← Jordan McRae / Case studies

Taking Focals AR smart glasses to market

Shipped the software side of a consumer hardware launch, the web, mobile, and retail experiences that took custom-fitted AR smart glasses from announcement to customers' faces.

Client
Thalmic Labs / North (acquired by Google)
Role
Software Developer
Period
2018
Stack
React · Node.js · PostgreSQL

Focals were custom-fitted AR smart glasses, a physical product that lived or died by the software around it. Every customer went through software we built, from first order to fitted device.

The work

Because every pair was custom-fitted, buying Focals wasn't a simple checkout. A customer ordered online, booked a fitting at a showroom, and managed all of it through their account. I helped build the platforms that carried that flow: the e-commerce storefront, the booking and appointment management systems behind the fittings, user accounts, and the marketing surfaces around them.

The pace was set by hardware. Launch dates, showroom openings, and marketing pushes didn't move for software, so we shipped continuously: React and Node.js on PostgreSQL, with CI/CD keeping everything releasable and priorities shifting with what the launch needed each week.