Server-Side and Mobile Development for the First Social Robot
CLIENT
Jibo
INDUSTRY
EdTech
Learn how a team extension at Waverley developed server-side
"Learn how a team extension at Waverley developed server-side, iOS & Android apps and security and data protection solutions for the first social robot."
Waverley has partnered with Jibo for over two years as the primary technical partner for developing server-side infrastructure, native mobile applications, and quality assurance for the first social robot for the home. Working across three specialized teams, Waverley built a scalable microservices architecture, created native iOS and Android applications with advanced security and encryption, and implemented comprehensive QA testing. The partnership demonstrates Waverley's ability to be a long-term technical extension for hardware companies entering the AI and IoT space.
Jibo
Jibo is the first intelligent robot for the home, designed to be helpful, friendly, and accessible to families. Founded in Boston in 2013, Jibo created a new category of personal robotic assistants that can speak, see, hear, and respond conversationally. The company needed experienced engineering partners to transform their vision into a reliable, secure platform that could scale across thousands of households.
Project Analysis
Jibo faced multiple interconnected challenges that required specialized expertise:
Architectural Complexity: The company needed to build a reliable, scalable services infrastructure that could handle real-time communication between robots and mobile devices while remaining flexible for future platform evolution.
Cross-Platform Mobile Development: Supporting both iOS and Android required native implementations optimized for each platform while maintaining consistent user experience and brand identity.
Security and Privacy: As a consumer robot operating in homes, security was paramount. Privacy protection and compliance with regulations like COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) required innovative approaches to data encryption and access control.
Performance Requirements: Managing real-time communication between hardware and mobile clients at scale demanded careful attention to performance optimization, low-latency messaging, and load handling.
What We Delivered
Waverley assembled three specialized teams—server-side/backend, mobile, and quality assurance—following Agile methodology to deliver a cohesive platform.
Team Structure and Duration
The engagement spans over 2 years with a dedicated team of 12 specialists, demonstrating Waverley's capacity for sustained, deep partnerships on complex hardware products.
Backend Architecture and DevOps
Waverley implemented a Docker-based microservices architecture designed to provide flexibility and scalability as Jibo's platform evolved. Key architectural decisions included:
Microservices Approach: Each service is fully autonomous, enabling independent scaling and reducing coupling between components.
Containerization: Docker containerization ensured consistent deployments and simplified infrastructure management.
Cloud Infrastructure: Amazon cloud services provided the foundation for load balancing, auto-scaling, disaster recovery, and centralized management of user accounts, logging, and monitoring.
Continuous Integration/Deployment: Waverley automated the entire development pipeline, reducing manual processes and accelerating feature deployment cycles.
Mobile Applications
iOS Application: Built with attention to performance (60+ FPS), the native iOS app (iOS 9+) supports robot onboarding with WiFi setup and family management, real-time encrypted chat with cross-device state synchronization, and a media gallery for robot-captured content and conversations.
Android Application: The Android app (4.3+) features custom UI components, advanced image-editing tools, intuitive tab-based navigation, and state preservation across tab switches for consistent user experience.
Cross-Platform Coordination: Achieving feature parity while respecting platform conventions required careful design, including handling encryption differences between iOS and Android and synchronizing real-time updates through push notifications, long polling, and pull-to-refresh mechanisms.
Security and Privacy
Waverley implemented multiple layers of security to protect user privacy and comply with regulatory requirements:
Encryption Strategy: Communication protocols based on Amazon security libraries were customized to ensure end-to-end encryption for all content captured by robots and mobile devices.
COPPA Compliance: Engineers devised an innovative approach preventing servers and network providers from accessing content, with encryption keys generated and shared only among household members.
Data Access Control: All encrypted messages and media are stored server-side, with access restricted to robot owners and family members through cryptographic mechanisms.
Quality Assurance
Comprehensive QA coverage across multiple stages:
Requirements Analysis Stage: Detailed requirements review and usability testing before development began.
Development Stage: Functional, regression, and exploratory testing after each code change; compatibility testing across devices and platforms; performance and load testing to identify bottlenecks; API/integration testing to verify system-wide functionality.
Results and Business Impact
Waverley's partnership with Jibo has delivered measurable success across multiple dimensions:
Long-Term Engagement: Five-year partnership demonstrates client confidence and the value of sustained, specialized technical support.
Successful Product Launch: The platform launched with robust mobile applications, scalable backend infrastructure, and industry-leading security and privacy protections.
Ongoing Operations: Waverley provides Level 2 and Level 3 support, including AWS monitoring, server maintenance, certificate management, and on-demand code refactoring.
Scalability: The microservices architecture supports thousands of simultaneous robot connections and mobile users without performance degradation.
Conclusion
The Jibo partnership exemplifies Waverley's strength in complex, long-term engagements requiring breadth of expertise. From backend microservices architecture to native mobile development to rigorous security implementation, Waverley functioned as Jibo's engineering backbone—enabling a hardware startup to launch and scale a sophisticated connected device platform. For companies building hardware products that require mobile connectivity, real-time communication, and strong security, Waverley's multi-disciplinary approach and commitment to sustained partnerships provide the technical foundation for success.
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