Generative AIAI Powered Web AppMaintenance and SupportUI/UX Design

Ello

Smart Home Security Backend

ProjectOverview

The Ello team came to us with a clear and ambitious vision: a smart home security platform that gives families real intelligence about their home, not just footage. A system that knows the difference between a family member walking through the door and a stranger stepping onto the property, streams live video with no meaningful lag, sends alerts that actually mean something, and manages cameras remotely without requiring any technical knowledge.

Zimozi took full ownership of the backend for Ello’s MVP, designing and building the entire server-side architecture from the ground up — real-time video infrastructure, AI-powered detection, IoT device management, notification systems, and the security layer that holds it all together.

TheChallenge

A smart home security backend sits at the intersection of real-time performance, computer vision, IoT reliability, and the kind of security that families genuinely depend on.

Live video with no room for lag

Families checking on their home from across the city, or across the world, need a feed that is immediate and reliable — any delay makes the product feel untrustworthy.

Detection that earns trust

A security system that cries wolf loses its audience quickly. The backend needed to distinguish meaningful events from everyday activity and recognise the family so their movements never triggered a false alarm.

Camera management anyone can handle

Configuring cameras, pushing firmware updates, and setting schedules needed to happen remotely, over a secure channel, in a way that felt effortless regardless of technical comfort.

Security that does not cut corners

This platform handles home surveillance data for real families. End-to-end security, proper access controls, and a clean audit trail were the foundation everything else had to sit on.

Ello smart home security dashboard on desktop

The Solution

A fully serverless AWS architecture, built for low-latency video and trustworthy detection from day one.

We built Ello’s backend as a fully serverless AWS architecture, with over 100 Lambda functions and more than 20 DynamoDB tables, deployed on Singapore infrastructure and built to scale cleanly as the user base grows. CI/CD automation and end-to-end JWT-based security were baked in from the very beginning, not bolted on afterwards.

For live video, we integrated AWS IVS to deliver low-latency streams that reach the mobile app in near real time. The AI detection layer runs through AWS Rekognition, which watches each feed for motion, intrusions, and fall events, and recognises registered family members so their presence never generates a false alert.

IoT device management runs over a secure MQTT channel through AWS IoT Core, giving the team full remote control over camera configuration, firmware, and scheduling. When an event is detected, AWS SES and Firebase deliver notifications instantly across email, push, and in-app channels simultaneously.

KeyFeatures

A production-grade backend covering real-time video, AI detection, IoT management, and instant notifications.

Real-time video
streaming backend

AWS IVS integration delivers low-latency live feeds to the mobile app, giving families reliable, high-quality access to their home cameras from anywhere.

AI threat
detection

AWS Rekognition analyses each video feed to detect motion, intrusions, and falls, while recognising registered family members to keep false positives to a minimum.

IoT device
management

A secure MQTT channel via AWS IoT Core handles remote camera configuration, firmware updates, and scheduling, all manageable from the app.

Multi-channel
notifications

Detection events trigger instant alerts across push notifications, email, and in-app channels simultaneously through Firebase and AWS SES.

TechStack

A serverless AWS stack built for real-time video, AI detection, and IoT reliability at scale.

AWS Lambda

DynamoDB

AWS IVS

AWS Rekognition

AWS IoT Core

Firebase

Business Impact

Production-grade from day one.

Ello launched its MVP with a backend that was production-grade from day one. The architecture handles real-time video, AI detection, IoT device management, and instant notifications without any of the instability that typically comes with a first version, giving the team a foundation built to grow.

Get started