Mission-Critical Software for an IoT Startup

Sutro

Smart Monitor App

Residential pool (and spa) owners currently spend an average of 40+ hours and $1,500+ annually on maintenance. Sutro's mission is to make water management simple, safe, and seamless by allowing customers to measure, monitor, and get treatment recommendations for their water using the e Sutro Smart Monitor. With the Smart Monitor, customers simply drop an IoT device into their water and receive quality information and management instructions. Sutro tapped Grio as an innovation partner to build the app that connects to their device, which is a core functionality of their business.

THE CHALLENGE

Coordinate Seamlessly with a Complex Team

Sutro is an early-stage startup with a small core team (whose primary skills include mechanical engineering and chemistry) supported by outsourcing partners in essential areas like manufacturing, electrical and firmware engineering, and industrial design. The Sutro mobile app would serve as the primary touchpoint for the user, and the backend for the app would also support their recommendations engine and drive the hardware. With this in mind, they chose Grio to be a central part of their team to lead technical decisions across other teams. Grio’s integrated approach and deep software expertise made us a perfect fit for the project.

The team was impressed with the work that’s been done and is excited for the future! "

Ravi Kurani

Founder and President, Sutro

OUR APPROACH

Agile Development and Scalable Testing
Frequent Digital and In-Person Communication
Focus on Customer Feedback

Leveraging the agile development methodology, Grio owned the definition, prioritization, and implementation of customer requirements. We created an automated testing process that is repeatable and scalable across releases. To build trust and maintain alignment with six teams dispersed across three continents, we communicated daily through digital channels such as Zoom and Slack and held weekly in-person sprint iterations with Sutro’s local staff. In addition, Grio’s in-house design team translated beta customer feedback into user flows for the development team to work against.

RESULTS

Performant, User-Friendly App

Sutro now has a performant, user-friendly iOS and Android app that allows users to control and monitor their Smart Monitor. Grio delivered functionality to support the complex connected hardware, along with an integrated UPC scanner that allows new customers to identify pool chemicals by their barcode. We also developed a smart chemical recommendation engine, Sutro AI, which is internal to Sutro’s App ecosystem. Finally, we provided the Sutro team with meticulous documentation for APIs and hardware flows.