June 24, 2024
CallBox SpinDance’s in-house framework for production-grade IoT products. CallBox streamlines the development of consumer and commercial connected products. Check out our landing page to learn more about the framework’s many benefits. Our team has been working hard to distill a decade of experience in IoT to create the core features that every IoT product needs. The 1.2 release is a major milestone in our goal to offer a comprehensive, customizable IoT framework that facilitates rapid […]
July 22, 2024
By Young Kim | Senior Software Engineer II | This blog post will explore the journey of building an experimental chatbot named Toothbot(™) for the fictional Dr. Toothfairy’s dental clinic website, highlighting the evolution from using Dialogflow CX to integrating OpenAI’s generative AI capabilities. Initial Approach: Dialogflow CX The project began with Google’s Dialogflow CX, enticed by its advanced features for building conversational AI interfaces. Dialogflow CX is particularly well-suited for complex conversations due to […]
June 9, 2024
By Michael Olson | Principal Software Engineer Introduction When building a cloud application, it’s important to understand the costs associated with the cloud services you’re using. This can help you make informed decisions about how to optimize your application for cost efficiency as well as prevent unexpected costs from cropping up over time. Traditional tools offered by cloud providers often fall short in giving the depth of insight needed across the […]
July 10, 2024
By Claire Lundy | Software Engineer | If you’ve ever been intrigued by the idea of transforming your living space into a smart haven but felt daunted by the prospect, you’re in the right place. This guide, crafted with insights from IoT experts, will walk you through setting up your smart home, demystifying the process, and illustrating how it can lead to savings and an enriched lifestyle. Understanding IoT: The Backbone of Smart Homes Before […]
July 22, 2024
By Garrett Sutton | Software Engineer – Embedded | HIL, or Hardware in the Loop, is a technique for testing an embedded system during the Continuous Integration process. By adding HIL to your CI/CD pipeline, you can automate tests using the exact same hardware you are running in the field! Here at SpinDance, we run a comprehensive set of unit tests and manual system tests on our embedded repositories. These manual system tests can be […]
July 11, 2024
By Rocky Sherriff | Principal Software Engineer So you’re starting a new IoT project and you have some freedom to choose your hardware. That’s both thrilling and terrifying – there are a lot of options out there! One good place to start for many IoT products might be the Espressif product line. They offer a wide range of radios and processors along with a mature software framework that is largely portable across their line. That […]
July 1, 2024
By Colleen Laskowski | Director of Delivery | In the dynamic world of software development, the role of the Product Owner (PO) is crucial for guiding a product from concept to market. However, the responsibilities and focus areas of Product Owners can vary significantly depending on whether they are consulting for clients within their software projects like we do at SpinDance or fulfilling the role of the Product Owner at the organization itself. In this […]
June 24, 2024
By Robert Hartman | Principal Software Engineer Having a mobile app codebase that is heavily unit-tested is such a benefit: as a professional software developer, if you’re not writing copious unit tests, you’re missing out. Writing tests can be frustrating, and they can and do add a lot of extra work, but writing tests will make your code better and make you a better developer. It’s just hard to see that […]
June 14, 2024
By James Preston | Senior Software Engineer & Engineering Manager I have a Windows desktop machine as well as a Mac book provided by my company. The Mac is great to carry with me, it’s lightweight and decently powerful. However, when it comes to developing at home I like to use my Windows machine with its multiple monitors and extra horsepower. The problem, of course, has always been the slight differences in using the two […]
June 3, 2024
By Kim Burmeister|CEO On a recent sales call, I was speaking with the client and I mentioned that we use Scrum, an Agile framework for our software development methodology. She quickly exclaimed, “There it is! Agile is the center square on my Bingo card. I knew you were going to say that word today.” A bit confused, I asked why she had this reaction. On a previous project, another vendor had sold Agile and Scrum […]