UX UI Design · Smart Home Platform · iOS Product Design
Control the home without adding complexity.
HAVEN is a premium iOS smart home platform designed to help residents manage lighting, climate, security, energy and household access from one calm, unified interface.
Smart home products promise convenience, but the experience often becomes fragmented. Residents move between separate apps, technical controls and inconsistent device states, which makes the system feel harder to trust and harder to use.
HAVEN's product goal: make a high-end smart home feel as intuitive as switching on a light. One interface for daily control, security, energy visibility and household access.
Desk research, competitive review of leading smart home platforms and user scenario mapping shaped three insights that guided the interface structure.
Anchored in one principle: HAVEN should feel like the home itself — calm, considered, and expensive. Inspired by Braun product design, Apple Home, and high-end architectural photography. Dark foundation reduces visual noise; the blue accent means one thing: active.
Every screen covers a key moment in the user journey — from first launch through daily control, security, energy and automation management. Click any screen to enlarge.
The HAVEN design system was built around restraint — fewer colours, fewer weights, fewer components. Every element earns its place. The dark foundation reduces cognitive load; the blue accent always means active or primary action.
| Decision | Problem it solved | UX rationale |
|---|---|---|
| Scenes-first hierarchy | 60+ individual device controls overwhelming users | Scenes abstract complexity — one tap coordinates everything. Power users still have full device access below |
| Biometric on security only | Users feared accidental lock/camera changes | Face ID required for security features only — not for lights or scenes. Friction is surgical, not universal |
| Floor plan navigation | Finding the right device in a 5-room home took too long | Spatial nav matches mental model — users think "bedroom light" not "device ID #47" |
| Energy on home screen | Energy data buried in settings — users never saw it | Live metric on dashboard drives engagement and sustainable behaviour simultaneously |
| Per-member permission profiles | "It's Alex's app" — family members felt excluded | Each user gets a tailored view. Same app, different experience per permission level |
| Dark mode as primary | Bright UIs feel wrong at night — the main usage time | Evening and night use cases dominate. Dark reduces eye strain and matches ambient home environment |
The most important insight from this project had nothing to do with smart home technology. It was about the relationship between complexity and trust. The more devices a home has, the more anxious users feel about losing control. Paradoxically, the right design response is not to show more — it's to show less, more clearly.
The Scenes-first decision was the hardest to commit to, because it meant hiding 80% of the platform's technical capability behind an abstraction layer. But that abstraction is exactly what makes the product usable. Power is not the same as complexity. The best design makes powerful things feel simple.