Taking a connected pet-health collar from supplier dependency to an owned sensing platform
Client: Funded pet-health startup (Asia)
A pet-health company shipping a white-label collar could not see or validate its own data. We audited the supplier device, then designed an owned research platform — sensing front end, temperature path, raw data, open manufacturing package — on a fixed four-week sprint.
The problem
The client’s collar reported heart and respiration rates decoded by the supplier’s firmware and cloud. Telemetry exports showed long stretches where reported values were zero, no synchronised reference existed to check accuracy, and the company held no reproducible manufacturing package. Product claims depended on a black box.
What we did
Audit. We reviewed the supplier device and telemetry exports and documented what could and could not be verified, without overstating fleet-wide accuracy from a sample.
Dual-track strategy. A white-label track to keep shipping and test the app with users, and an owned-design track for data, firmware and margin — with an RFP that makes data routable to the client’s own broker, firmware source or escrow, calibration files and full BOMs non-negotiable.
Rev A research platform. A replaceable piezo sensing head with an owned charge amplifier and 24-bit ADC sampling at 1 kS/s; two addressable precision temperature islands for pad and collar-local air; raw ADC counts, motion, temperature and loss counters streamed instead of decoded values; and a compact enclosure study around the board.
Evidence plan. Every physiological claim marked as a target until verified against a synchronised reference, with defined conditions under which readings are invalid.
Outcome
The client now controls the sensing chain, the data and the design files, and can test claims instead of inheriting them.
Building hardware that has to learn? Talk to us.
Send a spec, a sketch, or just the problem. We reply within 24 hours (HKT), usually the same day.