Group Selfie.jpg From left to right: Name (Github User); Krishna Thiyagarajan (krisht); Ihsan Gunay (Ihsan2010); Pranav Joneja (pjoneja); David Kim (snopidist)

This repo contains all the work we have done as a group. The Enclosure Design file is a SolidWorks mockup of what the OutLite’s physical form will look like. The ‘outlite site’ folder contains all the HTML/CSS/JavaScript required for our beta launch site: http://outlite.brace.io . The presentation folder consists of the slides and the script for our midterm presentation. And finally, the comparison matrix is an as-of-yet unreleased, internal document that is guiding our design process, helping us keep track of what our competitors offer and how our device matches up.

Below is a log of all our meetings thus far.

-Pranav

Meeting Log:

Okay so we've confirmed that we can all type! :)

Here's something I've been working on this weekend: http://outlet.pancakeapps.com Hopefully we can launch it sometime this week so we can get some hype/attention going.

Can we meet on Tuesday at 11am in Room 427? Usually we would all have EID class, so i thought we can use that time together. -Pranav

New site has been moved to http://outlite.pancakeapps.com. All HTML/CSS code for the site is committed to this repo too.

We are meeting on Friday @ 4pm to fine tune the site for launch as well as begin working on our midterm presentation.

-Pranav

Meeting Agenda: -Comparison Matrix -Finish website -Begin planning presentation -Pseudo-Code

Other things to consider: -Logo (L inside O) -remove made for humans

Next Meeting is: Sunday, Oct 19th. Time TBA (Krishna). We will discuss the presentation ONLY.

-Pranav

Comparison Matrix done! Meeting about Presentation.

See presentation files in main repo.

Some tinkering with SparkCore. More details coming soon.

Next Meeting is: Monday, Oct. 20, with Prof. Petrillo at 12 noon in the adjunct faculty room.

-Pranav

Currently looking into Bluetooth Technology development to figure out about price. We might cut down some features for a cheaper product.

-David

Website address has been moved to http://outlite.brace.io, after realizing that Facebook blocked the pancakeapps.com for whatever reason (Probably due to security reasons)

Launched the beta site! Posted links on Facebook with different bit.ly and goo.gl addresses, to analyze who clicked the links.

-David

So far got about 300 clicks. We might want to post the links on other college groups as well if possible, to get more clicks and feedback.

-David

We changed the layout of the site, making it easier for visitors to see the form at the top of the site. This should help us reduce the 'bounce rate' - people who visit the site and click close right away. We want visitors to see more and stay longer!

It's Start Up week at NYU, and we plan to use the new/improved version of the beta site to get even more people signed up for the beta. More importantly, our first round of beta signups are mostly just our friends and they will be more inclined to be nice to us and are probably only interested in seeing what we're up to. We need random strangers who will reflect what the real market looks like.

-Pranav

Many things happenend. I first devised a survey to send to our email subscribers, which was discarded because it was inapporpriate to obtain "real data." Eventually, our e-mail to subscribers comprised three metrics, which were differentiated by the amount of the effort the audience needed to make. For example, first metric was simply clicking the link to our website, while third metric was to send an e-mail to us to manifest interest in our product.

Unfortunately, we did not get what we wanted since we did not get anything for third metric. However, we believe this is largely due to nature of the audience have, thus it does not necessarily assure lack of viability of our product in the market. The audience was mostly consisted of Cooper students, half among them from our class. In order to see how our product would do, I believe it is essential to specifically target the customers who are interested in home automation system and/or novel technology.

While goal of OutLite is to make home automation less daunting and more accessible, it is still a very particular interest. It might be helpful to get useful results if we could find a way to expose our website to people who visit websites for products in the market, i.e., Belkin WeMo, Zuli. Alternatively, we can try the kickstarter to gather the audience. Even though we did not get the most desirable result, we believe this experience will grant us opportunity to improve our future projects, and actually future plans about OutLite.

-David

Link to our Kickstarter Draft page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/743235959/1860446062?token=f9c7f97d