Overview
A major national home improvement retailer partnered with Keyhole Software to build, enhance, and support a multi-year Internet of Things (IoT) smart-home platform serving more than 100,000 customers. The initiative required deep expertise in microservices, real-time systems, search at scale, and modern JavaScript single-page applications. Keyhole’s senior consultants became long-term strategic contributors—leading architecture decisions, writing mission-critical components, and ensuring stable, secure user experiences across call centers, web users, and device owners nationwide.
Over several years and multiple extensions, Keyhole’s team delivered front-end applications, backend microservices, search infrastructure, DevOps automation, and firmware management tools—supporting the retailer’s vision for a scalable, reliable smart-home ecosystem.
Client Challenge
The retailer needed a robust, real-time IoT platform capable of securely connecting thousands of consumer devices—thermostats, alarms, contact sensors, smart buttons, and more—to a central customer service system. Their goals included:
- Monitoring IoT devices in real time to support live troubleshooting
- Enabling call center agents to view device states, notifications, and alarms instantly
- Creating a scalable, search-capable logging system for agent troubleshooting
- Supporting vendor and internal teams as they deployed firmware updates
- Ensuring rapid iteration across applications used by customers and support staff
- Maintaining rigorous performance, reliability, and security standards
Because this platform was central to the retailer’s smart-home offering, downtime, slow response times, or inaccurate device states were unacceptable.
They needed a team of senior-level engineers capable of delivering high-performance software at scale—and Keyhole was chosen as the long-term partner.
Solution Approach
1. Real-Time Customer Service Single-Page Application
Keyhole engineers built a modern Single-Page Application (SPA) used by 100+ support agents across two call centers. The application provided:
- Continuous WebSocket updates for live IoT device statuses
- Six-tier role/permission-based authorization
- A customer-centric interface optimized for speed in troubleshooting
- Support for climate controls, security systems, sensor readings, and more
The user interface was built with JavaScript, HTML, Backbone.js, Marionette, CommonJS modularity, and Flexbox responsive layouts. This ensured fast rendering and efficient handling of large, real-time data streams.
2. Microservice-Based Backend with Kafka & Java
The backend powering the SPA consisted of microservices written in Java, utilizing:
- Kafka for event streaming
- Netty for WebSocket communications
- Java 8 & Spring Boot for service orchestration
- Cassandra for distributed storage (in later phases)
This architecture allowed real-time updates to flow from customer devices to cloud services to support applications with minimal latency.
3. High-Performance Search Infrastructure
Keyhole developed a reusable search service that became a shared platform component. It was built using:
- ElasticSearch
- Logstash
- Java
- Docker
The service enabled fast, indexed searching across millions of IoT logs and customer events—dramatically improving agent response times and troubleshooting efficiency.
4. Vendor & Firmware Management Tooling
A dedicated Spring Boot SPA was developed to support:
- Firmware uploads
- Multi-step approval workflows
- Release tracking
- Cross-team coordination
This replaced ad-hoc processes with a clean, reliable system for managing device updates at scale.
5. DevOps & Deployment Automation
Keyhole also improved deployment reliability by:
- Automating platform builds through Bamboo
- Running CI pipelines in Microsoft Azure
- Using Docker and Packer for environment consistency
- Implementing integration testing in Gradle builds
These changes reduced deployment risk and stabilized the release cycle, improving confidence in frequent changes to a mission-critical platform.
6. Long-Term Technical Leadership
The project saw multiple phases where Keyhole consultants:
- Led architecture and technology stack decisions
- Delivered high-complexity features across client and server
- Managed sprint planning and ongoing client communication
- Mentored internal teams and elevated engineering practices
- Served as the sole developer for both UI and backend services in the final 18 months
The retailer repeatedly extended the engagement based on the quality, speed, and reliability of Keyhole’s work.
Results
Keyhole delivered a stable, scalable IoT platform used nationwide by both customers and internal support staff—resulting in:
- Improved real-time troubleshooting: Device data streamed live through WebSockets, reducing call resolution times and improving customer satisfaction.
- Scalable architecture for growth: Kafka, microservices, and distributed storage ensured the platform could handle high device volumes.
- Faster and safer deployments: Automated builds, CI improvements, and Docker/Packer integration reduced deployment risks and increased release frequency.
- Accelerated search & diagnostics: ElasticSearch-based search tooling provided near-instant lookup of customer logs and IoT activity.
- Streamlined firmware release pipeline: The vendor-facing tool improved quality control and auditability for device firmware updates.
- Reliable support across call centers: More than 100 customer service agents relied on the SPA daily, backed by live device data and secure authorization layers.
- Multi-year partnership built on trust: The client extended the project numerous times, recognizing Keyhole as essential to the continuity and quality of their smart-home platform.
Conclusion
This multi-year IoT development initiative showcases Keyhole Software’s ability to lead complex, high-scale engineering efforts and deliver durable solutions across front-end, backend, DevOps, and search infrastructure. The retailer’s smart-home ecosystem benefited from greater stability, improved customer support workflows, faster deployments, and long-term architectural leadership—all delivered by a senior U.S.-based Keyhole engineering team.
