A smart home that looked like a settings panel.
Eva Smart Home needed a tablet control app that could differentiate from competitors. But the existing interface was flat, button-heavy, and indistinguishable from a generic settings panel. There was no spatial connection between the interface and the physical home it controlled.
For a product positioned as premium and futuristic, the control experience undermined the brand promise at the most frequent touchpoint: the moment users interact with their home.
The existing button-based EvaOS interface: functional but undifferentiated
Flat buttons with no spatial awareness of the home
Indistinguishable from any generic IoT control panel
Zero "wow factor", undermining Eva's premium positioning
Inspiration & Research
I researched 3D interface precedents across gaming, automotive, and industrial UIs, identifying spatial patterns that could translate to home control. Used AI to rapidly generate layout concepts and spatial arrangements, exploring control placement, room navigation, and information hierarchy within a 3D space. The developer created a technical roadmap mapping prototype capabilities to design ambitions.
Technical roadmap aligning design ambition with engineering reality
AI-assisted layout concept generation, accelerating early ideation
Three iterations. Each one killed something that wasn't working.
The design evolved from flat layouts to an immersive 3D spatial interface through tight loops of prototyping, user testing, and developer collaboration.
The core tension: create genuine "wow factor" that's still intuitive enough for daily use.
Low-Fidelity Prototyping
Validated spatial layout and control placement before committing to high-fidelity work. Early signals: users responded to spatial awareness but needed clearer affordances.
Lo-fi: testing spatial layout and control placement
Version 1: Bird's-Eye View
First high-fidelity iteration used a bird's-eye view with tab-based room controls. User feedback killed it. tabs looked like navigation, not controls. Users kept trying to "go to" rooms instead of controlling them.
V1: bird's-eye view with tab-based controls (abandoned after testing)
Version 2: Isometric + SpaceX Industrial Language
Switched to isometric view and replaced tabs with bold, industrial-style buttons inspired by SpaceX's Dragon Capsule UI. The 3D model dynamically focused on the room being controlled. Spatial context without spatial confusion.
V2: isometric view with industrial-style controls and room focus
Final Design
The final version introduced a mode switcher (Manual/Automatic/Custom), power buttons on each room card, and air conditioner status with fan speed display. An immersive 3D interface that feels premium yet intuitive. Innovation grounded in usability.
The interface became the product's centrepiece.
The 3D spatial interface became the key differentiator in investor demonstrations. What started as a control panel redesign became the visual identity of Eva's brand. The thing people remembered after a pitch.
Usability validated across multiple rounds: innovative enough to differentiate, intuitive enough for daily use. The SpaceX-inspired aesthetic gave authority; the spatial awareness gave intuition. This wasn't a design exercise. It was the joint product of tight designer-developer co-creation, every iteration a conversation rather than a handoff.
Investor centrepiece: the 3D interface became the demo moment in Eva's product pitch
Usability validated: innovative paradigm proven intuitive through multiple testing rounds
Brand promise delivered: Eva's futuristic positioning finally matched by the control experience
