Case Study: Roost achieves a scalable, maintainable IoT platform and 4.5‑star mobile apps with PromptWorks

Roost - Customer Case Study

Roost, maker of an affordable “smart” 9V battery that turns existing smoke alarms into connected devices, faced a pressing software crisis: their Parse.com backend was shutting down, their mobile apps were fragile and hard to maintain (two separate low‑quality codebases and poor App Store ratings), and their small team needed expertise in cloud, mobile and IoT. They engaged PromptWorks for cloud, mobile & IoT consulting and engineering to replace Parse, stabilize their backend, and rebuild their apps.

PromptWorks migrated Roost to an open‑source Parse Server on Heroku, rearchitected the backend with Node.js APIs (enabling OAuth with ADT and IFTTT integrations), and rewrote the iOS/Android apps in React Native using pair programming and TDD—dropping to native code only for the audio “chirp.” The results: 70,000 fewer lines of app code, 93% test coverage, an ‘A’ on Code Climate, App Store ratings rising from ~2 stars to ~4.5, easier scaling and lower Heroku hosting costs, and new sales channels—outcomes delivered by PromptWorks that made Roost’s devices and platform far more maintainable and marketable.

Roost

Mickey Nasiri

VP Software