Designing a seamless air-purification experience inside the iRobot smart-home ecosystem

This project spanned multiple teams and product areas, from app integration to the development of new purifier features. The scope evolved significantly as the product matured, resulting in a comprehensive end-to-end redesign and the addition of new functionality across the ecosystem.

Below are key statistics reflecting the scale and depth of the work involved.

A visual timeline showing the evolution of Aeris and iRobot’s air-purifier apps: from the first standalone Aeris app (2010) to the redesigned Aeris experience (2021), and finally the unified iRobot integration (2023). This context highlights the transition from multiple fragmented apps to a single cohesive smart-home ecosystem.

iRobot wanted to bring its new air purifier into the core mobile app used by millions of robot-vacuum owners, creating a unified and consistent smart-home experience.

‍• Merging two completely different product behaviours (robot cleaning vs air purification).
‍• Redesigning navigation to accommodate more devices without complexity.
‍• Creating a clear, intuitive onboarding flow for a non-robot product.
‍• Ensuring interaction patterns matched iRobot’s design language.
‍• Maintaining UI accessibility and visual clarity across new screens.

The project required balancing hardware limitations, engineering constraints, and user expectations.

I conducted internal and external interviews with participants familiar and unfamiliar with air-purifier devices. The goal was to understand pain points, expectations, and mental models around air-quality products and smart-home control.

Low-fidelity screens were created to validate layout, hierarchy and IA before UI execution.

To support a cohesive and intuitive experience, I created graphic and 3D visual assets used across the purifier screens.
These elements helped reinforce the mental model of “air quality” and provided clear visual cues for states, modes and device behaviour.
The goal was to make complex information feel simple, calm and consistent with the iRobot visual identity.

The visual assets included:
‍• Air-quality state icons (Good / Moderate / Poor)
• Realistic yet simplified 3D device render
• Depth-based shadows and gradients to create a clean and tactile feel
• Mode illustrations (Auto, Quiet, Performance)
• Animations and micro-interactions that support user feedback

To validate the air-quality analytics screens, I conducted usability testing with real users.

The goals were to understand how familiar they were with air-quality concepts, how they interpreted numerical and visual data, and which presentation formats were most intuitive.

Business Impact
• +20% increase in conversion rate after redesign
‍• Higher adoption among robot owners using the purifier + robot combo
‍• Reduced customer-support tickets related to onboarding
‍• More cohesive multi-device experience inside the ecosystem

User Impact
• More intuitive device setup
‍• Cleaner UI with clearer air-quality insights
‍• Improved confidence using multiple devices in a single app

This was my first major end-to-end product project. I learned the importance of consistent cross-functional collaboration, the value of testing early, and how to balance user needs with technical constraints. Working with multiple iRobot teams taught me to handle complexity, communicate design decisions clearly, and iterate fast to deliver a polished and scalable solution.

Future improvements could include predictive air-quality alerts, deeper automation with robot-vacuum behaviours, and AI-based recommendations based on home usage patterns. Exploring ways to unify more smart-home devices within iRobot’s ecosystem would continue strengthening the user experience