From Tracking Data to Finding Relief: Holly's Story

4 min read  ·  January 5, 2026

I spent over a decade building the wearable technology that tells you exactly how exhausted you are. But when I became a mother, I realized that staring at a low sleep score doesn't actually help you heal.

Hi there, I'm Holly He, Founder and CEO of AxiLab.

The story behind AxiLab didn't start in some fancy tech office. It started where a lot of real life happens: somewhere between being totally exhausted and trying to push through, between staring at health apps and just wanting to physically feel better.

For 12 years, I was a product design engineering manager at Apple. I helped create the health sensors for the Apple Watch and Vision Pro. My days were all about the tiniest details, engineering specs, and figuring out how wearables track our bodies. We built amazing tech to monitor health. But eventually, I realized that just having the data wasn't enough.

Pushing Through the Pain

Outside of work, I was tough on myself. I ran 50-kilometer ultramarathons, did grueling rowing sessions, and lifted heavy weights. I pushed through Achilles injuries, back surgeries, and the kind of deep burnout that comes from a high-pressure corporate job.

But none of those physical feats prepared me for the biggest challenge (and joy!) of my life: having my daughter in 2024. The sleepless nights and the incredible vulnerability of those early days of motherhood changed everything for me. In those moments of deep, bone-weary exhaustion, my health data stopped being just numbers.

I'd look at the sleep score on my wrist while feeling completely depleted and realize a hard truth: When our bodies are aching and crying out for rest, a low sleep score doesn't help us. We don't just need our devices to watch us. We need them to actively help us feel better.

Healing That Actually Understands You

That realization is where the true "smart" aspect of AxiLab was born. I didn't just want to build another massager or heating pad. I wanted to build a device with intuition: one powered by AI that actually learns you.

At AxiLab, we use artificial intelligence not as a tech buzzword, but as a quiet, caring partner. Instead of forcing you to figure out what settings your body needs, our AI takes your health data: those restless nights, those high-stress days, and translates it into the exact type of physical comfort you need in that moment. It connects the dots between how you're living and how you're recovering, taking the guesswork out of feeling good.

Making AxiLab a Reality

To build this, I took a leap in early 2025. I left my comfortable tech job to create the solution I desperately needed. And let me tell you, it hasn't been glamorous. I traded my sleek corporate office for my messy, chaotic home garage.

· The Hustle: I went from managing big teams to sitting alone, hand-soldering circuit boards and tinkering with tiny motors to get the physical touch just right.
· The Grind: AxiLab was built during late nights training our AI algorithms to understand human fatigue, fixing hardware while a typhoon raged outside during my factory trip, and navigating the incredibly tough world of building smart hardware from scratch.

Why We're Here

AxiLab started as my personal solution to late-night engineering headaches, tough runs, and the desperate wish that there were a better way to recover. But today, it has grown into a shared mission.

We are taking clinical-level hardware, giving it an intuitive, smart "brain," and turning it into something that brings real comfort to your everyday life. We aren't just building another gadget to track you. We are building smart technology to help you heal.