10 Minutes to A Whole New Horizon
Over the years, the Aurai team has been devoted to find the best solution for digital eye strain. With the soaring popularity of digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops spreading around the globe, we spend more time looking at screens than ever. The side effects of extended screen time include eye fatigue, dry eyes, and blurred vision.
After years of development, we finally came up with a breakthrough solution – Aurai, water-propelled eye massager dedicated to relief eye fatigue and eye discomfort.
Following the remarkable success of our first model on crowd-funding campagin, we’re coming back with our second project – Rio. Rio primarily focuses on enhancing the functionality and user experience of warm compression on eyes, making it more compact and portable, more comfortable to wear, and most importantly, more accessible and affordable for everyone.
Did you know…
Average Americans spent about 10 hours and 39 minutes a day staring at their digital devices.
Since many of our hobbies and activities are increasingly online, we inevitably spend more time on screens no matter if we are working or entertaining. According to the 2016 Digital Eye Strain Report by the Vision Council, almost 9 out of 10 Americans use digital devices for two or more hours each day. Nearly 60% of Americans use digital devices for five or more hours daily, and 70% of people use two or more devices simultaneously.
From 2012 to 2018, we’ve increased time spent on mobile media by 130%, and digital eye strain has become more common in modern lives.
All of these findings clearly tell us that we’ve taken a toll on our eyes. The more time we spend on screens, the more easily our eyes get fatigued which will lead to dry eyes, irritated eyes, blurred vision, related headaches, and poor sleep. These in turn will negatively affect our work and quality of life.
This is exactly where Rio comes in.
Rio achieves water permeability and maintains adequate moisture around eyes without irritation. Whether you had a late night out or have been staring at a screen for hours at work, your strained dry eyes and skin around your eye sockets are worth being moisturized by Rio.
Rio utilizes water circulation and simulated wave pulses to relax muscle tension gently around the eye area while limiting noise to promote relaxation. With its unique water circulation system, Rio literally soothes your eye strain in the most comfortable way.
While other eye massagers utilize rigid vibration, Rio reduces your eye strain without creating any uncomfortable or harmful vibrations. The tender massage provided by Rio will improve your blood circulation and boost metabolism, allowing you to get rid of the eye fatigue cumulated over a day. Just close your eyes and let Rio cradle you to deep relaxation.
The built-in constant temperature system ensures the temperature stays within the designated range, saving you from hassles in replacing hot towels/gel packs. Dual phase temperature offers optional temperature ranges: Normal 39 – 41°C (102 – 105°F) and High 42 – 44°C (107 – 111°F) to suit different user’s liking.
Whether you need a light rest during a coffee break or seek a deep relaxation after you’ve had a long, tough day, you’ll always find an ideal temperature for yourself. The high temperature setting works especially well to encourage oil gland production, so your eyes produce more tears to mitigate dry eye discomfort.
We know how delicate and important your eyes are. Traditional eye massagers use a rigid approach with squeezing air compression bags or rolling mechanical metal tips. Rio takes good care of your eyes with a soft, gentle, and skin-friendly eye mask. It’s made of medical grade silicone, it’s hypo-allergenic, and it’s easy to clean and maintain.
The ergonomically designed water bag comfortably molds to your eye sockets, allowing temperature to naturally come through to your skin. Water circulates inside the silicone eye mask along with vibration modules, generating wave-like movements that tenderly massage around your eyes.
We’ve successfully shrunk Rio’s size from the previous model, making it more compact, lighter, and more portable, so Rio can travel wherever you go. Rio is powered through a micro-USB connection, one of the most widely used connectors in the market.
Other than the AC adapter provided, Rio also works with other power banks or external battery packs with rated output 5v=~2A. As long as you bring the micro-USB cable provided, you’ll easily find applicable power sources.
“It’s almost, BOOM. It was a fantastic massage. I’m going actually seeing the “after effect”Face turns to feel like extremely lux.”
“I feel like my eye really open up and I feel my view is wider now.”
“I was thinking of would be nice to use it everyday!”
Deputy Executive Dean for Life and Health Sciences at Aston University.
Deputy Dean, Life and Health Sciences Professor of Optometry, Aston University
Professor of Optometry, University of Houston.
Professor James S. Wolffsohn is the Deputy Executive Dean for Life and Health Sciences at Aston University. James has published over 170 peer reviewed academic papers and over numerous International presentations.
His main research areas are the development and evaluation of ophthalmic instrumentation, contact lenses, intraocular lenses and the tear film. He Is the academic Chair of the British Contact Lens Association, having been a past president and Is Chair of the 2nd Dry Eye Workshop Diagnosis Sub-committee.
We bring our 2nd project back on crowding funding platform because this is the place where we met the best customers and supporters we could possibly find, who welcome new ideas and be outspoken to our product, design, communication, timeline and more. We’d gained tremendous amount of invaluable feedback and comments from our backers through the first campaign. We’ve incorporated a lot of input from backers into the development of Rio, advancing the experience of eye care to a whole new level.
Crowding funding platform enables us to raise funds to continue developing more great products for our backers and establishes our brand and values to potential customers and channels. We’ve grown from the first campaign and we’re eager to share our achievements with our backers and a lot of those we yet to meet.
Sales & Marketing: Stephanie, Nicholas & Jill
Research & Development: Iverson, Gabriel & Eric
Production: Jimmy & Eric
Risks and challenges
The design of Rio is completed. All products shown on this page and in the video were built from different generations prototypes. We’re currently ready to fabricate toolings and ramp up at our factory. We’re ready to fulfill our promise to meet the estimated delivery times.
Engineering:
To assimilate simplicity in every part of the user experience with RIO, we’ve been going through a meticulous design and engineering process. Two critical elements are in place to ensure our engineering’s effectiveness and success, they are:
1) A talented team of experienced engineers and designers from industrial design, mechanical design, and program management to streamline the functionality of Aurai with sleek aesthetic features.
2) Constant testing implemented throughout the development process to ensure every bit of RIO meets our expectations. In 2018 alone, we built 5 generations of prototypes, conducted a trial production run of alpha machines. We had a run of beta machines tested by a significant number of users. We have collected substantial amounts of data as our reference for product development.
Supply chain and logistics:
Taking Rio to the production scale has always been one of the most critical matters to our success. We often see some crowd-funding campaigns encountering problems of turning prototypes to mass production. These issues include finding the right suppliers and engineering the components for mass production. We went through countless days and nights of discussion, trial and errors and review process which have helped us overcome these challenges. We’ve been working for months collaborating and negotiating with suppliers, testing the stability and quality of components, searching for reliable fulfillment partners and building a team to coordinate and execute all these functions seamlessly. We’re almost there, and all we need now is your support to make this happen.
Disclaimer:
Content on this site is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition, nor substitute for advice given by a licensed health-care professional. You should contact your health-care provider immediately if you suspect that you have a medical problem.