DepartureDeck — commute planning on Fire TV

Inspiration

What it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for DepartureDeck — commute planning on Fire TV

Inspiration

We noticed that many people spend their morning frantically checking transit apps on their phones while getting ready for work. We wanted to transform the living room into a command center that visualizes commute data automatically. By using a large screen, we could provide a hands-free experience for checking traffic and schedules.

What it does

DepartureDeck provides a comprehensive commute planning interface on Amazon Fire TV. It aggregates traffic data and public transit schedules to suggest the best time to leave the house. Users can view their estimated arrival times and receive alerts about delays directly on their television screen.

How we built it

We built the backend using Python and deployed it on Amazon EKS for scalable processing. We utilized Amazon SageMaker to run predictive models for commute duration based on historical data. Haystack was used to manage our document retrieval for transit schedules, ensuring the information was always current.

Challenges we ran into

We struggled with synchronizing real-time data streams with the Fire TV UI without causing lag. We also faced challenges ensuring the Amazon SageMaker models responded quickly enough for a live dashboard experience. Tuning the Haystack retrieval pipeline for specific transit edge cases took several iterations of testing.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of successfully integrating a complex data pipeline that feels native to Amazon Fire TV. The predictive accuracy of our commute models was surprisingly high during peak traffic hours. Seeing the entire dashboard update live on a large screen was a major milestone for our team.

What we learned

We learned a lot about optimizing Python-based applications for lean-back surfaces like televisions. We also gained deep insights into how to use Haystack for non-traditional data sources. Managing container infrastructure on Amazon EKS taught us how to handle complex microservices at scale.

What's next for DepartureDeck

We plan to integrate voice commands so users can ask for their commute status while cooking. We also want to expand our supported transit providers to cover more metropolitan areas. Adding personalized weather-based routing will be our next priority for the roadmap.

Built With

• amazon-eks
• amazon-fire-tv
• commute
• departuredeck
• haystack
• sagemaker