OnePlus announces new Health Laboratory ahead of new OnePlus Watch

OnePlus Announces State-of-the-Art Health Laboratory to Pioneer Healthier Future

New York, NY, February 6^th – With an ever-evolving vision for a healthier future, Global technology brand OnePlus is thrilled to announce the grand opening of a new Health Laboratory, located in Guangdong, China. The new 4,840sqm state-of-the-art facility is created to drive the advancement of leading health and wellness technology. This landmark initiative represents a long term commitment to wearable technology by OnePlus and the significant leap forward towards a healthier future, by pioneering cutting-edge research and developing supporting technology.

Dr. Zijing Zeng, Head of the Health Laboratory, underscores that the expansion of the Health Laboratory marks a significant milestone. “Innovation thrives when it aligns with user needs. The Health Laboratory is well-positioned to have a meaningful impact on people’s healthy lifestyles while we embrace technology, data-driven insights, and user-centric approaches, therefore paving the way for a healthier, more connected future.”

Paving The Way To The Future Of Preventative Healthcare

OnePlus’s steadfast dedication to enhancing health and fitness through technology is demonstrated via the Health Laboratory. With an emphasis on preventative healthcare and the “healthy lifestyle” idea, the Health Laboratory will use technological innovation to offer proactive health management solutions that will aid in the development of a healthy lifestyle.

Sports, professionalism, technology, humanities, and nature are all incorporated into the Health Laboratory’s design ethos and culture. With vibrant interiors, all designs are centered on the user experience and supporting professional testing capabilities in order to create a smart testing environment that is comparable to the user’s everyday life, which in turn, allows for greater focus in sports and testing activities.

Bridging All-Encompassing Functionalities With User-Centric Approaches

Central to the Health Laboratory’s endeavors is substantial investment in innovation. The design and construction of the Health Laboratory started at the end of 2023 and has taken more than two years, costing more than €13.5million.

The R&D facility is 4,840-square-meters in size and features over 100 professional R&D testing equipment, including sports environment simulation and energy metabolism, motion capture, health, optics, and other sub-fields, which has 20 sub-laboratories built around the four main directions of sports, cardiovascular health, sleep, and hardware.

Medical professionals and multidisciplinary software and hardware engineers make up the R&D team, who are at the forefront of research and development in the fields including biomedical engineering, sports health, sensor detection technologies, hardware systems, and algorithms.

For thorough research, the Health Laboratory is equipped with leading, industry-standard facilities and extensive test scenarios, all while protecting user privacy. For example, the energy metabolism research module, equipped with a pulmonary function test system, evaluates key metabolic parameters such as oxygen consumption, caloric intake, and fat burning efficiency. This enables the study of metabolic characteristics across different populations and under various scenarios, thereby enhancing the accuracy of algorithms used in wearable products. For studies on sports and health functions, the laboratory also creates a variety of test scenarios, reestablishing the user’s normal running and walking patterns.

There are several significant areas for research and development in the Health Laboratory. The test area for aerobic exercise capability is 900 square meters in size. By simulating a variety of aerobic exercise scenarios such as running, cycling, rowing machines, skiing, and so on, key physiological characteristics and performance data are studied to improve the ability of self-developed algorithms, allowing smartwatches to better monitor exercise capacity and cardiopulmonary health. This area features 20 pieces of professional-grade simulation equipment, such as cycling platforms, big multi-functional treadmills, rowing machines, climbing machines, and more, as well as an Olympic-grade pressure track. An external motion capture system and an integrated digital force measuring system can examine ground reaction forces.

The 1,000-square-meter ball sports laboratory uses 24 infrared cameras to record markers, examine body motions, and measure joint angles, simulating professional basketball and badminton courts. Wearable technology can accurately detect blood oxygen and altitude thanks to the environmental laboratory’s simulation of altitude conditions. With three distinct testing rooms and the ability to do nocturnal polysomnography, the sleep laboratory conducts expert sleep research using UWB technology and advanced monitoring equipment such as millimeter-wave radar and multi-parameter human body sensors. Research on cardiovascular health is supported by the health oratory and the biochemical laboratory focuses on developing and testing chemical ingredients for sensors, while the optical evaluates sensor hardware and design.

Revolutionizing A Healthier Future With Collaborative Innovation

By fostering an ecosystem of innovation, the Health Laboratory serves as a crucible where creativity, connecting and collaboration converge. As a pioneering initiative, the benefits of the Health Laboratory extend far beyond the immediate user base, impacting the broader community. By establishing long-term research collaborations with over 30 institutions including professional health facilities, universities, research institutes and ecosystem partners, this extensive network enhances the research capabilities of the Health Laboratory and ensures that all the developments are grounded in the latest scientific advancements.

With over 50 industry-university-research initiatives and more than 100 high-caliber invention patents to date, the Health Laboratory is setting the stage for future advancements in health technology. These include ECG electrode materials, PPG light-shielding materials and solutions, and the capacity to identify the human condition of healthy sports by utilizing data from several sensors. Among these, PPG material research is essential for heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring. Related patents can effectively reduce the interference of light signals that have not come into touch with the human body which improves measurement accuracy.

Notably, in order to further propel healthcare forward, the Health Laboratory features a holistic approach, intertwining production-study-research to explore multiple fields. During the “2023 Beijing Health Data Science Summit”, the Health Laboratory was invited to conduct in-depth discussions on health big data, sports health, cardiovascular health, sleep health, mental health, and non-sensing monitoring. The research on the risk of sleep breathing monitored by smartwatches was also accepted by the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC 2023).

The expansion of the Health Laboratory is a bold step towards a future where technology and health are seamlessly integrated. Through these efforts, OnePlus remains dedicated to pioneering a future where proactive health management becomes the norm, enhancing the quality of life for users worldwide.