MIO Drive Wearable Heart Rate Monitor & Sports Watch

MIO

Track Your Heart to Train Your Best

We designed the MIO Drive for strapless heart rate tracking in a compact, athletic form.

Early Innovation in Sports Technology

Wearable tech was an emerging technology in the early 2000s. The MIO line of smart watches was an early adopter that reached out to Beyond Design to develop a new athletic performance tracking device. This project led to the development of the MIO Drive Heart Rate Monitor & Sports Watch. It was a wrist-worn device designed for athletes to accurately track their heart rate and movement.

As one of the first to embrace wrist-based optical sensors for heart rate tracking, the MIO Drive helped set the standard for modern sports watches, merging fashion and performance into a wearable device.

Design That Keeps Pace

Designers collaborated with MIO to create the form factor and aesthetic appeal of the watch. We created sketches and key dimension drawings to refine the wearable’s shape, ensuring it was visually appealing while maintaining its core functionality. The design was then engineered with 3D geometry set for tooling and manufacturing.

The final design was a watch with a minimal aesthetic that made it intuitive, lightweight, and easy to exercise with. It featured ECG-accurate, strapless heart rate monitoring, alongside additional fitness features like activity tracking, sleep monitoring, and calorie counting. More smartwatches emerged after the MIO Drive was released, and this product was an early adopter that inspired many more wearable smartwatch designs to come.