Fast-moving wellness company leverages outsourced hardware development
The Hapbee Band, wearable digital wellness product.
Vancouver, BC consumer wellness company, Hapbee (HAPB), needed to convert their licensed technology into a commercial-ready wearable product...in a hurry. But they also needed careful consideration of a variety of use cases, cost-effective manufacturing, and, above all, data security. They chose Product Creation Studio as their hardware development partner so their team could focus on other aspects of the go-to-market challenge. Less than two years later Hapbee has shipped thousands of units and gone public through a recent initial public offering.
“We had our own vision for the technology but we wanted a hardware partner to accelerate development. PCS gave us the right teams at the right time to make rapid progress.”
PCS guided the development through four development phases. The inputs, including user needs and technical constraints, were organized and aligned between parties in 01 Frame. Then PCS created feasible product concepts and system architectures for Hapbee to select from in 02 Create. Hapbee chose the distinctive and versatile band concept that allows the user to wear on their head or around the neck, all while displaying the Hapbee brand marks.
With a clear design direction, the 03 Develop phase served to transition the technical details into a production candidate design. This phase is where electronic architecture and printed circuit board design decisions were made. Details of the enclosure and assembly strategy were finalized. Iterative prototypes increased confidence in the design as production files were prepared. PCS gave particular attention to the security of the proprietary data files transferred and stored in the product memory.
In 04 Deliver the design was transitioned to the manufacturing partner. As the hardware development arm for Hapbee, PCS worked directly with the manufacturing vendors to achieve production units that represented the Hapbee vision of quality. As with any manufactured product, a set of challenges had to be overcome that was as unique as the unusual form but also as familiar as the standard production materials and fabrication processes involved.
Like most innovators in the consumer wellness space, Hapbee needed to move fast to seize the market opportunity. PCS augmented their team with hardware development expertise, empowering rapid development of their novel wearable. Hapbee has leveraged the right partners to move from concept to market (and now to the public market) quickly.