UniStay – Student Housing App (Switzerland)

UniStay is a Flutter-based application designed to help students in Switzerland find housing easily.
It provides separate interfaces for students (to book properties) and homeowners (to list properties).

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🌟 Features

• User Registration & Login

  • Student accounts
  • Homeowner accounts
  • Face authentication

• Search & Booking

  • Search for available housing
  • Book properties
  • View property locations on map

• Homeowner Management

  • Create, update, and delete property listings
  • Manage bookings

• Additional Features

  • Price prediction for properties
  • Multiplatform support

⚠️ Note: Payment system is not included in this project.

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🛠️ Technologies

• Frontend: Flutter (Dart)
• Backend: Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Storage)
• Database: Firestore (NoSQL)
• External APIs: Face recognition, Map services

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💻 Installation

From Source (Flutter) – For Development Only

⚠️ Note: Firebase services (auth, database, storage) will not work with the cloned repository unless you configure your own Firebase project.
The following steps are meant for developers who want to run and modify the app locally.

1. Make sure you have Flutter installed.
2. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/Algath/SS2-UniStay.git
   cd SS2-UniStay

3. flutter pub get

4. flutter run

   Can be run on Android device/emulator.

Using the App (Internal Testing)

• Available via Google Play internal testing.
• Testers need to be registered via their Google account in the testing group
• This is the only way to access live data and fully functional features.

📂 Project Structure

Inside the lib/ folder:

• views/ → Main UI screens (Login, Register, Home, Property Details, Booking)
• widgets/ → Reusable UI components
• models/ → Data models (User, Property, Reservation)
• services/ → Firebase interactions (AuthService, DatabaseService, StorageService)

🔐 Authentication

• Managed via Firebase Authentication
• Supports student and homeowner accounts
• Face authentication fully implemented and functional
  • Note: it works only for account where the profile e picture was saved on the device

🗄️ Database (Firestore)

Main collections:

• users → student & homeowner profile e es
• rooms → property listings
• booking_requests → reservations linked to users & properties
• property_ratings → ratings information on the properties
• reviews → reviews on the properties (who, rating, comment, which property)
• student_reviews → reviews on the students (who, rating, comment, which student)

🖼️ Media Storage

• Property images stored in Firebase Storage
• Image URLs referenced in Firestore

📡 APIs & Services

• Firebase services (auth, Firestore, storage)
• External API for face recognition
• Map integration
• Nominatim for address recovery
• Open-Meteo to have weather
• OSRM (Open Source Routing Machine) to find public transport options

🎯 Target Users

• Students seeking accommodation in Switzerland
• Property owners looking to rent to students

📄 Known Limitations

• No payment system
• App not publicly available, only for registered testers.
• Fully tested only on Android
• Partially working on Windows

🎥 Demonstration

• 1-minute overview video (UI + main flows)
• 5-minute detailed video (walkthrough of features)

🖼️ Screenshots

Here are a few key screens from UniStay:

Login Screen

Home / Search Page

Student profile e

📝 Guides

• User Guide
• Technical Guide