Brainbean Apps

Full-cycle software development company

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Brainbean Apps (BBA) is a full-cycle software company building an infrastructure behind sophisticated hardware products.

BBA’s competences in IoT-related projects include: development of firmware, software, and cloud solutions, engineering the connectivity between the smart devices, quality assurance, user experience architecture and design.

Company has a cross-disciplinary expertise in Consumer Electronics, particularly in the verticals of smart home appliances, health and fitness gadgets, industrial and commercial IoT. The knowledge base accumulated across the business domains enables BBA to handle even the peculiar R&D projects.

Another strong point of BBA is established development and delivery process that results in transparent roadmapping and a product-to-market path within predictable budget and timing.

$25 - $49/hr
10 - 49
2015
Locations
Estonia
Tornimae 5, Tallinn, Harju 10145
+3726640021
Ukraine
Zhilyanska str. 146, Kyiv, kyiv 01032

Focus Areas

Service Focus

20%
20%
15%
10%
10%
10%
10%
5%
  • Software Development
  • IoT Development
  • Mobile App Development
  • Web Development
  • App Designing (UI/UX)

Client Focus

70%
29%
1%
  • Small Business
  • Medium Business
  • Large Business

Industry Focus

25%
20%
15%
10%
10%
10%
10%
  • Consumer Products
  • Transportation & Logistics
  • Healthcare & Medical

Brainbean Apps Executive Interview

Alexey Pelykh
Alexey Pelykh
CEO/CTO
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Please introduce your company and give us a brief about your role within the company?
My name is Alexey Pelykh and I am the founder of Brainbean Apps. Currently, I am managing the dual roles of CEO/CTO.

Brainbean Apps is a full-cycle software development company that helps its clients deliver working digital products to the market. Comprising tech experts and geeks, the company, over the last 4 years, has already helped over 20 clients to successfully launch various products; from mobile apps to cloud platforms to sophisticated IOT solutions. The company’s client base mainly consists of emerging start-ups and established companies.
What was the idea behind starting this organization?
The idea was to launch a company that truly behaved as the trusted partner of the clients - walking hand in hand with them, turning their ideas into full-fledged digital products and, more importantly, serving them at every stage of the software development lifecycle.
What is your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
Our in-house team of developers is central to Brainbean Apps’ business model. Presently, we have more than 20 dedicated developers in iOS, Android and web development teams.
Our developers are engineers, not just coders. Our experts also possess deep knowledge of client’s industry specifications, which, in turn, helps them shape the best possible product within the given resources.

More than anything, at BBA, we adopt a more complicated and in-depth hiring process with a significant focus on hard and soft skills. The candidates are supposed to review codes; next, they have to clear tech interviews, and finally, they have to complete several test tasks. A candidate is allowed to work on commercial projects only after the successful completion of the above tasks.
How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies' models?
Major benefits of an in-house business model are:
- A ready team of developers, PM, QA for a customer project. No need to spend time hiring at the nth moment.
- All communication and work processes in the team are set and tested for productive collaboration.
- We suggest hassle-free trial, T&M model-based, to help the client figure out whether we best-fit their requirements. If not, you can suspend our partnership without any obligations.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive?
Brainbean Apps has extensive expertise in developing software solutions for industries such as:
● Internet of Things
● Wearables
● Smart Home
● Consumer Electronics
● Maps and Navigation
● Social Media Apps
● HoReCa software
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing software.
While determining the time-frame needed for developing software, we take several factors into account. Firstly, we rely on the client’s deadline. It often happens that certain functional milestones should be ready by an exact date of the client’s investment event, conference participation etc. Secondly, we assess the project in much detail, in order, to define how many resources are needed to handle the scope. Thirdly, we take into account the client’s monthly budget limitations in order to decide on the resource allocation. Taking all the three above-mentioned points into account, the time-frame is defined.

Moreover, it’s important to mention here about our 90% estimation accuracy. We provide one of the most detailed project time & budget estimations in the market, thanks to the in-depth research we undertake at the start of the project. This enables the client to easily plan a product roadmap, raise investments and even forecast their profits.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of software?
It depends on the level of complexity of the project. We have experience of handling the web projects requiring from 320 to 9000+ hours of front-end and back-end development.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right framework for developing software?
During project estimation, we assess the frameworks suitable for a certain project based on the following parameters: performance, code complicity, out-of-the-box features, code testing tools, documentation, and community. After analyzing all the info, we define the pros and cons of each assessed framework, of a certain project, and decide which one is most suitable.
Which languages & frameworks do you prefer to use in the development of software?
Main technology stack:
✓ Objective-C
✓ Swift
✓ Java
✓ Kotlin
✓ React Native
✓ React.js
✓ Javascript
✓Typescript
✓ C
✓ C++
✓ AWS Cloud
✓ Symfony (PHP)
✓ Node.js
✓ Nordic
✓ nRF52
✓ GraphQL
✓ Open API
✓ Google Cloud
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of software?
Before deciding the cost of software we thoroughly evaluate the following points:
- level of complexity of the software that should be developed
- project duration
- types of tech staff that should be involved in the development process
- number of efforts needed for all development and non-development activities such as sprint organization, demos, daily meetings etc
- engagement models for the project - DDT, TNM etc
What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients? Is it Pay per Feature, Fixed Cost, Pay per Milestone (could be in phases, months, versions etc.)
In BBA we have 3 main payment structures: T&M, DDT, and Fixed Price. T&M stands for Time & Material and it means that the client pays only for the time and materials our team spends on working on your project during a certain period (usually 2 weeks). The scheme is flexible: we roughly estimate the scope, assign developers to work on the project and proceed with the implementation. Under this approach, new features can be added along the road, priorities can be rearranged - i.e. you have more control over the project in advance.
The second scheme is DDT. DDT means a client hires a team of our specialists and has them at their disposal, in return, for monthly fees.

For example, the client can book 1 iOS developer, 2 Android developers, 0.3 QA specialists and 0.3 Project Manager, for say, a quarter, and during this quarter the allocated team devotes a strictly specified amount of time to the booked project.
The third scheme is the Fixed Price. It means that the client is purchasing a project “turn-key”. We analyze the requirements, thoroughly calculate the amount of time (and money) needed to implement all the features, request any resources we find necessary (UI, texts, more detailed feature descriptions, etc.). After that we “freeze” the scope, define milestones and proceed until the project is complete according to those initial requirements. No scope adjustments or new feature requests are possible under this scheme. Bug fixing is included.
While assessing every project, we recommend to the client the scheme that best suits the project scope.
Do you take in projects which meet your basic budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?
BBA takes in projects that start within a minimal range of 125 hrs or $5000; this comprises all the workings that should be made on the project. Still, the projects of this scale are quite seldom for our company, since we are more focused on long-lasting large-scale projects.
Additionally, a very important criterion for BBA before taking over the project is to get a confirmation, stating that the project does not contradict with the values of the company and really brings additional value to the users.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2018?
The minimum price of the project has been $5000 while the maximum price of the project in 2018 has been $494207.
Kindly share your feedback on how GoodFirms has been doing so far in increasing your visibility among potential clients.
We were very pleased with the GoodFirms’ collaboration in 2018. Brainbean Apps received valuable leads from GoodFirms’ platform. From our point of view, everything was great, from communication to the attitude of the support team.

Brainbean Apps Clients & Portfolios

Kwilt
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Kwilt
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$50001 to $100000
50 weeks
Travel & Lifestyle

Description: Kwilt is a device that provides a cloud-alike media storage aimed at helping users organise the large filesets from DSLR cameras, GoPro, drones, and phones, with limitless storage extension, user-friendly navigation and secure access to the data from anywhere.

About the Project

The project started in March 2018, and it is still ongoing.
Initially, the client had an issue with the speed of the photo upload to the cloud – it was too slow. We speeded it up. After we completed the test task and fixed the problem with the photo upload speed, the client continued working with us.
We were asked to perform a classic project rescue service – to fix and improve the apps.
Now we fix and improve the apps.

Scope:  

  • Android App
  • MacOS App
  • Windows App
  • Quality Assurance strategy

Value:

  • Project rescue: for Android app (speed of delivery timeframe)
  • Download speed
  • View speed
  • Easy to navigate

Technology stack

ANDROID

  • Java, Kotlin
  • Architecture - MVP /MVVM
  • Crash reporting - Crashlytics
  • Deployment - Firebase
  • CI/CD
  • Butterknife
  • RxJava 1
  • RxJava 2
  • Realm
  • Retrofit + OkHttp
  • Multithreading
  • Glide

MACOS

  • Development environment: Swift4 + xCode
  • Version Control: Git
  • Patterns: MVP, Singleton, etc.
  • Internal Storage: Core Data
  • Finder Extension + XPC interprocess communication
  • Libraries: OSXFuse(Virtual Drive), Alamofire(networking), Swinject(Dependency Injection), Appkit, Foundation
  • CI (Jenkins)

WINDOWS

  • NET 4.7.2 (it is planned to add .net Standard 2.0)
  • Winfsp
  • Entity Framework
  • SQLite.CodeFirst
  • System.Data.SQLite
  • WCF
  • CefSharp
  • LightInject
  • Newtonsoft.Json
  • RSG.Promise
  • Rx.NET
  • System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Unsafe
  • System.Threading.Tasks.Extensions
  • System.ValueTuple
  • VC++2013
  • VC++2015

PROJECTS

  • Libraries
  • Console application
  • Windows Service
  • WPF
  • WinForms

API DOCUMENTATION

  • docfx
Email Analytics
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Email Analytics
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$100001 to $500000
100 weeks
Productivity

Project description

Email Analytics is a real-time analytics tool for corporate Gmail accounts that helps organisations track the team’s email performance, analyse productivity, and gather the key team’s metrics on the comprehensive dashboards.

App Overview:

The product works as a browser plugin that places an icon in the upper right corner of Gmail. The analytics part is customizable, allows setting up regular reports and sending them to specific emails.

Metrics gathered:

  • Number of sent/received emails

  • Email traffic

  • Average word counts

  • Average response times

and others.

Value Added

  • Implemented background data loading through Gmail API in multiple flows, so the web app works smoothly even with extremely huge massives of data

  • We helped architect the implementation of many client’s ideas. For instance, the mechanics of the trial period or team access, or of the coupons that were required to work with Stripe coupons

  • The mobile version of the app is fully functional, which makes it available and handy for mobile users as well

Kwippy
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Kwippy
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  • Kwippy screenshot 4
$50001 to $100000
50 weeks
Social

Project description

Kwippy is a selfie taking/sharing app that encourages users to post photos to their social media accounts, build followers, follow others, comment on photos, and see what other users did for the “photo of the day”.

App Overview:

In terms of UI Kwippy is very similar to Instagram and allows registered users to:

  • Upload, like and comment photos

  • Share photos to other social media

  • Search for users and photos

  • View leaderboards

  • Get push notifications about upcoming challenges

More features are yet to be developed.

Value Added

  • Brainbean Apps team had full control over the app implementation process and used a lot of innovative practices to make it as smooth, reliable and easy-to-extend as possible.

  • Since the project took more than two years before the first release, our UI/UX expert had to redesign the app a few times to keep it modern and sleek, and eventually it hit the market outstandingly shiny, easy-to-use and modern

  • We provided a lot of suggestions on the app’s functionality and architecture for it to better correspond to its mission and goals. Most of them were accepted by the client.

Switchmate
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Switchmate
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$100001 to $500000
80 weeks
Consumer Products

The Switchmate app lets users control their home lighting, cameras, doorbell, power sockets from their phone through a do-it-yourself one-second installation.

Devices communicate with a smartphone via the Bluetooth Low Energy/Wi-Fi technologies.

App Overview:

  • Control existing switches or power ports

  • Timers

  • Over-the-air-firmware updates for devices

  • Voice control

  • Google Assistant and Alexa Support

  • Communication with cloud

  • Security system & away mode

  • Video recording and playback

  • Widgets and Push notifications

  • Grouping of devices together

  • Motion detection (plus windows sensors)

Value Added

Brainbean Apps team helped the firmware developers investigate and suggest fixes and improvements.

A scalable architecture was designed for sustainable user base growth.

Our experts wrote clean and smooth code for easy maintenance, so new device types and communication channels will be easy to add in the future.

OsmAnd
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OsmAnd
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$50001 to $100000
40 weeks
Automotive

Project Description

OsmAnd is an OpenStreetMap-based software solution for offline maps and navigation.

Brainbean Apps has been involved in both updating the OsmAnd app itself and customizing it for OsmAnd’s clients.

The customization includes custom dataset injection in various formats, routing algorithm modification, tailoring user experience for specific industries, routing and guidance integration for self-driving vehicles, fleet management.

App Overview:

  • Offline routing

  • Offline voice guidance

  • Offline amenity search

  • Using private datasets

  • Custom map styling

  • Day & night modes

  • Elevation data rendering

Profile support for cars, bicycles, and pedestrians

Value Added

Today Brainbean Apps are the one and only OsmAnd partner that has a unique expertise on the product.

https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd-core/graphs/contributors

With Brainbean Apps OsmAnd represents the most powerful and the most customizable enterprise solution for maps and navigation.
 

Hideez
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Hideez
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$10001 to $50000
25 weeks
Consumer Products

Project Description

Hideez is a digital key for securing users’ devices and data. It works via safe encrypted Bluetooth connection and secures all data with one password user should keep in mind.

App Overview

  • Secure password manager

  • Hardware-encrypted password vault

  • One-time password generator

  • Unlocking based on proximity to device

  • Theft alarm

  • Touch Guard

  • Digital Signature

  • Trusted places

Value Added

Brainbean Apps team introduced smooth 1Password-like credential usage on the iOS devices.

Client wanted to have the first app version done and then maintain it with their in-house developers. Brainbean Apps developers delivered well-structured and documented codebase that was easy to maintain and update by client’s junior specialists.

Thanks to using Xamarin the written code base could have been reused for Android app development.

Chronos
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Chronos
  • Chronos screenshot 1
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$10001 to $50000
25 weeks
Consumer Products

Project Description

Chronos is a smart disc intended to be attached to the back of any analog watch.

With a dedicated companion app on a smartphone, the disc can be used to control music, get reminders, count steps and calories burned, control the phone’s camera shutter and more.

App Overview

The Chronos app connects to the Chronos disc via Bluetooth and provides following features:

  • Music control

  • Tapping the watch can make the phone vibrate or produce a sound

  • Reminders and notifications on calls and text messages

  • Step and burnt calorie counting (plus fitness goal tracking)

  • Controlling phone camera shutter

  • Silencing calls

  • Camera control

Value Added

  • Android developers at Brainbean Apps established long-term connection between the smartphone and the disc on the Android SDK level (which is more flexible than the default system-level connection)

  • Implemented third-party app notification parsing, which allowed users to set notifications of different vibration and color for the desired events related to other applications

  • Our team gained even deeper experience with BLE for Android, RxJava 2, DFU, Google Fitness API, Custom Views, which in this case helped make the user experience smoother.

Brainbean Apps Reviews

5.0 3 Reviews
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  • Mobile App Development
  • App Designing (UI/UX)
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Jevgenijs Fokins

I will work with BrainBean Apps over and over again

Rating Breakdown

  • Quality
  • Schedule & Timing
  • Communication
  • Overall Rating

Project Detail

$50001 to $200000

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Review Summary

BrainBean Apps was tasked with creating three applications interacting with a web server, with two designed for drivers (iOS and Android), as well as an Android application for passengers. They served as more of a partner than an outsourced company, helping guide our strategy with the project. From our point of view, everything was great, from their communication and attitude to their ability to meet deadlines. We are planning to continue to work with BrainBean Apps as we accrue more funding.

What service was provided as part of the project?

Mobile App Development, App Designing (UI/UX), Testing Services

What is it about the company that you appreciate the most?

Informative communication sessions, availability, their attitude shown towards our project as well as ability to meet deadlines.

What was it about the company that you didn't like which they should do better?

I can't think of any aspect they need improving. Just keep growing as a company?

David Monk

Digital Solutions Engineer

Rating Breakdown

  • Quality
  • Schedule & Timing
  • Communication
  • Overall Rating

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Review Summary

Brainbeans made all our SDK dreams come true! Absolutely fantastic agency to work with, highly recommended.

What service was provided as part of the project?

App Designing (UI/UX)

Jayson DeMers

Totally, 100% recommended

Rating Breakdown

  • Quality
  • Schedule & Timing
  • Communication
  • Overall Rating

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Review Summary

After working with 5 other dev teams, I'm thrilled I finally found Brainbean Apps; they're exactly what I've been looking for all along. They care, they communicate, and the quality of their work is top-notch.

What service was provided as part of the project?

Mobile App Development, App Designing (UI/UX)