Today Yixiu releases the ISHO Ring smart ring and iFlow temperature control system, as Wang Teng bets on nighttime 8-hour sleep technology

Add crowdsourcing promotion copy Add crowdsourcing promotion copy end Add App-exclusive traffic referral

On October 29, 2026, ISHO (Jinri Yixiu), founded by former Xiaomi executive Wang Teng, held its first product launch event, unveiling two major hardware products in one go—the ISHO Ring smart ring and the ISHO iFlow smart temperature control system—while also publicly announcing the ISHO Intelligence personal sleep health AI technology system, in an attempt to build a complete sleep technology loop of "monitoring–analysis–intervention–evolution."

While the vast majority of consumer tech companies are racing to capture users' 16 waking hours during the day, ISHO has placed its bet on the long-neglected 8 hours of the night.

At a 40-minute media group interview after the event, Wang Teng, together with his collaborator Academician John Roger Speakman—a physiologist holding academician titles from multiple countries including China, the UK, the US and Europe—confronted the industry's controversies head-on: how big the opportunity in the smart ring segment is, how sleep hardware can shed the "IQ tax" label, how a cross-hardware ecosystem can be implemented, and the business model and overseas expansion path of a startup. In an era when smart wearables are a red ocean and sleep products have polarized reputations, this startup is trying to answer a long-unresolved question facing the industry: how exactly should sleep technology be done?

Why build a smart ring in addition to a watch

The global smartwatch and smart band market has long been a hundred-million-unit-scale business, but smart rings are still in an early stage at the ten-million-unit scale. Overseas, Oura has educated the market for years; domestically, a large number of white-label factories (factories producing unbranded or low-profile-brand goods) have flooded into the segment, with white-label ring hardware costs compressible to around one hundred yuan, manufacturer profits as low as single digits, and the industry a mixed bag.

So why still make a ring, and persuade users to buy an additional wearable beyond their watch? In the group interview, Wang Teng explained that the ring's core advantage comes from the wearing form itself. Watches worn on the wrist are hard to keep tight, and sensors tend to float during daytime activity, limiting the success rate of collecting key vital-sign signals such as HRV, resting heart rate and skin temperature; at night, when the human body is relatively still, fingertip physiological signal quality is higher, and the ring's small size and jewelry-grade appearance weaken the device's presence, making it more suitable for all-day, uninterrupted wear. ISHO Ring smart ring

Specifically for ISHO's first product, the ISHO Ring, priced at 1,799–2,199 yuan, it has a price advantage over Oura. It uses an aviation-grade titanium alloy unibody process, a sapphire optical sensing window, is equipped with the Apollo 330B Plus chip, supports on-device AI running locally, has 32MB of local storage for 7 days of offline recording, achieves 6–10 days of battery life, and supports monitoring of 18 physiological data points. The Pro version comes with a sensing charging case that additionally integrates five-in-one environmental sensing of carbon dioxide, temperature and humidity, noise and light, connecting human physiological data with bedroom environmental data.

Facing the price shock of hundred-yuan white-label products, Wang Teng admitted that he visited several white-label factories in Shenzhen and ultimately did not choose an off-the-shelf solution, opting instead to develop hardware from scratch. "In a consumption downturn, good products will still win user recognition, but the premise is that hardware craftsmanship, materials and software algorithms are all done properly." He acknowledged that the product currently scores 60–70 points, with some stability metrics still requiring continuous iteration, and that product strength is the fundamental way to counter low-price white-label goods, breaking out of the circle through word-of-mouth.

On the industry standards level, Academician Speakman pointed out that the "gold standard" of the sleep monitoring industry is medical polysomnography (PSG). In the past, consumer-grade sleep devices generally matched PSG at only 60%–80%, while ISHO's product reaches 81%, already very close to the 85% agreement rate of two human experts interpreting PSG reports. He judged that in the next four years, relying on AI algorithms combined with multi-source sensing hardware such as mattresses, consumer-grade sleep devices may even have a chance to surpass human interpretation levels in monitoring accuracy.

From ring to smart temperature control system: more than monitoring

For a long time, the vast majority of sleep wearable products have remained at "passive monitoring": collecting sleep data and outputting a report, but unable to change the user's sleep state—which is also the root of many sleep products being labeled an "IQ tax": they only tell users they slept poorly, without providing effective intervention means. ISHO iFlow smart temperature control system

ISHO's solution is a dual-hardware combination: the ISHO Ring is responsible for all-day human physiological signal collection; the ISHO iFlow smart temperature control system serves as a sleep intervention terminal, laid on the bed in the form of a fitted sheet, requiring no additional device for the user to wear. It automatically adjusts the bed surface temperature according to the user's current light and deep sleep stages, thereby extending deep sleep duration.

This system is priced at 9,999 yuan for the standard version, from 12,999 yuan for the Pro version, and from 15,999 yuan for the co-branded version, with the pricing sparking market discussion. In the group interview, Wang Teng candidly said that the product may look expensive, but its gross margin is even lower than that of the smart ring; the high price stems from hardware costs: multiple sets of TEC cooling and heating components, a large number of bed sensors, on-device computing chips, heat dissipation structures—the entire hardware bill of materials is costly; compared with overseas comparable competitors priced above 20,000 yuan, ISHO's pricing is equivalent to 50–60% of competitors', not a deliberate pursuit of high-end premiums.

Of course, this type of product was not pioneered by ISHO today; traditional home furnishing manufacturers in China such as De Rucci and Sleemon have long been positioned in the smart mattress segment, with some products equipped with airbags to adjust sleeping posture. When discussing differentiation from traditional home furnishing giants, Wang Teng said that traditional bedding companies have deep accumulated expertise in craftsmanship and supply chains, but there is still room for improvement in AI algorithms and intelligent experiences. The core members of the ISHO team come from the mobile phone and PC industries, and they hope to bring the AI and integrated software-hardware capabilities of consumer electronics into the sleep home furnishing segment and carve out a differentiated path.

The two types of hardware do not operate in isolation. The team has completed Demo verification: the fingertip physiological data from the ring and the body-motion sensing data from the iFlow mattress cover are fused and jointly computed, which can further improve the accuracy of sleep monitoring. Wang Teng believes that at the monitoring level, a single sensor can complete basic analysis; but to deliver good intervention, multiple hardware devices need to each play their own role. Light, temperature, noise, and sleeping posture all affect sleep. In the future, more home devices can connect to the ecosystem, and multi-dimensional environmental and physiological data can be fed into AI large models. With long-term accumulation, the understanding of users' physical conditions will become more complete and profound.

How to avoid paying the "IQ tax"?

"Are sleep products an IQ tax?" was a question repeatedly raised throughout the launch event and the group interview. Wang Teng offered two simple criteria for ordinary users to distinguish sleep products: first, see whether the product is backed by authoritative academic papers and scientific research experiments; second, look at word-of-mouth feedback from a large number of real users.

The breakthrough path chosen by ISHO is evidence-based scientific research. The company has invited Academician Speakman for in-depth cooperation and is also advancing research cooperation with domestic universities such as Tsinghua University and Peking University. Every function strives to have a scientific basis, with clinical validation on test subjects carried out to prove product value with measured data and reject exaggerated marketing.

Why Academician Speakman was willing to cooperate with this startup, he gave the answer at the group interview: many companies approach him with the goal of merely having the academician endorse and sell products; but ISHO focused on the scientific questions themselves from the very beginning, and founder Wang Teng personally visited to communicate about research directions. The core scientific goal of the two sides' cooperation is to solve a physiological puzzle that has not yet been fully answered: how exactly does the previous night's sleep quality affect a person's daytime energy fluctuations the next day at the physiological level.

The academician further proposed a major trend in the AI healthcare field: healthcare is moving from "one-size-fits-all group recommendations" to individualized health. The standardized advice currently given by public health, such as 150 minutes of exercise per week, is not suitable for everyone; with the same amount of exercise, the physical benefits for different people differ vastly. Wearable hardware + AI Agents will, in the future, generate health plans tailored to each person's own physical conditions—this is also the long-term vision of ISHO Personal Agent.

Based on this set of scientific research goals, ISHO did not limit its product to sleep duration statistics, but instead proposed the concept of an "energy score," combining sleep, activity, and physical recovery data into a 0–100 daytime energy assessment to help users arrange work and rest according to their physical condition, completing the leap from "sleep monitoring" to "all-day energy management."

About the business model

Wang Teng, who came out of REDMI phones, is very familiar with the logic of the hardware industry, but ISHO does not intend to be only a hardware company. The company's business model is divided into two layers.

The first layer is hardware: smart rings, temperature control systems, and other hardware maintain reasonable gross margins to support supply chains and R&D investment. Wang Teng admitted frankly that the company will inevitably lose money in 2026, with the goal of striving to achieve break-even in 2027.

The second layer is AI health services. "We will become a health service company that processes tokens in the future."—Wang Teng gave an analogy: the cost of calling a foundation model may be only 1 cent per token; by adding a sleep professional knowledge base and an Agent architecture to process and generate in-depth personalized health analysis, new value is created.

In addition, unlike the mandatory subscription model of overseas Oura, ISHO has chosen "basic features permanently free, advanced capabilities paid on demand." Basic functions such as viewing heart rate and sleep reports are all free; only advanced features such as in-depth personalized analysis and advanced energy recommendations that consume large amounts of tokens will be charged for in the future. At this stage, the knowledge base and user data volume are still insufficient, so all advanced AI capabilities are open for free, and commercialization charges will start only after product capabilities are refined and mature.

The ideal and reality of sleep technology

Today's sleep technology industry stands at a contradictory crossroads: on the one hand, hundreds of millions of people in China are troubled by sleep problems, and market demand is genuinely strong; on the other hand, a large number of products pile up hardware specifications and lack scientific validation, and the stereotype of the "IQ tax" is deeply entrenched.

ISHO has opened up a combined route of "fingertip wearables + bed-side intervention," different from simple wristbands and watches, and also different from the smart mattresses of traditional furniture manufacturers. It attempts to connect three layers of capability—hardware sensing, basic scientific research, and AI large models—extending the closed loop from "recording sleep" to "regulating sleep and managing daytime energy."

However, the challenges facing this startup are still clearly present: the algorithm accuracy of consumer-grade devices still lags behind medical-grade levels; 81% agreement is a good starting point, but to truly deliver on the scientific goal of energy prediction, massive real user data is needed to continuously feed the model; the iFlow temperature control system starting at 9,999 yuan and the smart ring starting at 1,799 yuan are positioned in the mid-to-high end—how to expand the user base and shed the niche label; the test of the business model: the hardware + AI service model has been validated by Oura, but whether domestic users are willing to continuously pay for advanced sleep AI services remains unknown; finally, the cross-device ecosystem experience needs to be connected. Ring and mattress cover coordination is only the first step; the stability and algorithm consistency of multi-device linkage require lengthy engineering refinement.

At the launch event, Wang Teng set a long-term goal of 5–10 years for himself: to build a globally leading AI sleep technology ecosystem brand. The tech industry mostly focuses on people's waking experiences, while ISHO wants to tap the value of the 8 hours at night. This startup about sleep and energy has only just begun. Statement: Exclusive article from Sina.com, unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. tech_web_article_v2015_block_bottom Non-targeted 300*250 button 17/09 wenjing begin

Non-targeted 300*250 button end