Blackstone Products - A Case Study in Revising an existing IoT Product
Blackstone Products
Blackstone Products, a leading manufacturer of outdoor cooking equipment, introduced a new line of WiFi-enabled pellet grills that could be controlled via a companion mobile app. However, while the hardware was well-received, the app suffered from significant performance, connectivity and security issues, particularly on Android devices.
The original development team, based outside of the United States, posed communication challenges due to language barriers and time zone differences. These limitations slowed development velocity and made it difficult to resolve critical issues, eroding customer trust and support team effectiveness.
As Blackstone prepared to launch its next-generation grills, they engaged Lightning Kite to assess the system architecture and lead a comprehensive overhaul of the software ecosystem.
Challenges
1. Unreliable Mobile Applications • App-to-grill pairing was inconsistent, particularly on Android. • The UX suffered from delayed bug fixes and misaligned UI updates. • Support teams had minimal visibility into user issues, limiting their ability to assist customers effectively. 2. Network Connectivity Limitations • Grills required users to manually input WiFi credentials without the ability to scan for available networks or display signal strength. • Feedback from the application to the consumer during this pairing process non-existent, leading the consumer through a poor experience even if the process was successful. • The firmware could not connect to open (non-password protected) networks, blocking compatibility with many public or guest WiFi environments. 3. No Firmware Update Path • Devices lacked Over-The-Air (OTA) firmware update support. • Firmware was hardcoded to connect to a single, original backend server—limiting scalability and adaptability. • There was no method to push updates to the existing grills after they left the factory/warehouse. This left consumers in a state of poor post-purchase support if there were issues with the firmware originally installed on the grill.
Our Solutions
1. Cross-Platform App Rebuild We re-architected the mobile applications using a cross-platform framework, achieving near parity between iOS and Android in both UI and performance. This allowed us to: • Resolve platform-specific bugs efficiently. • Rapidly implement UI/UX improvements in collaboration with Blackstone’s team. • Improve long-term maintainability with a single codebase. 2. New Firmware for Future Grills For the next generation of grills, we contributed to the firmware design by implementing: • OTA update capability, enabling remote bug fixes and feature rollouts. • WiFi scanning and signal strength reporting, significantly improving setup usability. • Support for open networks, expanding connectivity options in diverse environments. 3. Modern Cloud Infrastructure To accommodate legacy devices without disrupting existing users, we built a new cloud service layer that: • Bridges communication between our new platform and the original infrastructure using MQTT bridging. • Improves security, performance, and error monitoring. • Enables better diagnostic capabilities for the customer support team, including real-time device status and connection logs.
Results & Impact
Increased Reliability
The new app ecosystem is significantly more stable, with lower crash rates and streamlined connectivity.
Built for Better Support
Error reporting and device telemetry empower Blackstone Products' support team with the data needed to quickly assist users.Scalable and Future-Ready Infrastructure
New grills can receive firmware updates, connect more easily, and provide a better user experience from the start.Stronger Partnership
Blackstone gained not just a modernized system, but a responsive, collaborative engineering partner invested in their long-term success. Automatic reports of poor end-user experiences are monitored and addressed by the Lightning Kite Engineering Team.
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