Mobile App developer wanted for a small simple control app.

[Jackster]

I am after someone who can make apps for iOS and Android.

We have a product with an ESP32 in it and I need an app to connect to the ESP32 so the end user can control the settings.
All the settings are just registers. Half are on/off while the rest are 0-100 kind of thing.
There is also some data to display in a graph that the product sends back.

Would like to have preset as well for different user scenarios.
OTA updates to the ESP32 software would also be a great feature.

Currently we, only have a single product but we are going to add more to the family so we would like a single app to control them all.
So would need someone who can do long-term work for us.


Not after a super flashy app with fancy graphics and loot boxes. Just a simple app.

If this is something you can help with, please DM me.
Due to the nature of the project, only contact me if you are in Europe, NA or down under.

Thanks!

[wafik]

Hello sir ...
I can program that we need fixed IP from your ESP32 server or we can insert it from mobile application

[visoft]

Hi!

I think your post this is quite old so you either abandoned the project or solved it.
Anyway, I had the same "problem" many years ago with my home automation. (RaspberryPi and Android for Comm+Control). From my experience, exposing any device port to internet is a no-go. What I did, is use a "real time database" to communicate. This real-time db notifies all the listeners when something changed. So RaPi happily pushes stuff in db w/o any pesky script-kiddie knowing about it. No open ports, no exposed IPs. The Android phone would listen for changes, updating the UI accordingly.
The other way around is the same. A process would listen for changes in db, and trigger certain changes in the control code. Like temperature thresholds, start/stop various valves, change schedules, etc etc. Once the message is on RaPi, it is decoded and dispatched to relevant controller.

Drawbacks: The db service is paid (https://www.back4app.com/). Multiple users is another complication, and probably the plan must be upgraded after a while. Maybe a paid MQTT instance could be a communication alternative? But I did not work w MQTT on Android, I have no idea about the quality of libraries there. Also, maybe there are questions with security and message filtering. Don't remember the security policies and access control on MQTT topics.

Backend code is Python and it is quite big and fiddly. For 24/7 I needed to put a lot of monitoring logic. Internet goes down randomly, websocket link sometimes drop silently, etc. A lot of timers, queue inspectors, multiprocessing, watchdogs, etc was needed to ensure hands-off service. Now, uptime is 190 days+. Don't know if ESP32 can handle python and required libraries (async, websocket, requests, some file caching etc). Never coded with it.

I don't know how to code iOS. I coded Android app in Flutter and deployed only to my phone. Pushing it through Google Play was beyond the goals.

This is a looong rant about my choices: https://odysee.com/@ml-visoft:d/08_homeautomation_rants:8
More about me: https://www.visoft.ro/

If you solved the project, I am curious about the details and what technical solutions you implemented.