R02 project engineer’s self-report - a product that subverts wearables (1)

R02 project engineer’s self-report - a product that subverts wearables (1)
As a COLMI development engineer, I am very fortunate to participate in the entire development process of R02. What makes me very gratified is that since R02 was launched in early 2024, more than 1,000 new people will start wearing this product every day on this earth. They talk about subverting traditional products and opening up a new world of smart wearables for them.
Since the establishment of the R02 project, I have become very interested in the ancient jewelry called rings.
Rings first appeared on the fingers of the ancient Egyptians. They believed that the ring shape represented eternity, so they used ring-shaped rings to symbolize the ancient Egyptians' eternal blessing for love and marriage. Later, they gradually evolved into a sacred symbol for men and women. Token of marriage.
And there is a saying that there is a blood vessel on the ring finger that goes straight to the heart. The wedding ring worn on the ring finger symbolizes the pounding of the heart with the other person.
In China, it originated around 1000 BC. Most were made of jade or animal bones as a symbol of the wearer's noble status.

As a senior wearable product practitioner, my understanding has always been that wearable products must first satisfy the wearability, decoration, beauty, generosity, and comfort, so that people can have an improvement in aesthetics and style. Such wearable products , is something people are willing to wear at any time.
The second is functionality, which uses technology to improve various functions of people's living habits, so that people can go from daily wearing experience to the improvements technology brings to life and health.

Therefore, from the earliest R01 to the current R02, the entire development team has been focusing on how to make smart rings beautiful, comfortable and durable as the core development elements of the product.
All development starts with the product ID. However, the appearance confirmation of R02 went through the most intense and time-consuming discussion on product appearance since the establishment of COLMI.
After many rounds of ID design, we also consulted many practitioners in the jewelry industry and got more than 30 design manuscripts. Among the many design manuscripts, we finally chose the simplest one.
When our group was still discussing which appearance was the coolest, our chief designer Mr. Gao came to the conclusion that when aesthetics becomes a matter of differing opinions, simplicity is the most authentic and most acceptable design to everyone. .

For the final appearance of R02, we chose the simplest and most unpretentious appearance, but the one that best symbolizes eternity.

This process has already taken three and a half months.
What follows is the selection of smart wearable materials.
Because after the ID is confirmed, the choice of material will be much easier. We finally unanimously decided to choose a titanium alloy shell that is light weight, high hardness, and corrosion-resistant, and was mostly used in the aviation field.
Highly transparent and corrosion-resistant low-temperature condensation epoxy resin material is selected internally for filling and fixing electronic materials.
Appearance and material selection experienced in the past 4 months
Less than 50% of the simultaneous electronic design and development work has been completed.
There are many difficulties waiting to be overcome.
The biggest problem is that the appearance cannot be too heavy, which results in the design space of the overall electronic part being too small.
The thickness of the ring surface should not be too thick, otherwise it will lose its beauty.
But it cannot be extremely thin because all components must have space to place and cannot come into contact with the titanium alloy casing.
We compared various materials from many IC manufacturers, battery manufacturers, and even FPC manufacturers. The first question we asked was, how many mm is the thinnest you can get?
During the development process, whenever the hardware engineer told me that the overall height could be reduced by 0.1mm or even 0.05mm, I was extremely happy, because the appearance of R02 is one step closer to the ideal ring in people's minds.
In the end, after more than 20 supplier selections and nearly 100 multi-party discussions with hardware engineers and structural engineers, the torus thickness of R02 was finally controlled at 2.7mm. After getting this data, all of us felt that All the stones were laid down, and after all, R02 did not become bulky.
In this process, my air tickets and high-speed rail mileage alone have accumulated nearly 40,000 kilometers of travel.

Finally, 9 months after the project was initiated, I got the first sample.
But what greeted me was not all smooth sailing.

I was selected into the new product project team again. I think I will write about my story with R02 next time.