Ome (formerly Ding) are a hardware startup based in London, designing connected products that blend in with your home.
Their first product is a smart doorbell - to help you to feel at home anywhere. It comprises 3 parts:
like a regular doorbell, but visitors can talk to it.
does what it says on the tin, discreetly designed for your home
receive calls or notifications when someone is at your door
Button - like a regular doorbell, but visitors can talk to it.
Chime - does what it says on the tin, discreetly designed for your home
App - receive calls or notifications when someone is at your door
Why? So when you’re down the bottom of the garden, around the corner or away for the day you’ll never miss those important Prime Now fish fingers or that serendipitous visit from a friend.
We worked with Ome to create their first product - a connected doorbell, chime and companion app. Ome Smart Doorbell focuses on the lifestyle of the user, an interior product containing just enough smarts to be simple and useful. The app complements this approach, to feel more like a design journal than a tech app.
Small, simple steps guide you through plugging in and turning on. Video is used to demonstrate exactly what is meant, leaving nothing up to interpretation.
Once turned on, the app connects with the devices via Bluetooth. Onscreen animations keep the user updated with progress.
Ome Doorbell connects to your home WiFi so it works when you're not around.
Before installing in your home, we test by tapping the button and seeing the app react in real time!
This moment builds trust, and provides a satisfying conclusion to the onboarding flow.
(If it's not working, we launch an Intercom chat with a member of the Ome team to resolve the issue.)
Activity - See when people have called. Find out if you really missed that delivery!
Devices - Check the Chime and Button status and battery levels. Mute the Chime using 'Quiet Time'.
Help - Any problem, chat with Ome. Opening a direct channel quickly solved lots of little problems while building brand and trust.
Ome’s doorbell is different from most connected doorbells out there: with an understated design aesthetic and subtle functionality, it feels more like interior design item than a tech gadget. It's marketed towards people who care about how things look, and what they feel like to use - less is more. So it's a perfect fit for us at Nord Projects!
“A design finish that doesn’t scream ‘home security paranoiac with own laser trip wires’”
Alongside the doorbell itself is the companion app, which reflects Ome’s understated design style. Where standard UI features were retained for usability (such as the nav bar), their appearance was softened to fit within this aesthetic.
The app draws heavily on interior design, using a 'Farrow & Ball'-inspired colour palette, to feel like an extension of the home in the hand.
Simple features like Quiet Time are sensitive to the needs of the user, and their young children.
Recognising this, we raised Quiet Time to the top of the hierarchy, making it easy to turn on while the baby is having a nap.
During the setup process, the app and devices communicate over Bluetooth LE to pair, setup WiFi, and claim in the Ome cloud.
When the user is away from home, the doorbell sets up a voice call with the phone. This uses WebRTC to stream two-way audio with the doorbell.
The app interfaces with AWS for cloud functionality, using lots of their serverless stack, including Lambda, Cognito, and AWS IoT.
“We worked with Nord to develop the first version of the iOS app for our products. Our timeline was tight, so recruiting wasn't an option. Working with Nord allowed us to quickly get our product out into the world and into the hands of our users. They were incredibly easy to work with and felt more like an extension of our team than an outside agency.
The core of the work involved setting up our devices on a home WiFi Connection. Nord presented initial wireframes and UX work to map out the user journey. They worked with our creative team to develop an easy to understand setup process, using stills and video of real products and hands to help explain each stage. It established a visual language that was highly successful and which has carried on into future iterations of the app.
We had daily standups between the tech teams to make sure that both Nord and our internal team stayed on track. Prototypes of the app were tested with prototypes of the product, allowing both to develop in tandem as we progressed. Some of the hardware and firmware was still being developed and Nord were sensitive to this, in some cases building around the uncertain areas of our tech stack until they were confirmed. This reduced holdups and allowed us to release the app in good time.
Working with Nord was a great experience and I'd highly recommend them as an addition to any project or team.”
John Nussey
CEO Ome Products
Nord Projects