Award-winning educational medium – PHYWE measureAPP

Increasing digitalisation is affecting all aspects of our lives, including the education system. Our partner PHYWE equips science lessons with measuring devices and sensors to create highly innovative lessons and to get as close as possible to the reality of the students' lives with exciting experiments.

The company has developed a total of over 50 different devices with which, for example, light, speed, conductivity, force and even radioactivity can be measured. The sensors are controlled and read out via Bluetooth or USB.

Although the company already had an iOS and an Android app, the design and functionality were inconsistent and required frequent maintenance. Our partner's desire was to move to a cross-platform solution covering iOS Phone/Tablet, Android Phone/Tablet and Windows Desktop, allowing for further development and scalability.

Before we started implementing the project, we had to decide which cross-platform framework would make the most sense to meet the given conditions.

Developing companion apps for smart devices is particularly challenging as they require robust BLE or USB connectivity on all device embodiments. Therefore, we had to ensure that we made the right technology choices from the start and identified all the features that should be available to users when connected to a sensor.

Accordingly, we evaluated the various popular cross-platform frameworks in terms of specific requirements. While Flutter and React Native allowed us to implement the requirements for Android and iOS mobile apps, this would not have been the case for desktop apps. And although Xamarin was an obvious solution for the Windows 
platform, a web version would have been limited in scope.

Our evaluation showed that a web-based approach with the Ionic framework in combination with Capacitor for mobile and Electron for the Windows implementation would be the most suitable. We were able to verify this conclusion with a proof-of-concept app. 

With our development we were able to create the platform-independent measureAPP, which is easy to use and has a clear and understandable design. In combination with the Cobra SMARTsense sensors, countless measured values such as speed, acceleration, light, current, voltage and even radioactivity can be measured.

The results can be conveniently viewed, edited and analysed in the app, with a precise graphical display. In addition, experiment descriptions are included in the app. Measurement results can be saved and also shared with other users, enabling a collective workflow. The app's features and tools are quick and easy to use, making for exciting yet educational science lessons.

Our cross-platform approach gives teachers and students a unique learning experience whether they use iOS, Android or Windows devices.