard hat may sound simple, but like any other IoT project it has a rather complicated architecture underneath. Therefore it required us to integrate the mobile app with IBM Maximo – an external asset management platform. While the platform had some limitations that forced us to readjust our previous plans, we were able to ensure full interoperability.

Agile team

This project opened our eyes to the benefits of working in scrappy teams! We’re used to deploying larger teams (2-3 developers, designer, product owner) to projects, but this time it was just one designer and developer doing all the work. It definitely required them to show off some skills that we knew they have in their arsenal, such as our developer taking over project owner responsibilities. But perhaps even more importantly, it allowed them to work with such speed and harmony that they delivered their goals before deadlines, despite the size of the team!

Testing and documentation

We all know testing and documentation should be an integral part of every development, but we also all know it’s not always the case! This time, our team was able to conduct thorough automatic tests of the application across various devices and operating systems to ensure reliability and responsiveness. On top of that, we also made sure that the application meets all relevant industry standards and regulations, and provided comprehensive documentation for users and technical support teams.