Elaborate web and mobile apps for automated irrigation front runner

Reviving a complex legacy system to help the client tackle the modern-day challenges

Client and Business Goals

The client is an Israel-based leader in smart monitoring and irrigation control solutions for homeowners and agriculture giants alike. A global market player with 40 years of experience, the company has become a true trend setter in the smart irrigation industry. Our client is an established manufacturer of a wide range of top-quality irrigation products: from standalone battery-operated controllers to multi stations, to wireless irrigation and fertigation systems and more.

The client approached us to start the total revamp of their legacy Internet-based system for public landscaping and irrigation. The application did not allow to add new features, was hardly maintainable and hampered overall company’s growth. Thus, because of our proven success record in mobile development and legacy app maintenance and modernization, AIS Novations was a perfect candidate for the big app stabilization project, followed by new features growth soon after that.

Solution

The AIS team readily embraced the challenge and embarked on the endeavor. The project implied a comprehensive upgrade of the mobile application and the website that the client’s customers utilize to operate their irrigation systems remotely. Both applications connect via a controller to the automated irrigation system that may spread along for thousands of hectares dotted with sensors. The sensors operated via the controller send data to the server, where they are stored and processed to be later sent to the application.

The controller is wirelessly connected to the web application which allows:

Remote settings and irrigation programming
Live irrigation monitoring and operation control
Alerts handling
Irrigation logs
Thorough testing of the irrigation system.

The distributed team comprising both the AIS and client’s talents chose the Agile methodology to work on the project. The PM is on the client’s part and is the main point of contact for the AIS team. Short daily meetings enable dynamic project advancement and keep all the members of the distributed team well informed of each other’s progress.

Challenge

Super complex system logic and the bulky legacy system made our two major and well-interconnected challenges to overcome.

The legacy system was initially designed to enable fast market entry. That is, the client prioritized affordability over reliability at some points. Instead of native apps, which would be a more efficient, yet costlier option, the client opted for React Native development. The distributed team put great effort into fixing the legacy bugs to revive the web app and bolster the performance and reliability of the mobile application.

Our team was on a steep learning curve at the project initiation phase as the complex system logic required some in-depth studying. The irrigation system boasts great flexibility. It may serve households of a modest size or stretch for many miles across the agricultural lands all at the same time, while a single valve may have up to 40 states (watering, filtering, fertilizing, irrigating, on pause, disconnected, etc.). The AIS team managed to learn the ins and outs of the versatile irrigation system and developed the superfunctional application that enables easy remote control of the medium to gigantic systems alike with dozens of useful features available to the users (watering / fertilizing / irrigation control, live monitoring, standard and advanced settings, etc.).

Tech Stack

JavaScript
React Native

Angular
Socket.IO

Redis
AWS

AIS Team

3Developers

Customer location: Israel

Project duration: 1.5 years

"It’s been three years that AIS has been delivering great software to us. They are a reliable and trusted partner. The services they provide are top class in 100% cases. We trust them with virtually any tasks, as we know their developers can do it. They go far and beyond in meeting our needs at every project phase and never missed the set deadlines. The company's management shows great commitment to results and always does their best to provide outstanding talents for their customers."

Team LeadIsrael-based smart irrigation company

Results

The system is being actively developed during the months of our successful partnership. Not only did we add a great deal of new functionality, but also reduced immense technical debt that otherwise would cause the project to stall to a halt and impede company’s growth. Although the customer chose against native application, the tech team makes a brilliant use of the existing tech stack to deliver a smoothly running and functional product to the end users.

Our engineers have shown great commitment and well-honed tech skills. Together with the teammates from the distributed team, we revived the legacy software and brought it back to the right development track. Impressed with the AIS team performance, the customer entrusted us with another project of the same type soon after we stabilized the app.