msaps

Hello all!

Over the past few months I've been working on a little hobby project which has come to be known as Loungebird.

Loungebird is an app that brings the lounges at T5 to your fingertips, providing access to live occupancy data and a whole lot more (and a whole lot more than that planned). I built it because I wanted to be able to quickly and easily figure out which lounge best suited the time I had during my connections, whether it was worth trekking to B Gates or whether to avoid North altogether. The signs that are dotted around the terminal were never where I needed them to be and I was craving a well designed app that gave me instant access whenever I wanted it.

It features:
- A beautiful, customisable design.
- Live streaming of occupancy data directly from the lounges.
- Glanceable Home and Lock Screen widgets.
- With much more on the way...

So with that - I'm delighted to announce that Loungebird is finally ready for Beta testing! It's currently available on iOS/iPadOS (I'm an Apple Platforms engineer by trade, sorry Android users!) with more to come (macOS / watchOS...). You can sign up and access it via TestFlight here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/86myR6st.

As it is a beta I can't promise there won't be any bugs, but I'm constantly adding new features and improvements every week. I'd love for you to join in and really appreciate any feedback and ideas!

More details here: https://loungebird.app
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/loungebirdapp

adrianlondon

I'm not based in the UK, but like new shiny things.

App and widgets seem to be working well - iPhone 11, iOS 17.4 beta 3. I can't comment on the accuracy of the figures. I like the design - simple and clean.

Papa.Lima.Echo

It looks nice - clear and concise. Well done!

Well, I don't want it anyway

Good luck with it and further developments.

baflyer2

Can I ask how / from where you're pulling occupancy data?

msaps

Sure! It's coming from: https://ba-uk-occupancy.livereachmedia.com - which is the site you see displayed on the signs in T5.

pythonisman

Neat app, thanks for sharing. I assumed those APIs were what you'd hit to pull the data and it makes sense. I didn't realise some of the other info they look to gather internally at least, or be working on ("dwell time" for one).
If you're intending on sharing this further would suggest adding in the other Oneworld tiers eligible for the Club/F Lounges (in addition to Gold which might also be BAEC Gold for example).

Might be worth (if you're not already) planning to proxy those APIs via some middle service you control, so you don't end up having them lock down the web service from the public which is something I've seen happen in other settings once an app took off (though that was for public transport so had a likely bigger following)

GlasgowBlue

Fantastic looking app and very handy.

How do you change the lounge(s) displayed on the Lock Screen widget? When adding the home screen widget I was given the option of it displaying CCR, First or Club lounges occupancy.

The Lock Screen widget seems to default to CCR and I can’t figure out how to change it.

Edit - figured it out. While still in “edit” mode of the Lock Screen, once you’ve added the widget to your Lock Screen, press and hold on it and you’re presented with the option to display different lounges.

2nd edit - Just seen that the OP has put the steps below. Thank you.

msaps

Thanks for the feedback! The ability to switch BAEC/OW tiers and general improvements there are on the list - hoping to get it in soon.

With the API's - realistically there's only so much I can do if BA decided to cut it off. The app is remotely configured meaning I can swap out the endpoints and the app can react remotely to such incidents - but yeah guess it's a bit at their mercy! 😄


This isn't the most intuitive bit of iOS system UI - but you can get access to Lock Screen widget settings by doing the following:
- Hold down on Lock Screen to enter the 'Collections' screen.
- Select to Customise your Lock Screen.
- Select the widget to bring up the 'Add Widgets' sheet.
- Select the widget again and the Widget settings sheet should come up allowing you to change the lounge.

LondonAussie

Tried to install but says I need to upgrade to iOS 17 first? Have held off on upgrading after some friends and colleagues say they regretted doing it and can't go back now.

msaps

Yeah the app requires iOS 17 to run - I built it against the latest available kit from Apple.

In terms of my own experiences - iOS 17 seems to be very stable now. It's currently at 17.3.1 (its the .0 releases you have to watch out for) and about midway through its lifecycle which in general seems to be when they reach peak stability.

rockflyertalk

I've always upgraded the OS and never had any critical issues that have made me need to roll back to a previous version. 17 is no different, yes there are always tweaks, changes, new features etc but that's not a real reason to not use it or revert. I can recommend upgrading, most main bugs have been dealt with as already mentioned 17 is mid cycle. 17.4 is due soon.

Nice looking app to the OP by the way.

jamestg

Could you add in T5 security wait times too?

RChavez

While an interesting concept, I suspect the API has now been overloaded. :-/ It's possible the backing services were not sized for public-internet level traffic as a poster mentioned above.



Is the App still functioning well?

I agree with pythonisman. I'd definitely implement some form of a caching layer in AWS or something that minimizes traffic to the actual endpoint itself. Keep that traffic from your caching layer to this endpoint to under 1 request every 1-5 minutes or so and I'm sure you'll stay under the radar just fine. I doubt the occupancy data is being updated more frequently than that anyway....

Edited to add - Link seems to be working fine again. Interesting level of data that is being returned!

msaps

The website does seem to have problems at times, but the underlying data sources are pretty reliable - so yep even though the website is down the app is still working!

I would doubt that this current scale of usage in the app would bring anything down.

msaps

Yep this is something I’ve thought about - more depends on being able to find a reliable data source.