Project Overview

As an industry-leading innovative design service provider, LKK Design has deeply collaborated with DingTalk to jointly create the DingTalk AI Recorder. This is an intelligent hardware device that integrates recording, transcription, translation, analysis, and collaboration into one, aiming to free users' minds through AI technology, allowing them to focus on thinking and achieve more efficient recording. This article will comprehensively introduce LKK Design's role and contributions in this collaboration from four aspects: client background, product requirements, solutions, and project value.

Client Introduction

DingTalk is a globally leading intelligent mobile office platform with over 700 million users, serving 80% of Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Dedicated to empowering organizations and individuals through technology, DingTalk enhances work efficiency and collaboration experiences. With the development of AI technology, DingTalk aimed to launch a smart hardware device that deeply integrates with its software ecosystem, further expanding "AI + Office" scenarios.

Project Background

Under the trend of digital offices, issues of low efficiency and poor user experience persist in scenarios such as meeting recording, voice organization, and cross-language communication. Users waste an average of 520 hours per year on audio organization, meeting summaries, and note review, while also incurring high costs for manual transcription and translation services. DingTalk aimed to create an "All-in-One AI Recording Solution," combining a recording card, translator, memo pad, and AI assistant into one portable smart productivity tool.

Based on user research and scenario analysis, we jointly defined the core requirements of the DingTalk AI Recorder with DingTalk:

• Efficient Recording and Transcription: Supports long-distance high-definition audio capture, intelligent noise reduction, multi-speaker differentiation, and real-time transcription.

• Intelligent Analysis and Summarization: AI automatically generates meeting minutes, extracts key information, and provides structured analysis.

• Cross-Language Communication Support: Supports real-time translation in 21 languages, breaking down language barriers.

• Long Battery Life and Portability: Lightweight body, ultra-long standby time, supports magnetic attachment, suitable for mobile office scenarios.

• Ecosystem Integration: Seamlessly connects with DingTalk software, enabling cloud synchronization of audio files and multi-device collaboration.

 Design Research

Through user interviews, scenario observations, and competitive analysis, we gained deep insights into user pain points in scenarios such as meetings, interviews, and learning, establishing the design philosophy of "unobtrusive recording, intelligent organization, and focused communication."

 Industrial Design

• Form Design: Adopts a minimalist card-style design with a thickness of only 3.8mm and a weight of 40.8g, making it easy to carry and attach magnetically.

• Interaction Design: Equipped with a 0.95-inch high-definition color screen that clearly displays recording status and battery level; physical recording button and AI voice button for intuitive operation.

• Material and Color: Offers two color options: Moonlight White and Midnight Black, using skin-friendly materials and metal frames for both texture and durability.

 Mechanical Structure Design

• Ultra-Thin Realization: To achieve the 3.8mm ultra-thin body, we adopted a multi-layer stacked motherboard design with highly integrated components; selected ultra-thin battery modules and custom micro microphone arrays, optimized internal space layout through precise structural simulations, achieving extreme thinness while ensuring structural strength.

• Structural Innovation: Utilizes an integrated metal frame combined with composite material back cover design, reducing weight while enhancing overall structural rigidity; magnetic attachment module ensures secure attachment without affecting body thickness through precise positioning structural design.

• Heat Dissipation and Reliability: Employs a combination of graphene thermal pads and metal frame for heat dissipation, ensuring stable operation of high-performance chips; durability under ultra-thin form factor ensured through rigorous drop, twist, and fatigue testing.

 Electronic Design

 1.Hardware Design

• Core Chip Selection: Uses BES2800 6nm AI audio-specific chip to achieve high-performance, low-power AI voice processing capability.

• Microphone Array Design: Meticulously arranges 5 omnidirectional microphones + 1 bone conduction microphone, optimizing array layout through acoustic simulations to achieve 5-8 meter far-field high-definition audio capture.

• Power Management System: Designs high-efficiency power management circuits paired with 660mAh high-energy-density battery to achieve 60-day ultra-long standby time.

• Connectivity Module: Integrates Bluetooth 5.0+ and dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5GHz) to ensure stable and fast wireless connections.

 2.Firmware Development

• Audio Processing Algorithms: Develops deep learning-based real-time noise reduction algorithms supporting 500+ office scenario noise filtering.

• Low-Power Management: Designs intelligent power management strategies to optimize power consumption across different usage scenarios, balancing performance and battery life.

• Communication Protocol Stack: Custom develops stable Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communication protocols to ensure stable connections and data synchronization with mobile apps.

• Local AI Engine: Deploys lightweight AI models at chip level to achieve localized intelligent functions such as voice wake-up and keyword recognition.

 3.Software Development

• DingTalk App Integration: Deeply integrates with DingTalk app to enable automatic audio file synchronization, cloud transcription, multi-device editing, and other functions.

• AI Function Implementation: Develops core AI functions including automatic meeting minute generation, multi-language real-time translation, and intelligent summarization.

• Cross-Platform Support: Compatible with multiple operating systems including Android, iOS, and HarmonyOS, ensuring consistent user experience.

• Data Security System: Uses AES128 encryption for transmission and storage, building an end-to-end secure audio data management system.

 Prototyping and Testing

Through multiple rounds of prototyping and user experience testing, we continuously optimized key indicators such as audio capture quality, transcription accuracy, and AI response speed to ensure stable product performance in real scenarios. Testing covered various real scenarios including meetings, classrooms, outdoor environments, and cross-language communication, collecting extensive user feedback for continuous iterative optimization.

After its launch, the DingTalk AI Recorder quickly became the top-selling AI recording device in China and received recommendations from CCTV. Its value is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

• User Efficiency Improvement: AI automatically generates minutes, reducing user organization time from 1 hour to 10 minutes, freeing up significant mental energy for thinking and decision-making.

• Cross-Scenario Adaptability: Suitable for various scenarios such as meetings, interviews, classrooms, and cross-border communication, becoming a "second brain" for multi-professional users.

• Brand Ecosystem Strengthening: AI Recorder deeply integrates with DingTalk's software ecosystem, enhancing DingTalk's influence in the smart hardware field and promoting the implementation of "AI + Office" scenarios.

• Design Innovation Demonstration: This project reflects LKK Design's comprehensive capabilities in hardware innovation, user experience, and AI integration, providing a successful example of smart hardware design for the industry.

• Technical Breakthrough: The 3.8mm ultra-thin body design sets a new industry benchmark, showcasing LKK Design's technical capabilities in achieving high-performance electronic integration within limited space.

Conclusion
The DingTalk AI Recorder is a successful collaboration between LKK Design and DingTalk in the "AI + Hardware" field. With a user-centered approach and systematic design research and engineering implementation, we have created a smart tool that truly understands users and enhances productivity. From industrial design to electronic engineering, from structural innovation to software development, LKK Design has demonstrated full-chain design and integration capabilities. In the future, we will continue to work with clients to bring more innovative products to market, empowering the intelligent era with design.