Help people to focus on their breathing

Research has proven that personalised breathing exercises can improve the wellbeing of people with stress, anxiety, panic attacks or sleeping problems. Moonbird asked us to develop a handheld device that will guide the user through their breathing exercises by providing tactile feedback.

A device that breathes

When you hold your moonbird in your hand and place your thumb on the PPG, it will detect your heart rate. Moonbird's algorithm is able to analyse your breathing rhythm from this data. The device will then first simulate your breathing rhythm by contracting and expanding, making it easy to adjust your own breathing to the recommended pace and then gradually slow down. This way, it will guide you through the selected breathing exercise even with your eyes closed and in complete silence.

A device that fits perfect in the palm of your hand

Finding the perfect shape needs a lot of testing. Although every hand is different in size and shape, moonbird had to be a one-size-fits-all solution. Numerous iterations of clay models and functional prototypes brought us to the final shape of moonbird. The smooth surfaces ensure that moonbird sits comfortably in every hand and provide the right tactile feedback.

Ingenious mechanics in a soft shell

Although moonbird is al about user experience, it contains an ingenious mechanism, which transfers a rotational movement of the motor into the expansion and contraction of the outer surface. The internal mechanism was specifically designed to make moonbird a very reliable and durable device.

Optimised energy consumption

The challenge was to keep the energy consumption as low as possible while fitting the mechanism, electronics and battery in a small, handheld device and still guarantee a decent operation time.

Magnetic charging

Moonbird is charged through magnetic contacts (and not e.g. classic USB-C), because it has some specific advantages: Not only does it look more integrated and sophisticated; it's also more hygienic as the flat interface won't collect any dirt. An accidental bump or drop of the device while it's charging, will not cause any mechanical stress on the connector, which makes this a more durable solution.

Ready to scale up

With their pre-sales campaign completely sold out, moonbird is now ready for mass production. The complete assembly and every individual component are ready for industrialization. One of the more challenging components of the device is the outer shell, that consists of a single silicone part. This makes the device pleasant to touch, hygienic and easy to clean, but requires very specific tooling and treatment.

The moonbird brand

Our brand design team was asked to develop moonbirds brand identity that fits the purpose of its solution and that supports the emotional goal of using the device. We created a brand identity where every individual touch point expresses the brand fundamentals – an identity that looks humanly intuitive and that blends well with its natural purpose.

Translate an idea into an actual solution.

Obstructive Sleep Apnoea (OSA) is diagnosed when throat and tongue muscles relax abnormally strong and block the air flow during sleeping. This disturbance not only causes snoring but briefly wakes up the patient as a result of a short suffocation panic. OSA is the most common sleep disorder and it affects over 300,000 people in Belgium alone. Nyxoah’s therapy consists of a tiny neurostimulator implanted in the chin area. The system stimulates the tongue nerve. This keeps the upper airway open throughout the night, avoiding sleep apnoea.

Disruptive solution requires discrete and minimally invasive surgery

The system that the Belgo-Israeli start-up Nyxoah has developed is compact and requires a simple implantation, just under the chin of the patient. This implant directly stimulates the tongue muscles when needed. This keeps the upper airway open throughout the night. The implant itself is wirelessly powered by a small activation chip that the patient wears under the chin on a disposable patch while sleeping.

Charging during the day gives you a good sleep at night

Since most of the complexity lies in the activation chip, the implant is kept simple, giving it a long lifetime. While Nyxoah mastered the required technology, they needed a partner to help create a complete system that guarantees a user-friendly approach for patients, doctors, and surgeons.

Making it easy for all users

Our designers and engineers developed a new solution to charge the implant and wear the device during the night. As a side effect, our designs are patented and are now an important element of Nyxoah’s IP.

Auto-focus eyewear

At a certain age, our eyes tend to degenerate. Eyeglasses are the logical answer to this problem. However, we catch ourselves constantly looking above and below our glasses when looking at objets close up. Alternatively, we buy a pair of multifocal lenses and narrow our field of view. Morrow wanted to transform this multifocal eyewear to increase the level of visual comfort. This translated in a revolutionary smart eyewear that can change focus between near and far distances with just a push of a button.  

Smart lens

The team of Jelle De Smet and Paul Marchal from Morrow developed a new kind of smart lens with a layer of liquid crystals that makes it possible to change the index of refraction by an electrical current.

Increased productivity in the laboratory

Terumo BCT wanted to update their T-Seal Tube Sealing Device with an emphasis on usability and efficiency. The new unit needed to take up as little work surface as possible and be quickly interconnected with multiple devices when needing to seal off numerous inline blood samples. This partnership led to a device that not only met these criteria but also boosted productivity in the lab environment and increased sales for Terumo BCT.

A more intuitive and compact seal unit

A folding spacing leg can be used to place multiple sealing units next to each other at precise intervals to create different samples. Sizing down the T-SEAL II device allows closer placement for more sealed units, using up less workspace. Data and power can be shared between the units trough cable connections. This ensures that the sealing only happens at the optimum moment, limiting the risk of having a bad seal.

An Anaesthesia device is a crucial device in an operation room.  Its design needs to be functional, easy to use and – most importantly – reliable in all circumstances. Medec wanted to develop their new anaesthesia device and consulted Achilles Design to guide them through the development process.

Getting insights in the process flows of anaesthesia

In order to start the design process, we first needed to get a solid and thorough understanding of the various stakeholder needs, predominantly the needs of the user itself. Being required to analyse, specify, develop, and evaluate the usability of this medical device in accordance with the ISO62366 standard, we focused on designing the product based on actual user feedback.

Hands-on design approach

We mobilised all the creative ability of our engineers and designers and then combined the best ideas into a series of design concepts. From the overall product layout to different functional subsystems such as the valves, our engineers generated multiple functional prototypes that were intensely tested with respect to durability and reliability.

Defining every bolt and nut

Extensive experience with multiple manufacturing techniques and assembly principles enabled us to develop a robust and reliable device, while keeping the cost of ownership to a strict minimum. We detailed and designed all mechanical parts for serial production. In close co-operation with the Medec team, we verified that all parts and (sub)systems would fulfil the required quality standards.

The hyposafe SubQ technology allows to monitor your brain activity continuously. The challenge is to create a product that is only minimally obstructive as it has to be worn continuously. When designing the external device we had to make sure that the product is as invisible as possible, yet still able to interact with the user, especially when an alarm occurs. Being used 24 hours, the reliability of the product is of extreme importance.

Slink design

The product consists of a tiny implant and an external communication device that is connected with the implant through an inductive coil. The final design of the external device is a highly miniaturized flat product that can be magnetically fixed below the patient’s clothes. The magnet has a circle shape allowing the patient to blindly find their way to the button positioned on the inside of his shirt. The optimized magnet will ensure a strong fixation allowing the user to be very active, perform sport etc. An auditory and visual alarm is given in case of a nearing hypoglycemia.

Engineered for production

Achilles Design took the lead in all mechanical design & engineering, while Zenso was responsible for the design of the external communication device and designed all the electronics, firmware and PC-based software from feasibility phase up to design and production. Focus on superior quality and reliability was key to achieve the Uneeg quality requirements.