Reon
Smits
15+
years of experience
years of experience
Fractional CTO — MedTech, Regulated AI & Hardware
Reon began his career as an electronic engineer at TEGEMA, a high-tech engineering company in the Eindhoven Brainport region, designing electronics and electrical systems for machines and products in semiconductor, life science and automotive markets, including his first medical products.
In 2016 he co-founded Mentech and spent ten years as its CTO, building the company from the kitchen table into a profitable business with a team of 30 engineers. There he led the development of the HUME, an MDR-certified, clinically validated emotion AI platform that combines wearables such as a smart sock with machine learning to detect stress in people who cannot express how they feel, now used by more than 30 care organisations across the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria, and NOA, an LLM-based care assistant for long-term care. Under his lead Mentech became the first organisation in Europe to be fully certified for ISO 42001, alongside ISO 27001 and NEN 7510. He also served as interim CTO of SARA Robotics, leading a 20-person engineering team behind a social care robot for nursing homes.
Today he is CTO of two startups, one in stealth building a smart surgical instrument and one bringing AI to healthcare. He is also co-founder of ImmunoRing and Lexian, and an investor and advisor at TrueSim. Through his company BetaBloom he supports founders and investors as a fractional CTO, compliance advisor and technical due diligence auditor, including as a panel CTO with CTO Grand Rounds. He is a named inventor on multiple patents, has co-authored eight peer-reviewed publications on stress detection and wearables, and holds an MScBA from TIAS School for Business and Society and a BSc in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Fontys.
I like the combination of hardware, software and AI, so I like to have the three fields combined to make it a bit more challenging, to be honest.
Good
match for
MedTech and HealthTech founders building products where hardware, software and AI come together in regulated healthcare markets, from first prototype to certified medical device. Especially strong for teams facing MDR certification, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 or NEN 7510, wearables and sensor-based products, care robotics, and AI that must be safe, private and compliant from day one. Equally valuable for investors needing technical due diligence on a MedTech or regulated AI company, and for founders who need a hands-on CTO for a set number of days per week to build their technology, team and processes so they hold up when they grow, raise or enter regulated markets.
Reon Smits's industry experience
Medical devices & MedTech
Wearables & physiological sensing
Emotion AI
Long-term care, dementia & disability care
Care robotics
Surgical instruments
AR/MR clinical training
Private & regulated AI
Semiconductor & high-tech engineering
AgriTech
When to bring us in
Typical decisions
The critical technology decisions leaders face when delivery, investment or product direction is at risk.How do we design hardware that meets both clinical safety requirements and regulatory demands, such as hygiene and replaceable batteries?
Which certifications do we need (ISO 27001, ISO 42001, NEN 7510, MDR), and in what order?
How do we bring AI into a care setting safely, while keeping patient data private and compliant with the EU AI Act?
How do we combine wearables, sensor data and machine learning into a reliable clinical product?
How do we build an in-house team that covers hardware, software and AI together?
Our cloud costs are growing faster than our users. How do we optimise the platform?
How do we make our platform hardware-agnostic, so we’re less dependent on one device or vendor?
We’re an investor considering a MedTech or regulated AI company. What does independent technical due diligence tell us?
How do we take a robotics or deep tech product from pilot to reliable use at scale in care homes or hospitals?
Examples
Co-founded Mentech and led the development of the HUME from first prototype to a clinically validated, MDR-certified emotion AI platform, used by more than 30 care organisations in the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria
Led Mentech to become the first organisation in Europe fully certified for ISO 42001 (responsible AI management), alongside ISO 27001 and NEN 7510
Optimised Mentech’s cloud platform with AWS partner DoiT, cutting database costs by 60% while the user base grew fivefold
Led the development of NOA, an LLM-based care assistant (LangChain, LangFlow) that recognises stress and emotions through speech and sensors to support people with dementia or an intellectual disability
As interim CTO of SARA Robotics, led a 20-person engineering team across hardware, software and AI, bringing structure to development and preparing the social care robot for larger-scale use in care homes
As investor and advisor at TrueSim, helped shape an AR/MR training platform for ICU nurses, including making it hardware-agnostic across different headsets
Articles
- A Knitted Interdigitated Skin Conductance Wearable for Early Detection of Stress in Long-Term Care (IEEE Sensors Journal, in review, 2026)
- Improvements in Stress-Detection Technology to Improve the Quality-of-Life of People With Challenging Behaviour (AHFE Open Access, 2024)
- User Requirements and Perceptions of a Sensor System for Early Stress Detection in People With Dementia and People With Intellectual Disability (JMIR Formative Research, 2024)
- Effect of Stress-Based Interventions on the Quality of Life of People with an Intellectual Disability and Their Caregivers (Disability and Rehabilitation, Assistive Technology, 2023)
- Real-Time Stress Detection Based on Artificial Intelligence for People with an Intellectual Disability (Assistive Technology, RESNA, 2023)
- Implementation Opportunities for a Garment-Integrated Sensor System for Early Detection of Stress in People Living with Dementia (Age and Ageing, Oxford Academic, 2023)
- Impact of Real-Time Stress Monitoring in People With an Intellectual Disability (AHFE Open Access, 2023)
- The Development of a Washable and Durable Smart Textile to Measure Electrodermal Activity for Early Stress Recognition (AHFE Open Access, IHSI 2023)
- Accurate Stress Detection from Novel Real-Time Electrodermal Activity Signals and Multi-Task Learning Models (AHFE Open Access, 2022)
- The Use of Smart Wearables for Early Notification of Stress in People with Intellectual Disabilities (Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 2021)
- Social Network Engagement for More Quality of Life for People with a Severe Intellectual Disability (Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 2021)
- Stress Detection in People with Intellectual Disabilities (Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 2021)
- Adapting Electrical and Electronic Engineering Curriculum Towards IoT and Cyber Physical Systems Themes (SEFI 44th Annual Conference, 2016)
Full list of publications and patents in the CV at reonsmits.nl:
https://reonsmits.nl (opens in a new tab)