Professional work

TIDE Touch

Product work on a connected thermostat and smart home control platform.

TIDE Touch is a touch-based smart thermostat / AC controller platform within Universal Electronics' UEI TIDE family. My work sits close to the user experience: setup, mobile app flows, support, and the places where device, cloud, and service behavior need to feel clear.

Product IoT Smart Home Mobile App Cloud UX Support Ongoing

What It Is

TIDE Touch is a touch-based thermostat / AC controller platform and part of the broader UEI TIDE smart thermostat family. Public UEI material describes the family around climate control, smart home interaction, energy management, interoperability, onboarding, and support.

In practice, this kind of product only works when the hardware, embedded software, cloud services, mobile app, and support experience line up. If one layer is unclear, users feel it quickly.

My Role

My role is to help connect the different layers of the product: the device experience, the mobile app, cloud services, onboarding, support flows, and the business needs around the platform.

That means writing clearer requirements, sorting trade-offs, keeping user and support needs visible, and making sure technical behavior can be understood by people outside the engineering team.

Where I Contribute

Turning customer, installer, support, and end-user needs into practical product decisions.
Defining requirements across the device, mobile app, cloud, onboarding, support, and operational tooling.
Starting with the simplest useful version, then improving based on validation and feedback.
Keeping engineering, QA, design, support, business, and customer-facing teams aligned on what matters.
Improving the mobile and onboarding experience where small details can affect trust.
Making technical behavior clear enough for non-technical stakeholders to make good decisions.

Product Challenges

Connected-device products need to work across hardware, firmware, cloud, mobile app, and user support.
Onboarding needs to be simple because users judge the product before they get to its core value.
Reliability and recovery matter because climate control is not a casual feature.
A white-label platform needs flexibility without becoming fragmented or inconsistent.
Supportability should be designed into the product, not added later.

What This Work Takes

Clear ownership across a full IoT stack.
A steady focus on user-facing quality.
Good translation between technical teams and business stakeholders.
A practical approach to first versions, validation, and iteration.
Comfort with platforms where device, app, cloud, and support all need to come together.

Sources

For product details, I link to public UEI material. I keep my own notes here focused on role, product thinking, and the kind of work involved.

UEI TIDE Smart Thermostat Public UEI page for the TIDE family and TIDE Touch. UEI Climate Management Public overview of UEI climate control solutions. UEI press release Public announcement about smart thermostat platform capabilities. TIDE Touch data sheet Public product data sheet hosted by UEI.