Miniaturization Starts with Going Big: How Notebook-sized Prototypes Helped Shape the Orbyt Smart Ring

Miniaturization is at the heart of modern wearable innovation - but ironically, the path to getting smaller often starts big. With Orbyt, we didn’t jump into building a ring-sized device right away. Instead, we deliberately went large first - constructing early, notebook-sized proof-of-concepts. This allowed us to test, iterate, and optimize with speed and flexibility, without being constrained by form factor. 

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Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Most people assume that building a sleek, lightweight wearable starts with... well, something small. But for us, the path to miniaturizing health technology didn’t begin with a ring. It began with a device the size of a small notebook.

Before Orbyt became a smart ring you could wear on your finger, it was a proof-of-concept strapped to wrists, stuck to chests, and spread out on lab tables. It had to be. Because to truly get the miniaturization right, we had to go big first.

Why Miniaturization Isn’t Just About Size

Miniaturization is one of those words that gets thrown around a lot in product and hardware design circles - and for good reason. As consumer tech continues to shrink in size but grow in capability, the pressure to deliver high-performance sensors and processors in smaller form factors is increasing across industries. Whether it's earbuds tracking biometrics or rings analyzing heart rate variability, people want powerful insights without bulky devices.

But here’s the catch: miniaturization isn't just about squeezing things into smaller shells. It’s about optimizing everything; from hardware architecture to sensor accuracy, signal reliability, battery performance, heat dissipation, wireless communication and more. And all of that needs to happen before you scale down.

That’s why we began our development journey with something much larger than a ring.

What We Knew We Needed

From Day 1, our goal with Orbyt was clear - to create a wearable that could track multiple vital signs without compromising on user comfort; and do it with accuracy that meets clinical and research-grade standards.

We began with component research. Here's what our first wishlist looked like:

• Sensors to measure temperature, PPG and ECG signals.  Both PPG and ECG provide insights about the heart, but they work differently. PPG tracks blood flow using light. When your heart pumps, blood rushes through your vessels, changing how light is reflected. These changes are then used to monitor heart rate and blood oxygen levels. ECG, on the other hand, detects the electrical signals your heart produces with every beat, offering deeper insights into heart rhythm.

  [Fun fact: ECG readings can not only reveal signs of mental stress - they can even catch the moment your heart flutters, like when you're nervous or excited. This happens because your heart's rhythms can change based on your emotional state which in turn affects ECG readings.]

  
  

• An IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) to track movement and activity.

  
  

• A MCU (Microcontroller Unit) to tie it all together and transmit the data securely and reliably with BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) while consuming extremely low power.

  
  

Sounds simple? It wasn’t. Each component came with its own form factor, power draw, signal quality and noise considerations as well as mechanical constraints. There was also the added challenge of ensuring precision and reliability when working with high-quality sensors, and balancing functionality with extended battery life. And putting them together in a ring-sized enclosure was like playing 4D chess in a match where each move changed the board itself.

After scouring countless reference designs, we finally struck gold in February 2021 with a killer combo of components from various semiconductor vendors. The next challenge? Packing everything into a sleek, wearable form factor.

Competitor research at the time showed that the ideal ring width should be around 8–9mm, with a thickness of no more than 2.5-3mm. Achieving that compactness while meeting our performance goals wasn’t easy - but it laid the foundation for what Orbyt would eventually become. 

The Problem with Starting Small

The easiest path to the final destination is to build the ultimate form factor PCB and start testing. However, if something goes wrong and it always will, it will be a nightmare to debug anything because of the missing test points that would have been sacrificed to achieve the form factor

So instead of jumping into the final form, we created larger prototypes that gave us full visibility into each component’s behavior, the interaction between subsystems, and real-world data quality. These weren’t just test boards. They were functioning wearable prototypes designed to answer the hard questions before we even thought about scaling down.

Introducing Evkit-v1: Our First Wearable Lab

Our first iteration was Evkit-v1 - a prototype designed to be worn on the wrist or chest. At its core was a 6-layered HDI (High Density Interconnect) PCB, which allowed us to route complex signals and keep the board relatively compact despite the number of components.

We even crafted a cozy enclosure to house the PCB, battery, and ECG electrodes - perfect for gathering data without a hitch. This was our lab-on-a-wearable. And it taught us a lot. We validated our component choices, understood power draw in real-world scenarios, and even discovered unexpected interactions - like how electrode placement and skin contact surface area could affect ECG quality.

What’s more: Evkit-v1 began attracting attention beyond our immediate use. Its versatility and data-rich output made it valuable for study environments, and what started as an internal prototype gradually evolved into a standalone evaluation product line.

From 10 cm Bluetooth range to 10 ft Bluetooth range: Evkit-v2

Of course, not everything worked smoothly. Evkit-v1 had a frustratingly short Bluetooth range - just around 10 centimeters. The data was good, but the transmission wasn’t. We went back to the drawing board and built Evkit-v2: a beefier, tabletop version with improved  testing and debugging capabilities. This version featured:

• A redesigned 6-layered HDI PCB with more test points for better signal probing.

• An upgraded Bluetooth antenna for longer, more reliable communication.

• A reinforced enclosure with modular cutouts for easier access and data debugging.

This wasn’t wearable, but it didn’t need to be. It served as a robust tool to optimize communication protocols, tune power profiles, and refine our firmware stack before transitioning to the final form. Every challenge solved here saved us weeks (if not months) when we finally moved to the miniaturized version.

The Bigger Picture: Why Starting Large Gave Us the Edge

By building bigger first, we:

• Got full access to every sensor pin and signal path

• Simplified debugging in the early stage

• Ran extended-duration stress tests without worrying about battery limitations

• Allowed multiple teams like hardware and firmware to work in parallel

• Collected rich datasets across varied users before locking down components

In short, it made our R&D truly iterative. Think of it like rehearsing a play in a wide-open studio before moving to a small stage. The performance is the same, but the flexibility in early stages changes everything.

Going big wasn’t a detour. It was the fastest way forward. Looking back, Evkit-v1 and v2 weren’t just prototypes. They were physical arguments that what we were trying to build could be done, with the fidelity and reliability we envisioned. In fact, they became our confidence boosters. They helped us present to early partners, win trust from engineers, and attract collaborators who valued substance over speed.

In the world of hardware, everyone loves the final product. But few talk about the giant, clunky, brilliant messes that come before it. We’re proud of our messes. They got us here.