Seamless product development cooperation – Customer story with Firstbeat

Monitoring recovery is currently one of the most significant trends in fitness and sports. Firstbeat, a Finnish technology company, has capitalized on this trend by developing a leading product that tracks your HRV, stress levels, and recovery with the help of the Firstbeat Life mobile application and the Bodyguard 3 smart device. According to Jakub Parak, Senior Research Engineer and Project Manager at Firstbeat, the company wanted to revolutionize the product’s mechanical and firmware design to introduce unique features and enhance user experience in the next generation of the Bodyguard device.

When searching for a product development partner, Firstbeat prioritized reliability, good cooperation, and high quality. According to Jakub, Haltian was the best partner in the market due to their expertise in mechanical and firmware design, experience in consumer products, and ability to present their references convincingly. Additionally, Firstbeat required a partner to help with mass production ramp-up, certifications, and device maintenance.

“We immediately got the feeling the people we met knew what they were doing. They were able to present their expertise through their references and were the best in the market for what we were looking for.” Jakub comments.      

The core things Haltian helped Firstbeat with in this project were the mechanical design, firmware writing, manufacturing and mass production readiness, certifications, and the maintenance of the Bodyguard 3.

Collaborating with Haltian during the product design and development phase allowed Firstbeat to refine the device design, add new features such as a BLE radio, and reduce the size and weight of the device for a better user experience.

Jakub Parak expressed satisfaction with the partnership, highlighting the valuable contribution of Aimo Alaniemi, Haltian’s skilled project manager, who facilitated communication and troubleshooting throughout the collaboration. Haltian also supported Firstbeat in obtaining the necessary certifications and type approvals for global consumer products. Currently, the project is in the maintenance phase, which involves regular meetings with the customer and production partner to ensure the device’s continuous quality.

Read more: The product development phases you should know about

Bodyguard 3 has some completely new features, like a BLE radio that communicates directly with the Firstbeat Life mobile application. The small size of the product was very important, and Bodyguard 3 is now significantly smaller than its predecessor. Bodyguard 3 offers the best possible user experience for the end user, with its small and lightweight design, and easy-to-use interface.

Firstbeat Life and Bodyguard 3 are used by many sports and wellbeing professionals, such as personal coaches, who embed stress level and recovery analysis into their training programs. Another big customer for Firstbeat is the occupational health care services who want to offer more robust health analysis for their clients.

According to Jakub, despite Haltian being an external product development team, their integration into the project was seamless, and they felt like part of one team. Haltian worked with Firstbeat, not just for them, resulting in a successful collaboration.