A decade ago, smartwatches were unknown. But now, the still nascent wearable market is talking about smart rings for health monitoring! What does Bengaluru’s Sensio Enterprises have here? From their cutting-edge device to innovative plans, Dr Venkatesh Vadde tells everything to EFY’s Yashasvini Razdan.
Q. As an academic, how did you pivot to entrepreneurship?
A. I worked in the telecom sector for a decade, starting with Nokia and developed algorithms for wireless systems. I transitioned to system implementation, focusing on hardware design, implementation, and chip design, but I have always wanted to solve problems specific to India. I then spent a decade teaching at PES University in Bengaluru. By 2018–2019, my desire to create something intensified. I met my co-founders, Kenneth Joel and Mohan Prabhakar at PES. Together, we decided to focus on sensors and health-related solutions and built Sensio Enterprises in 2019.
Q. Why do you call yourself Sensio?
A. We were all fascinated by sensors because, when you think about it, humans are essentially sensory systems. To interpret and understand the external world in any system, sensors play a very important role. Whether it is within the human body or in external devices, sensors are vital for bridging the gap between the physical world and our understanding. We were intrigued by the physics and mathematics behind sensors, which led us to decide that our work should revolve around them—essentially, the concept of input/output (I/O). From there, the idea of ‘sense I/O’ evolved. Instead of calling it ‘sense I/O’ explicitly, we decided on a more compact, appealing name: Sensio. It has a nice, short, and memorable ring to it.
Q. What are you developing at Sensio?
A. At Sensio, we create wearables equipped with health sensors, ultra-low-power wireless communication, and algorithms that run on embedded hardware that collect health vitals data and provide insights about the same on a web platform. We have developed the Orbyt Smart Ring that tracks heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, temperature, and electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring, which is our unique selling proposition (USP). The ring also includes an inertial sensor for activity tracking and can monitor sleep patterns.
Q. Why do you call ECG measurement your USP?
A. It is a distinguishing feature. Capturing an accurate ECG signal is the major part of the puzzle. We use a high-quality analogue front end and a sensor, and integrating these into a ring has been a considerable challenge. It all starts with obtaining a decent signal, which involves overcoming several technical hurdles. However, beyond capturing the signal, interpreting the ECG and providing actionable insights about the patient’s health are equally important. Our value proposition lies in offering meaningful cardiovascular insights based on ECG data. Our signals, construction, sensor quality, and signal quality are all medical-grade, enabling a much better understanding of health compared to an average consumer product. We have close ties with leading semiconductor companies, from whom we source these sensors and components.
Q. When we have smartwatches doing the same thing, what is the need for an additional gadget?
A. In my opinion, we are going to see the rise of smart rings just like we saw the wave of smartwatches. A smart ring is a screenless 24×7 device that provides a much better signal from the finger. People can wear a ring to sleep, which would allow them to measure and understand their sleep patterns. It can also be customised to fit various sizes. On the other hand, wearing a smartwatch to bed does not feel as comfortable or practical for most people.
Q. What makes you different from any other companies developing smart rings?
A. Firstly, we are one of the very few—perhaps two or three—companies globally that are actually developing smart rings from the ground up. While we do not manufacture our own semiconductors (we source them), we design the circuits, create the ring body, and encapsulate the ring ourselves. We have filed patents and trademarks for our designs, going a step further by measuring ECG, which gives us a unique advantage in heart monitoring. We have also developed a proprietary feature called In-Loop to monitor the health of family members remotely and send alerts in case intervention is required. The feature enables users to present comprehensive health data to their doctors for accurate diagnoses and treatments.
Q. Could you shed some light on the end-to-end development process?
A. In our own facility, we primarily focus on intellectual property (IP)-centric work such as hardware design, hardware optimisation, software development, firmware development, and the integration of software and firmware. We also handle app development, all of which is conducted in-house. When it comes to hardware, once the design is finalised, we collaborate with vendors in and around Bengaluru, in driving distance. For example, one vendor handles printed circuit board (PCB) assembly, another manages the manufacturing of the ring body, someone else encloses everything into a finished product, and others may handle specific component manufacturing. Once the ring returns to us, we have the capability to encapsulate it in-house. However, this process is not yet fully scalable. We use our facility for prototyping and then transfer the process to vendors to scale it up. Some vendors already possess prototyping and manufacturing capabilities, allowing us to simply outsource the work to them while customising it to meet our requirements.
Q. What challenges did you face while designing this product?
A. A smart ring requires flexible circuits along with a high-density design with complex interconnects, which will bend into a circle and fit inside the ring. This is not a requirement for smartwatches, laptops, or mobile phones. Only about one per cent of circuits are flexible. Finding vendors capable of delivering on these demands has been difficult. In fact, we had to figure out much of it ourselves, including debugging, troubleshooting, and understanding what works and what does not.
Our product is 95 per cent built in India, with only 5 per cent of components—primarily raw PCBs—sourced from abroad. While these could be manufactured locally, the cost would be very high then.
Assembling the entire device into a compact wearable was another challenge. The epoxy used needs to be of the right grade, biocompatible, optically clear, and capable of setting within a reasonable amount of time. There must be no leakage or air bubbles during assembly. These manufacturing challenges are compounded when creating an ECG-enabled ring, as it requires a metal ring for conductivity. Plastic, polymer, or ceramic rings are not viable for this purpose.
Building the entire stack and integrating artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms required us to develop firmware that integrates seamlessly with the hardware, all along keeping in mind that it consumes less than one milliampere of current on a sustained basis.
Q. Did you ever consider outsourcing some of these problems to an IDH?
A. No, we never outsourced the process to a single IDH. Instead, we identified various vendors for each step of the process. The ring design originates in our company, where we hold the intellectual property (IP), and the final finishing of the ring is also done in-house.
While we would like to insource many of the intermediate steps as well, we are currently too small to manage that. So, we identified vendor partners for the various intermediate steps and experimented with several of them until we figured out who was competent and reliable. Over time, we have built a vendor ecosystem that we trust and rely on, and that is how we have managed to execute the process.
Q. What kind of PCB do you use to make the circuit flexible?
A. For smart rings, you can use either fully flexible circuits or rigid-flex circuits. The substrate in a fully flexible circuit is a flexible material, such as polyimide. A usual single-layered or multi-layered PCB uses a rigid material as the substrate called FR-4. Fully rigid boards are not suitable as they do not bend, making them incompatible with the design requirements of wearable devices like smart rings.
Q. What PCBs are you using?
A. We use both rigid-flex and full-flex circuits, and each of them serves different purposes. While rigid boards account for 98–99 per cent of all circuits and represent a very well-established industry, achieving high-density interconnects and very fine-pitched circuits on rigid-flex or full-flex substrates is much more complex. Fabricating those substrates and assembling components on them is also challenging.
Q. What challenges have you encountered in getting the PCBA done in India? At a large scale, is it not cheaper to get this flex-PCB assembled outside?
A. As I said, we outsource these tasks to a contract manufacturer. When it comes to making flexible circuits or PCBs, even the raw PCBs alone, there are very few manufacturers in India capable of doing this. There may be one or two suppliers of such PCBs, but their costs are exorbitant. Most of them are merely marketing here while getting the actual manufacturing done abroad and then supplying the products here. So, we might as well go abroad directly. At this point, it does not make sense for us to manufacture PCBs in India. For now, that is the only component we source internationally.
As for PCB assembly—the second part of the process—it is something that can be done in India, and we do handle that locally. However, since we are working with flexible circuits, it is not as though every supplier can handle these materials. There are very few who are capable of dealing with the complexities of flexible circuits. With our intervention, training, support, and engineering research and development (R&D), we have been able to manage this process successfully. That said, the pool of capable vendors in this space is still limited, but there are a few who can handle these requirements.
Q. Are you looking for any new vendors or channel partners for raw materials and other components?
A. We are always open to collaborating with new vendors for critical raw materials, such as semiconductors and passive components. The ring body itself is another significant component, along with the service elements involved in encapsulating the ring, such as epoxy. We are open to collaborating with others to develop modified and improved versions of the ring tailored to their specific needs, enabling customised solutions.
Q. What is the waste rate in the manufacturing process?
A. In the early days, a startup is prepared for 10–20 per cent wastage, resulting in yields of only 80–90 per cent. As we continue debugging and refining our process over three, four, or even five iterations, we can achieve yields of 98 per cent, 99 per cent, or even 100 per cent. These are good, reliable yields that can support taking the product to market. However, if possible, the ultimate goal is to reduce wastage even further.
Q. How big is your team?
A. We have 12–15 people working with us at a time, including interns and short-term assignees. Our design team has around 10 peopl,e split into hardware and software. Some work on embedded software and app software, while some specialise in hardware PCB and circuit design. The industrial design is partly done in-house, while we also collaborate with an agency. We have also outsourced relationships with vendors for marketing and other functions.
Q. So, does any industry-academia tie-up play any role in this whole design process?
A. We have engaged with IIT Kharagpur and Bombay, IIIT Bangalore, PES University, IISc Bangalore and ISB Hyderabad. We are currently incubated at IIM Bangalore, which coaches us on business management. We have also hired talent from PES University. We are open to working with interns from even smaller colleges than those we currently engage with.
Q. What is the price of one ring?
A. We sell it at ₹20,000 plus taxes, but with a discount, we are able to sell it at ₹17,000.
Q. Does this include post-sale services?
A. For now, there is no service fee associated with the product. Once you purchase the ring, you will be able to access a wide range of health insights directly through the app without any additional cost. However, if we develop premium services in the future, those may come with a charge.
Q. Have you engaged in any commercial sales till now?
A. We have been marketing our product and are currently in talks with business clients interested in purchasing our product and with direct-to-consumer sales. We have made some sales and have 250 customers who want to buy the ring. We are working on fulfilling those orders. We continue to sell based on the waitlist, and we have about three or four business clients with whom we are discussing sales of our products.
Q. Any revenue made from initial sales?
A. Early sales have happened, and we continue to make those, but we are still at an MVP (minimum viable product) stage, so I would not want to mention any numbers.
Q. What are the next steps you need to take to grow from here?
A. I think we need capital—that is the first priority. We really need funding that we can use to scale, launch, and sell. Secondly, I believe we need suitable partnerships to scale effectively. These partnerships should involve clients with the right reach, capabilities, and a genuine need for our product so that they can become our customers. We are talking about business-to-business (B2B) dealings that can help us grow.
Q. Does that mean you have plans to white-label this product?
A. We are happy to provide simpler smart rings for white-labelling, but we will not white-label our full-fledged design. We are committed to building our own brand, and the best, most complete solution will remain exclusively ours.
Q. What kind of B2B partners are you looking for?
A. We want to focus on what we excel at and have the partner handle areas where they excel. For example, schools that want to identify sports talents, will need wearable devices like ours to measure the performance of their budding athletes.
Similarly, gyms can use these devices to monitor and improve the health and fitness of their members. Nursing homes, clinics, polyclinics, or hospitals can monitor the health of short-stay patients. Post-discharge monitoring is another use case, where patients leaving the hospital after surgery can be monitored remotely at home to prevent unforeseen complications and enable quick interventions when necessary.
Our in-loop feature is one of the most unique aspects of our device, offering a significant advantage to doctors and patients alike. This feature can help solve challenges in healthcare, fitness, and rehabilitation. All entities working in these domains are potential partners—they can purchase our product and technology to address the challenges faced by their clients effectively.
Q. Have you taken help from any government funding or policies for startups?
A. We have raised a total of ₹5.4 million over two to two-and-a-half years through various government schemes. After that, we moved to angel rounds, and today we are ready to seek institutional funding.
One of the programmes we benefited from is the Elevate initiative in Karnataka. This programme traditionally recognises the top 100 startups in the state and offers funding based on their needs. We were awarded a grant through Nidhi Prayas, which is run by the Department of Science and Technology. We also participated in an incubation programme with IIT Bombay under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (TIH IoT). We received a small grant from MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology). The breakdown of the funding was approximately ₹3 million, ₹1 million, ₹1 million, and ₹400,000 across these programmes.
Q. How do you plan to utilise the funds procured from institutional investors?
A. We are engaging with investors to raise additional funding for various growth initiatives. This includes expanding our team, increasing our marketing spend, launching our product, and developing the next-generation version. We are keen to enter the export market, as there is good demand for our product in other countries. To support this, we must secure various certifications—clinical, quality, and others—to meet international standards. All of these objectives require a substantial budget, which is why raising funds is a critical priority for us.
Q. Not many people know or have seen a smart ring. Being an early entrant to a space which is not very publicised, you are selling a B2C product at ₹20,000. How do you expect to capture the market?
A. You are absolutely right. I would say only about one per cent of the entire world has even seen a smart ring, which presents a tremendous market opportunity waiting to unfold. I believe the smart ring market today is where the smartwatch market was 10–12 years ago, perhaps even 12–14 years ago. It will likely take off and either complement or eventually replace the smartwatch market as it evolves.
Currently, smart rings are priced higher because they are so niche and complex to manufacture. However, as with any product category, costs will decrease over time as volumes grow.
Additionally, the market can cater to different consumer needs through layered offerings. For instance, you could have a smart ring focused solely on activity tracking, a more advanced version offering both activity and health monitoring, or a premium, high-end smart ring incorporating ECG, sleep monitoring, and luxurious design elements like precious metals and gems.
Each tier would be priced differently, and over time, prices across these categories would come down due to economies of scale in electronics manufacturing.
Q. Some technologies claim to monitor blood sugar levels without invasive procedures. Will Orbyt be capable of something like that in the future?
A. People have tried addressing non-invasive blood sugar monitoring, with some coming up with partially effective solutions and others producing ineffective ones. The gold standard remains extracting a small amount of blood for analysis.
I believe that minimally invasive blood sugar monitoring could be the way forward—something that avoids the traditional blood extraction process yet is not entirely non-invasive. It might involve wearing a minimally invasive device to monitor blood sugar. However, I think the jury is still out on its utility. For instance, unless someone is diabetic, they are unlikely to continuously monitor their blood sugar.
Q. What are your plans for future growth?
A. We definitely plan to grow the team and continue our innovation and R&D to add more capabilities to our wearables. For instance, we are working on a chest patch device that can be worn on the chest to monitor the heart and lungs, providing significant insights into systemic functions in the thoracic cavity. Together with the smart ring, this device could offer a comprehensive understanding of a person’s health.
Our goal is to create minimally invasive devices and explore functionalities like haemoglobin analysis and blood sugar monitoring. We believe wearables, especially when used in combination, can significantly improve our understanding of human health. Continuous monitoring through wearables can provide valuable insights into metabolism, hypertension, and diabetes—conditions that are extremely common.
There is a growing need to understand how various factors like sleep and metabolism interconnect. Mental health is another critical area where there is rising interest. To address this, we aim to incorporate EEG sensors into our devices, opening new possibilities for monitoring and supporting mental health. There is tremendous scope for innovation in these areas, and we are excited to contribute to it.
