Engineer’s Account of the R02 Project: A Revolutionary Wearable Device (Part Two)

After receiving the first batch of R02 smart ring samples, each of us in the project team took on an important role. Not only were we designers and engineers, but we also stepped into the shoes of consumers, personally trying on the product. This step was crucial as it allowed us to gain firsthand user experience, which is the most direct way to understand and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the product.

Following the collection of experience reports from team members, we encountered our first challenge: the data and feedback were varied, indicating that our product needed optimization and adjustments in multiple areas. Specifically, in our first internal experience meeting, we identified the need for improvements in over 40 functions, including G-sensor algorithms, heart rate monitoring algorithms, Bluetooth (BLE) connectivity, and charging algorithms, among others. This discovery initiated a busy cycle of testing, problem collection, solution discussion meetings, coding to fix bugs, and seeking technical support from integrated circuit (IC) original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), followed by more testing. This process was repeated continuously, marking our ongoing optimization of the R02 algorithms.

Three months swiftly passed, and we welcomed the second batch of R02 samples. This time, every team member received the latest version of the sample, and we resumed our respective product improvement tasks. The project team's 36 members, after going through six rounds of sample testing and a seven-month cycle of testing, improvement, and trial production, finally entered the large-scale trial production phase.

At this critical moment, all of us felt the pressure. We knew that successfully transforming a research and development project into productive power and turning a prototype sample into a mass-produced product faced the biggest challenge of efficiently achieving mass production. This was the most challenging hurdle that every project had to overcome before going to market.

Among our team of 36 research and development engineers, the minimum qualification was a bachelor's degree. Our dedication to work and expectations for the project far exceeded the standard. However, it was this high standard that brought greater challenges because differences in emotions, manual skills, and professionalism among frontline production workers could lead to various problems in the production process.

As the official launch date of the product approached, the project's chief engineer, Mr. Gao, made an unprecedented decision: full staff coaching to closely monitor the mass production process and quality of R02. This meant that our 36 engineers would be directly involved in the production line work, a first in COLMI's history. Despite the daily expenses for travel allowances reaching nearly ten thousand yuan, COLMI's senior management decided to spare no expense in guiding the assembly process and quality inspection of the production line workers to ensure that R02 would provide the best product experience for users.

In what we jokingly called the "Ring Battle," the collective monitoring of the production by the entire R02 project team was arduous. However, whenever we thought about the possibility that among the world's population of over 8 billion, someone might be wearing the R02 smart ring we designed, tracking their steps, activities, and heart rate, we felt all our efforts were worthwhile. We believed that every bit of our effort could potentially change someone's life in a distant place.