Tag Archives: rings

Casio ring watch offers a playful yet practical way to tell the time

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Smart rings are now being positioned to replace smartwatches but only in terms of tracking the wearer’s health and activities. They can’t tell the time like smartwatches, at least not until they’re able to show a tiny display that’s still readable. There might be a way around that limitation, but it will make you look like you’re wearing a shrunken wristwatch on your finger.

That’s pretty much the case for the new Casio Ring Watch CRW-001-1JR, practically a miniature version of the classic Casio digital watch. It has a full watch face, just smaller, that you can clearly read at a glance. Ironically, it doesn’t have any sensors, but that could be a possibility in the future given how large it is anyway.

Designer: Casio

To be really blunt, this “finger watch” is more of a cute and funny novelty than something you’d really want to depend on. It’s meant to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Casio’s digital watch business, which is why it tries to stick as close as possible to that design. It is also functional, though comfortable use is obviously out of the question.

With a display that’s almost an inch in size, the Casio Ring Watch manages to squeeze in a 7-segment LCD that can display hours, minutes, and seconds. There are also multiple modes, including dual-time, alarm, and a stopwatch. Yes, it has an alarm, but rather than cramming a tiny and terrible speaker, it just flashes the screen to get your attention.

The Casio Ring Watch is roughly 1/10th the size of a regular Casio digital watch, but to accommodate that unusual design, which includes three physical buttons, the company opted to have a single ring size. It’s equivalent to US size 10.5 or 20mm inner diameter, but the package includes two spacers for those with smaller finger sizes. Unfortunately, that design does mean that larger fingers are out of luck.

This odd “smart” ring is more of a collectible product rather than an everyday wear anyway. Since we humans use our hands a lot, such a large ring will get in our way often. It is advertised to be waterproof, though, but the exact rating isn’t disclosed. It runs on a replaceable battery that is also stated to last at least two years before needing a substitute. The Casio Ring Watch will be launching next month with an SRP of 19,800 JPY, roughly $128. International availability is still unknown.

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Wearable chess set turns one of the oldest games into a fashion statement

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Although video games today have become a multi-billion dollar industry, there are analog games that have existed for centuries and continue to be a beloved pastime and sport today. Chess, for example, is still going strong across peoples of all ages, but it isn’t just players who find the game to be a treasure trove of inspiration.

The variety of chess set designs shows how the game is so open to interpretation, much more than most video games, resulting in products ranging from artistic to technological. This rather unusual take on the classic strategy game takes chess in a slightly different direction, presenting a game you can literally wear and take with you anywhere, ready to set up a match at a moment’s notice.

Designer: Louis Le Joly Senoville

We’ve seen many interpretations of the classic chess set design, from minimalist to brutalist to self-playing technological marvels. Most of these sets are designed to be installed in one location, while portable chess sets are sometimes too small because they’re meant to fit inside bags. They still take up space, of course, so that means giving up room that’s meant for your other, equally important stuff.

Ha Mat, which is short of “eched ha mat,” (“checkmate” in Breton) solves this problem by turning the chess set into something completely inconspicuous when not in use. In this case, the chess board becomes a scarf, the pieces become rings, and the timer becomes a watch. It’s literally a chess set you can wear as a fashion piece, allowing you to play anywhere there’s a flat plane to place everything on.

Of course, Ha Mat needs to actually look fashionable to qualify as a fashion statement, and it definitely fits the bill. The “board” takes inspiration from silk maps and military training scarves on antiquity, and the color scheme even tries to pay homage to luxurious hues used on chess boards in the past, particularly leather and wood. The watch that’s part of the set is quite peculiar because it can split in half and act as a timer for both sides.

The most interesting designs, however, are the chess pieces themselves. They have flat bottoms so they can stand on the “board,” but they have holes in the middle to wear as rings on your fingers. The pieces have tops that are more symbolic and iconic to identify their position on the board, simplifying their identity in order to fit the need to have flat pieces.

Of the 32 chess pieces, you can wear 16 on eight of your fingers if you pair similar pieces together. These would make you look like you’re wearing knuckle dusters, so they might not exactly be safe to wear in public. Still, the concept is quite intriguing, as it transforms one type of product into a completely different kind, without losing either one’s identity. In fact, it elevates the chess set from a game to something that’s an integral part of your life.

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Amazfit Helio Ring joins the fray with a focus on athletes’ well-being

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Now that smartwatches have more or less become more acceptable in society, it seems that the wearable tech market is setting its eyes on less conspicuous and less distracting designs for monitoring one’s health and fitness. And just like smartwatches in their early years, smart rings just aren’t resounding yet with people, though that could only be a matter of time. There hasn’t been much variety yet in this nascent market, which isn’t surprising given the physical limitations of a ring. Wearable tech brand Amazfit, however, believes it has something unique to offer, at least to athletes and very active people who are just as concerned with their mental health and recovery as they are with their steps and heart rate.

Designer: Amazfit

The niche that smartwatches have found themselves in seems to revolve around fitness and health, with features like activity tracking, health monitors, and the like. While those are indeed important metrics, they only represent a part of one’s overall well-being. Mental health is just as important, and giving your body and mind time to rest and recover is critical as well. Those are the points that the Amazfit Helio Ring is trying to emphasize in order to differentiate it from the likes of the Oura Ring, currently the leading name in this very young and small market.

In a nutshell, the Amazfit Helio Ring takes the same data collected by sensors inside the ring but interprets them in a slightly different way. Of course, it still records your steps, tracks your blood oxygen levels, and even monitors your sleep, but it frames that information in light of stress levels, your mental health, and most importantly, how well you’re taking steps to recover from those. Amazfit will propose actionable steps to guide you toward recovery, which unsurprisingly include getting enough sleep and meditation.

As for the device itself, the Amazfit Helios Ring is a bit of an outlier in that it doesn’t try to masquerade as a piece of jewelry. The dotted pattern on its surface is a dead giveaway that it is anything but luxurious, giving it a more rugged appearance that its target audience won’t mind anyway. In fact, it is intentionally designed for this group of people, using “skin-friendly” titanium alloy and ensuring water resistance of up to 10ATM, for those times when you need to take a swim.

The Amazfit Helios Ring can be used on its own, with or without an Amazfit smartwatch. Of course, you will need to pair with the mobile app, but you will also need to subscribe to the Zepp Aura rest and wellness service to really use the data it gives. A purchase of the ring will include a three-month free trial, but there are no pricing details available yet.

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