[HN Gopher] Launch HN: Kraftful (YC S19) - UX Analytics for IoT ...
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Launch HN: Kraftful (YC S19) - UX Analytics for IoT Products
Hey HN, I'm Yana from Kraftful (https://kraftful.com). We're an
analytics product that helps IoT companies make their apps and
displays more usable. As you've probably noticed, everything is
becoming internet connected: home appliances, furniture, exercise
equipment, toys. But it's often done in a clumsy, unusable, or
unnecessary way--IoT toasters, anybody? Hardware companies haven't
yet figured out where connectivity makes sense and where it
doesn't. At the same time, some great use cases are beginning to
emerge: elder care, micro mobility, preventative care, energy
saving, and more. I ran into this problem as head of product at
IFTTT, working with the makers of hundreds of connected devices.
Unfortunately, the apps and displays that control these products
tend to have terrible usability, especially for less technical
people. Hardware companies don't understand how to use data to
track how their products are used or where they have usability
problems, let alone how to fix them. The usability methods
developed at software companies haven't made it into their
universe. In particular, they hardly ever use analytics tools
because those require lots of configuration, and IoT PMs have more
than software and UX on their plate. If they use anything, it's
usually Google Analytics because it's pre-configured. But when they
want to answer IoT specific questions (like where users get stuck
when they try to connect the device), PMs need to export the data
and query it outside of Google Analytics. Most of them don't know
how to do that and don't have time. When I was at IFTTT, I would
hear from IoT PMs that even when they'd sell millions of connected
devices with a recognizable brand, only a few thousand people would
ever use the product as a connected device via the app. I wanted to
help them get to the root of the problem: How many people tried to
connect the device? How far did they get? Which connected features
did users care about most and are those features easily
discoverable? I was surprised that hardware companies, big and
small, couldn't answer such questions. I'm sure some of you are
thinking: do hardware companies really need more data? But often
they're stuck in the worst of both worlds: their product design
enables invasive data collection, while they're not even using non-
invasive anonymous events to improve the experience. That's a lose-
lose situation, which can and should be turned into a win-win: less
invasive analytics _and_ better usability. Our goal is to provide
IoT companies with everything they need to make their products
usable by everyone without collecting unnecessary data beyond
anonymous events. I'm particularly passionate about protecting user
rights. In a prior life, I drove the rollout of HTTPS by default
across Wikipedia and worked with privacy at EFF. As we continue
developing the product, I want to think through how to nudge the
IoT industry in the right direction. Today, we provide a pre-
configured dashboard with metrics that matter for IoT experiences,
like device connection success rate. The dashboard includes
usability recommendations for how to improve the experience based
on the data and industry benchmarks to show how the experience
compares to other connected devices. For example, our dashboard
shows where users drop off when using a device for the first time.
If users struggle connecting the device in the app, the PM can read
about how to simplify the connection flow (like avoiding app
permissions not needed to connect the device and any configuration
before the device is connected). They can track whether adoption
goes up after they make improvements. They can also track how
frequently people use different features in the app and learn where
to move features so the experience becomes more intuitive. If they
need to do a drill down on something beyond our pre-configured
charts, they can create a custom chart directly in the dashboard.
No need to export data or write queries. The dashboard is based on
anonymized events tracked by an SDK embedded in mobile apps that
control the hardware. It does not analyze events from the hardware
itself, like sensor data. We also surface feedback from app store
reviews to contextualize the data. IoT PMs can analyze reviews of
their own apps or other apps from their industry and get GPT-3
powered summaries of common complaints, features requests, and how
users' general sentiment changes in response to app releases. The
idea behind this feature is to give PMs more product insights and
identify areas for improvement without burdening users with UX
surveys or waiting until things are so bad that complaints bubble
up from customer support calls. (Part of this is still in
development and will launch shortly.) I'm excited to get your
thoughts on what we're building! I recorded a short video to show
you how the interaction data shows up in the dashboard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hndsQzowic0. If you have a
connected device app to try out with the SDK, feel free to pick a
free trial on the plans page. Eager to hear everyone's comments and
feedback in the thread!
Author : yana
Score : 62 points
Date : 2022-04-26 13:43 UTC (9 hours ago)
| DEDLINE wrote:
| Are the analytics only on the application side?
|
| We're an eldercare IoT company and I would say the bulk of our
| issues are on reliable pairing and maintaining our network mesh.
| An SDK that I could add and implement either in zigbee2mqtt or
| directly in our Z-Stack coordinator + router firmware would
| probably be the most useful to us.
| yana wrote:
| Had a quick look at what you're building. Looks awesome! Looks
| like you don't have an interface for the elderly individuals,
| so completely appreciate that usability of an app that connects
| hardware is not your greatest pain point.
|
| This is only for the app side (or display if the hardware has
| one) because our solution is focused on making the interface
| user friendly. But there are other solutions for
| troubleshooting connectivity and related issues. Feel free to
| ping me at info@kraftful.com and I can put you in touch with
| folks who work on that.
| DEDLINE wrote:
| Fair enough. Thank you for the response and the best of luck
| to you and your team :beers:
| samstave wrote:
| What are you building in the elder care space with IoT?
|
| I am really interested in this space, and would like to see
| what people are doing.
|
| Thanks
| troygoode wrote:
| This is really clever. There are definitely huge gaps with
| existing product analytics tools once you veer away from their
| primary ICP - just ask any B2B PLG company about account-level
| analytics...
|
| Looks like a great solution for IoT companies!
| yana wrote:
| Thanks! That's a good point. General purpose analytics tools
| can't cover specific needs because that will blow up their
| product and make it even more difficult to navigate. That's
| true when using them in other specific industries as well.
|
| While the IoT industry is pretty broad - home appliances,
| wearables, scooters, etc. - the fact that there's physical
| hardware involved means the apps are used in similar ways:
| connect the device, control the device, read data from the
| device, etc. In that context, pre-configured charts and
| industry benchmarks work really well.
| jaredhobbs wrote:
| Congrats on the launch! There is a definite need for a tool like
| this in the IoT space. As a homeowner with well over 80 connected
| devices, I'm hoping more manufacturers adopt your tool and
| improve their software!
| yana wrote:
| Thanks Jared! I hope so too. Many IoT teams are still shipping
| software as if it's hardware: they develop it once, ship it,
| and move on to planning the next product. This is particularly
| true at companies that traditionally made non-connected
| hardware. Having access to analytics will hopefully make them
| pay attention to where people struggle with the existing
| software and improve it.
| uo21tp5hoyg wrote:
| My first thoughts on the linked video are that a well written and
| followed script would improve it a lot, the flow of consciousness
| thought pattern in your speech makes it pretty hard to follow the
| concrete features and reasons for the product being worth using
| (lots of aa's and umm's, tripping over words, changing topics too
| quickly), it's definitely understandable as it's just a self-made
| video for HN but I found it pretty difficult to follow.
| yana wrote:
| Great feedback! I'll see if I have a moment to record a new one
| later.
| pixel_tracing wrote:
| Also in the analytics space but not related to IoT apps, curious
| do you do use batch or stream processing or combination of both
| in lambda architecture?
|
| Just on a high level what components are you using behind the
| scenes? I ask because I love this work!
| renat_z wrote:
| Renat from Engineering at Kraftful. The MVP has a different
| architecture, but we're in the process of switching to using
| batch processing. For now the main components are Segment and
| BigQuery.
| thathoo wrote:
| Man I really want better analytics and UI for my IoT apps at
| home. Right now the apps we use are in their infancy compared to
| what they could be. I feel like we are in web 1.0 of the IoT
| apps. And the issue is I end up relying on such apps quite a bit.
| For eg I used the awair app to change the ducting for my home
| because of its air quality sensor. Hoping companies like Kraftful
| can disrupt this space.
| renat_z wrote:
| Renat from Kraftful here. Great to hear! Awair is actually one
| of the companies that just started using Kraftful Analytics in
| beta.
| d--b wrote:
| > I'm sure some of you are thinking: do hardware companies really
| need more data?
|
| Right on.
| mortb wrote:
| Rant: Sooner or later some person will use all the data to
| something no good. I predicted some 8 years ago that criminals
| would start using encryption in the same way military does. It
| scared me. Encro happened; Criminal networks using encryption
| to plan murder, smuggle drugs, human trafficking etc. Data has
| been called the new oil, businesses are more and more finding
| ways to refine it. Will it be for their good? Yes. Will it be
| for your good? Just as long as it does not conflict with their
| good? By the businesses giving away features ("the first one
| free"); look at the ever better search results or all the long
| lost friends in social media; you are lured into giving away
| your data because it helps you. The problem is that our
| machines and even business models have become so complicated
| that it is hard for people to know all the logic and data
| flows. Can anyone without a comp sci University degree discuss
| strengths and weaknesses in various encryption methods?
| Journlists, politicians, public opinion? As engineers,
| programmers, mathematicians, nerds etc we don't see the problem
| because a) this stuff is paying our bills b) it's just so _much
| fun_ to use _your intellect_ to conceive _new things_ _no one
| thought about_. All the code I 've written has been
| mathematically proven? (Well...) Of course, I have waited for
| some 20 years for techageddon and _it hasn 't happend_ (that I
| know of?). Can we learn from history? What about mr Murphy, the
| guy with the law? Why is the debate so just...nowhere?
|
| Well, never mind, back to sleep then, take the pills, leave the
| kids at school, wait for the paycheck, make another payment on
| the mortgage. By the way, the kids love the phones, filters are
| so much fun, facial recognition is soo practical. Why would
| anyone be intrested in my emails, phonecalls, age, preferred
| gender, facial patterns, voice patterns, habits, bad habits;
| I'm no politician or famous person. I bet their phones and mine
| are protected by some...kind agency. Social media is way better
| than school. If everyone can find you in your underwear in
| social media, you are so much not just a weirdo, just like
| everyone else. Gig economy is freedom. What was the name of
| that new Russian "rocket" - SATAN, what does that even mean?
| Why can't they just use 7-bit ASCII? Elon's got it all figured
| out for us. People usually don't take opportunities to make
| dishonest money. Don't worry, icy chills may be trained to be
| ignored. The dating app will help you conceive children of the
| appropriate IQ. Those paranoid brain cells are just wasting
| your energy. Life will be so much freer without. We'll blame
| big pharma later and then some network / streaming service may
| use it for entertainment.
|
| TLDR: Of course you already know that the spelling of powerful
| in Swedish is kraftfull. Kraftful is so much more fun. It
| translates into power ugly
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