Xfinity Home
Comcast and Mercury join forces to keep smart homes safe, 24/7.
Xfinity Home, part of the Comcast Corporation, is a 24/7 professional monitoring service offering a total home security solution. They are one of the top smart home service providers in the country.
We have about eight Mercurians working alongside the Xfinity Home team on a daily basis to add support for new smart home devices, build out new features, and maintain the Home apps for iOS and Android.
- iOS Development
- Android Development
OUR ROLE
- 7-10 People
TEAM
- Ongoing since 2014
DURATION
Impact
4-5x growth (from 250k to 1 million users)
More frequent app releases, resulting in bug fixes making it to users more quickly.
App ratings increased from 3 to 4.5 stars
App crashes have decreased 30%
Challenges
Rapid feature expansion
Comcast product managers are frequently adding new features to connect with other parts of their brand (like voice control, phone services, etc.). Additionally, IOT technologies are changing rapidly, and new functionality and integrations with other providers are added regularly.
Optimizing remote work
Mercury makes up nearly half of the iOS Xfinity Home development team, so it’s important that we maintain clear communication with the Comcast team in Philadelphia. We maintain thorough documentation and transparency and leverage remote communication tools to stay in contact.
Ensuring reliability in any condition
Commands (like arm and disarm) must be sent down to the touch panel residing in a customer’s home. These commands must deal with a range of network conditions, and the app needs to gracefully handle failures and present the most accurate information to users.
Constant codebase management
For half a decade, we have been planning architectural decisions and writing and maintaining a large codebase.
Insights
Network and failure cases
We’ve learned a lot about dealing with varying network conditions and handling failure cases. Network quality metrics were implemented to adjust to a user’s current network. UI is based around showing users the most accurate state at any given time.
Building a lasting relationship
Despite redesigns, backend API revisions, and personnel changes, our partnership with Comcast and the Xfinity Home team has remained strong for over five years.