Project Overview
realestate.com.au is a brand that Australian’s use and love because we make searching for property simple, efficient and stress free.
Our first to market Apple Watch app introduces consumers to a new level of personalisation, making house-hunting easier (and fun), and bringing timely and accurate information to property hunters to help ease the stress of the property search experience.
Since launching in April 2015, our Apple Watch app has had 54% month on month growth in visits, with the total number of app downloads exceeding 4.6 million in a 5 month period.
Organisation
Team
Stewart Gleadow, Prasanna Gopalakrishnan, Jay Kim, Peter Caddy, Steve Caddy, David Collins, Ben Thomas, Jacki Li, Peter Goldsmith
Project Brief
With the realestate.com.au app for Apple Watch and a simple glance at your wrist, you'll never miss another open for inspection or auction again. With easy to follow maps and directions, you can explore new properties in your area, capture your thoughts on each property through recorded voice notes and manage your saved properties list with actionable notifications.
With built-in GPS technology, you can see which properties are for sale and to rent near you, and the app also allows you to review any saved notes on any iOS device at a later stage, creating a simple and easy way to manage your property search.
A focus on innovation and creativity has driven the development of the realestate.com.au Apple Watch app. The ability to house hunt on the go has been a winner with Australians, with the app generating a 54% month on month growth in visits, and has driven our total app downloads in excess of 4.6 million.
Project Need
The realestate.com.au Apple Watch app makes it easier for property seekers to find their dream home, and access a range of information throughout the property search process, with real-time, wearable technology.
Designed to be intuitive, easy to use and contextually aware, our Apple Watch app is able to:
- Proactively notify users to properties of interest in their search area
- Initiate a call to the listing agent
- Knows if a user is at an inspection or auction when they look at their watch (provided they are within a 100m radius of the property they’re inspecting)
- Provide users with easier access to top-line information about each property
- Navigate users directly to the front door of a property via the app’s built-in GPS
- Voice record notes, which users can then sync to their realestate.com.au account and access from any iOS device
- Manage a user’s saved property list by asking whether they would like to keep or remove the property after attending an inspection.
User Experience
The realestate.com.au iOS app consistently ranks in the top 10 free lifestyle apps in Apple iTunes. Our product team worked with Apple to make sure the realestate.com.au app was in market when the Apple Watch launched on 24 April 2015.
The team were motivated to create a consumer experience which involved a product that was contextually aware of a user’s surroundings and presented real time information.
realestate.com.au is the only Apple watch app to offer top line property details to time-poor users. The app is designed to understand the user’s wants and needs when attending property inspections and auctions. It enables users to find properties in their preferred suburbs that may have been previously overlooked, and has the capability to ask users if they’d like to update their saved property list after attending an inspection. It also provides an inspection countdown timer to help property hunters manage their time more effectively so that they never miss the chance to view a dream property.
Project Marketing
realestate.com.au’s Apple Watch app is promoted to consumers via the realestate.com.au main site. It is also promoted in Apple’s marketing collateral and on the Apple Watch homepage.
realestate.com.au received 55 pieces of unique media coverage in the first month across national, metropolitan and regional print and televised news channels, including The Today Show (Channel 9), Your Property Empire (Sky Business News), The Sydney Morning Herald and news.com.au. Our app was marketed across trade and technology publications including Mumbrella, Real Estate Business and Computer World. The Good Gear Guide has rated the realestate.com.au app as one of the “13 must have Apple Watch apps”.
In addition, we promoted the app through our owned social channels, which received considerable traction across Twitter and Facebook.
Project Privacy
We recognise the importance of protecting personal information. Maintaining consumer trust is critical to the personalisation of our services, including on our Apple Watch app. When we collect personal information from users, we provide clear and concise collection statements and links to our privacy policy which explains in detail how we use, collect, store and handle personal information. For the Apple Watch app, users can review our privacy policy from the iPhone they’ve synched their Apple Watch with. We do not collect sensitive information as defined under the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). In collecting and handling personal information, we are bound by the Privacy Act, including the Australian Privacy Principles and applicable Privacy regulations.
Best Connected Device and Wearable Tech
From not so long ago being a concept only/prototype scenario, the connected device/wearable tech revolution has taken the world by storm and today we have clothing, watches, glasses, jewellery and trackers all helping us to achieve goals such as staying fit, active, losing weight or being more organised.
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