Zyzo
From Idea to Production: The Full Hardware Engineering Behind Zyzo's Elderly Communication Device
Case Overview
Voxdale was Zyzo's leading engineering partner from the first concept, owning the entire hardware design and engineering, delivering production-ready tooling drawings, and following production and software integration through to a pilot series manufactured in China.
Sector
Consumer IoT, elderly care, connected devices
Client
Zyzo, maker of a touchscreen communication device that helps elderly people stay in contact with their children and grandchildren
Product
A touchscreen communication device built for elderly users who typically don't use a smartphone
Voxdale role
Leading partner in mechanical engineering and technology integration, involved from the initial idea and concept generation onward
Technologies
Full hardware design and engineering, including production-ready tooling drawings for injection moulding
How we worked
Across every phase: initial idea and concept generation, user research, software and hardware design, and pilot series production in China
Hardest challenge
Following up hardware production and software integration abroad
Outcome
Moved from concept to production-ready tooling and a pilot series manufactured in China
Case Overview
Voxdale was Zyzo's leading engineering partner from the first concept, owning the entire hardware design and engineering, delivering production-ready tooling drawings, and following production and software integration through to a pilot series manufactured in China.
Sector
Consumer IoT, elderly care, connected devices
Client
Zyzo, maker of a touchscreen communication device that helps elderly people stay in contact with their children and grandchildren
Product
A touchscreen communication device built for elderly users who typically don't use a smartphone
Voxdale role
Leading partner in mechanical engineering and technology integration, involved from the initial idea and concept generation onward
Technologies
Full hardware design and engineering, including production-ready tooling drawings for injection moulding
How we worked
Across every phase: initial idea and concept generation, user research, software and hardware design, and pilot series production in China
Hardest challenge
Following up hardware production and software integration abroad
Outcome
Moved from concept to production-ready tooling and a pilot series manufactured in China
Case Overview
Voxdale was Zyzo's leading engineering partner from the first concept, owning the entire hardware design and engineering, delivering production-ready tooling drawings, and following production and software integration through to a pilot series manufactured in China.
Sector
Consumer IoT, elderly care, connected devices
Client
Zyzo, maker of a touchscreen communication device that helps elderly people stay in contact with their children and grandchildren
Product
A touchscreen communication device built for elderly users who typically don't use a smartphone
Voxdale role
Leading partner in mechanical engineering and technology integration, involved from the initial idea and concept generation onward
Technologies
Full hardware design and engineering, including production-ready tooling drawings for injection moulding
How we worked
Across every phase: initial idea and concept generation, user research, software and hardware design, and pilot series production in China
Hardest challenge
Following up hardware production and software integration abroad
Outcome
Moved from concept to production-ready tooling and a pilot series manufactured in China
Executive Summary
Zyzo set out to build something unusual: an IoT device for people who typically don't use smartphones.
The product is a touchscreen communication device that helps elderly people stay in contact with their children and grandchildren, bringing the connectivity people expect from a smartphone to users who have never owned one.
Voxdale was the leading partner in mechanical engineering and technology integration from the initial idea and concept generation, working alongside co-founder Hans Kan of Hybrio Partner [TO CONFIRM: whether Hans Kan can be named publicly]
Voxdale owned the entire hardware design and engineering effort, delivering production-ready tooling drawings for the client's Chinese moulding company, and carried the project through user research, software and hardware design, and a pilot series produced in China.
The hardest part wasn't the design itself, but following up hardware production and software integration abroad, keeping quality and integration on track across the distance between the design studio and the factory floor. The result: a device taken from first concept to production-ready manufacturing.
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Client Context
Zyzo makes a unique communication device: a touchscreen built specifically to help elderly people stay in contact with their children and grandchildren.
It brings the kind of connectivity people expect from a smartphone to users who don't use one, a reminder that IoT is not just for smartphones anymore.
The idea and concept were generated with co-founder Hans Kan of Hybrio Partner, with Voxdale involved from that very first stage as the mechanical engineering and technology integration partner shaping the product from concept onward.
Client Context
Client Context
The Technical Brief
Design a touchscreen communication device usable by elderly people who typically don't use smartphones
Own the full hardware design and engineering, from concept to production-ready tooling
Integrate software and hardware into one working product
Produce a pilot series with a Chinese moulding and manufacturing partner
Keep production quality and software integration on track while manufacturing abroad
The Technical Brief
The Technical Brief
The Harder, Less Obvious Part
Underneath the brief sat four problems that don't show up until you're actually building the thing.
Designing IoT for non-smartphone users. The whole point of the device is to reach people who don't use conventional connected devices, so simplicity and usability had to be engineered in, not assumed.
Managing manufacturing at a distance. Following up hardware production and software integration abroad, in China, was the single biggest challenge: keeping tooling, quality and integration aligned without being on the factory floor.
Hardware and software as one product. The device only works if the hardware and the software integrate cleanly; both had to be developed and then brought together through production.
From idea to tooling in one continuous line. Voxdale was present from concept generation, so the design had to carry all the way to production-ready tooling drawings a moulder could build from directly.
The Harder, Less Obvious Part
The Harder, Less Obvious Part
What Voxdale Delivered
Voxdale engineered five generations of the C2K device in direct co-development with ITM's clinical research team.
Leading engineering partner from concept generation. Voxdale was the leading partner in mechanical engineering and technology integration from the initial idea and concept generation, working alongside co-founder Hans Kan of Hybrio Partner.
Full hardware design and engineering. Voxdale handled the entire hardware design and engineering scope for the touchscreen device, covering its complete mechanical and enclosure engineering.
Production-ready tooling drawings. Voxdale delivered production-ready tooling drawings for the client's Chinese moulding company, documentation detailed enough for the moulder to tool and manufacture directly.
Technology integration. As technology integration partner, Voxdale brought the hardware and software together into one working device.
User research. The project included user research with the elderly target group, essential for a product aimed at people who don't use smartphones.
Pilot series production oversight in China. Voxdale followed up hardware production and software integration abroad, overseeing the pilot series built in China and resolving manufacturing issues as they arose.
What Voxdale Delivered
What Voxdale Delivered
How We Worked
Voxdale was involved from the initial idea and concept generation, and stayed through user research, software and hardware design, and pilot series production, the full arc of the project.
Mechanical engineering and hardware design, owned by Voxdale
Technology integration, owned by Voxdale
Concept generation, developed together with co-founder Hans Kan, Hybrio Partner
The defining feature of the collaboration is scope: one partner carried the product from first concept through to production-ready tooling and a pilot build abroad, rather than handing off between specialists at each stage.
How We Worked
How We Worked
The Hardest Challenge — and How We Solved It
The challenge. Following up hardware production and software integration abroad, keeping quality, tooling and integration on track with manufacturing happening in China.
Why it was difficult. Handing production-ready tooling to an overseas moulding company introduces distance between design intent and what actually gets built. Manufacturing issues surface far from the design team, and hardware and software integration has to hold together at the same time.
What would not work. Treating the tooling handover as the end of the job. Manufacturing abroad meant the design had to be followed through production, not thrown over the wall.
What we changed:
Own the design through to production-ready tooling. Voxdale delivered tooling drawings detailed enough for the Chinese moulder to build from directly, reducing ambiguity at the point of manufacture.
Follow up production and integration abroad. Voxdale stayed engaged through the pilot series to catch and resolve manufacturing issues rather than discovering them at delivery.
Treat hardware and software as one integration problem. Voxdale brought the two together as technology integration partner rather than handing off separate parts.
The Hardest Challenge — and How We Solved It
The Hardest Challenge — and How We Solved It
Outcome
A touchscreen communication device taken from idea to production-ready tooling
A pilot series produced in China
Hardware and software integrated into one working device
Outcome
Outcome
What This Proves for Similar Teams
This case is for hardware and consumer-IoT founders who have a concept and need one partner to take it all the way to production, including the messy reality of manufacturing abroad.
It shows Voxdale can lead from concept generation through user research, full hardware design and engineering, production-ready tooling, and pilot production oversight in China, while integrating hardware and software into a single product.
What This Proves for Similar Teams
What This Proves for Similar Teams
Need one partner to take your concept all the way to production, including manufacturing abroad?
Voxdale owns hardware design end to end, from first sketch through production-ready tooling, staying engaged through pilot builds to catch and resolve issues before they reach you. Explore our Consumer Electronics capabilities or contact us to discuss your product.
Continue reading
Continue reading
Madglove
From a physiotherapist's insight to a manufacturable assistive glove for people with hand spasticity
Ceriter
Engineering the next-generation gait sensor electronics for Ceriter's Stride One platform
Aseptic Technologies
Engineering a principle-first mixing-and-cooling system for cell-therapy manufacturing
Heau
One architecture, two products: engineering Heau’s instant-hot-water shower as both a retrofit and a built-in unit
Institute of Tropical Medicine
Designing a $2 blood self-sampling device for home use — from first prototype to peer-reviewed results, a patent, and a Red Dot Award
Wonderful ideas, engineered from sketch to scale
Wonderful ideas, engineered from sketch to scale
Wonderful ideas, engineered from sketch to scale
Wonderful ideas, engineered from sketch to scale
© 2026 Voxdale BV
© 2026 Voxdale BV
© 2026 Voxdale BV