Tag Archives: smart ring

This tiny smart ring lets you remotely control your smartphone without taking it out of your pocket

Posted on by




Although it’s built targeting sports and fitness enthusiasts in mind (because you can’t really look at your phone in the middle of training), the ArcX is perfect for anyone who wants a hands-free smartphone experience.

Click Here to Buy Now: $47 $67 (31% off).

If you’re in your 40s, you remember a time when you had to physically walk to the television to change the channel. There was a massive rotary knob on the side of the screen and you would need to manually turn it to flip to another channel. Obviously, the infrared remote control came soon after, and made life much easier. You could change channels, increase/decrease volume, and even switch your TV on or off from your couch or the other end of the room. The television suddenly had a new, hands-free (ish) experience… and it seems like the smartphone is getting there too.

There are a whole bunch of scenarios where you really can’t physically take your phone out to use it. Maybe you’re jogging, trekking, in the middle of a workout, or maybe you’re skateboarding, cycling, or doing something that requires attention… or just something as simple as the fact that you don’t really have your phone near you (perhaps it’s on a table 6 feet away). These are niche situations, yet they occur often enough on a daily/weekly basis, warranting the need for a product. A product like the ArcX, a finger-worn remote control that lets you easily perform quick tasks on your phone without needing to take your phone out of your pocket or even have it in your hand.

The finger-worn remote weighs 8 grams (0.3oz) and has a single joystick-style interface that lets you play/pause music, skip tracks, answer/reject calls, trigger your camera shutter, start/stop your phone’s stopwatch, and even trigger an SOS emergency call if you’re in trouble. Although the ArcX is purpose-built for sports, it has a bunch of applications in daily commuting, photography, workplace productivity, music-playback, and just general safety.

The ArcX is a micro-joystick built into a waterproof and shockproof ring-shaped housing. Wear it on your finger, and it’s within reach of your thumb, giving you an experience you should find very familiar if you’ve used Blackberry smartphones in the past. The joystick provides an incredibly tactile and intuitive experience, and you can control it without needing to look at a screen, allowing you to go about your work un-distracted and unencumbered by displays and pixels galore. In fact, it’s sort of everything your smartphone isn’t. It’s rugged and durable, it comfortably sits on your finger and won’t fall or slip off, it’s IP67 waterproof, and it works independently of the visual sense (you don’t need to look at it).

This makes the ArcX absolutely ideal for when you’re working out, training, cycling/biking, surfing, and even when you’ve got sweaty hands or gloves on (because there’s no capacitive touchscreen to worry about). The ArcX sports an internal battery that gives you 5-days of usage (or 20 days of standby), comes with 4 ring sizes designed with a stretchable fit, and even has its own USB-C charger for juicing it up.

The ring connects to your phone via Bluetooth Low Energy (or BLE for short), working instantly out of the box with near-zero latency allowing you to access its core features (music control, call-answer/reject, selfie-trigger, and stopwatch). For a more custom/unique experience, the ArcX even comes with an app that lets you choose how its controls function – you could basically use it as a remote for anything, from a presentation running on your laptop to Netflix on your iPad, to your VR headset, your drone, even your electric car (basically anything your car’s phone-app could do), or to travel full circle, you could even control your television with it!

Designer: Paul Blair

Click Here to Buy Now: $46 $67 (31% off).

NBA restart plan includes using Oura rings to catch COVID-19 symptoms

Posted on by
While the NBA continues to move toward restarting its season with players and other personnel isolated at Walt Disney World in Orlando, details of how it hopes to manage the people on site are leaking out. According to Shams Charania of The Athletic,...

Researchers use Oura smart rings to predict onset of COVID-19 symptoms

Posted on by
Smart ring maker Oura has teamed up with West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute to try to predict the spread of COVID-19 in healthcare providers. By combining the wearables with an AI prediction model, the researchers can curre...

ER docs don smart rings to better predict COVID-19 infections

Posted on by
Some 2,000 emergency medical workers in San Francisco are tracking their temperature and other vitals with Oura's smart rings in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19, SF Chronicle reports. Oura and researchers from the University of California...

Skintrack Turns the Surface of the Arm into a TouchPad

Posted on by

skintrack smart ring

The following article is brought to you by The Tech Info Group. -Ed

The Skintrack is a new emerging technology that allows smartwatch users to transform the surface of the arm into an interactive touch pad. Developed by a research lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh called Futures Interfaces Group, the Skintrack uses a ring and a sensor to make the entire arm an interactive screen for the smartwatch. This eliminates the annoyance of trying to input commands into the small surface of a smartwatch screen, one of the main issues regular smartwatch users in the IT services field face.

Behind Skintrack

High frequency electric signals make the technology behind the Skintrack possible. The technology is powered by four separate electrodes inside the ring and the sensor, which is placed on the smartwatch strap while the ring is worn. The electrodes within the ring transmit safe, high-frequency electric signals once the finger touches the arm skin. These signals are received by the electrodes within the sensor. This allows the technology to calculate the exact position of the finger on the arm’s surface, and use that space as a touch pad surface.

How does it work?

Users can swipe or tap the surface of the arm to interact with the watch. The Skintrack accommodates simple or complex commands to give users a full range of actions. They can draw a photo on the arm that shows up on the smartwatch screen, make or answer calls and update social media channels. There are even hotkey commands, such as drawing a letter S on the skin to silence an incoming call. App shortcuts can be dragged from the watch screen to sit on the surface of the arm. The technology is totally safe for the human body and poses no threat to overall health.

While the Skintrack has certainly piqued the interest of smartwatch users around the world, getting one to use in everyday life is not possible just yet. The technology is still being developed, with no solid plans for a commercial release for the general public. Currently, the team behind the Skintrack is working to perfect the battery life of the ring and minimize interruptions to the signal while the user is in motion. While there is no release date or estimated price for the technology, commercial plans could come in time as these small issues with the technology are resolved.

As smartwatch usage becomes more widespread, so will the demand for technologies like the Skintrack, which allow users to use smartwatches more easily.

MOTA Smartring: the true One Ring

Posted on by
mota smartring

The MOTA smartring won’t make you invisible like Tolkien’s One Ring, but will really put the internet on your fingers, and nowadays, that’s just as useful.

Because pulling your phone out in the middle of a meeting might be considered rude but sometimes you just need to stay in touch with someone or on top of something, here comes the MOTA SmartRing. Sure, it does what almost every other smart-gadget does thanks to its app functionalities and its BlueTooth 4.0 connection to any smartphone, but the fact that it’s so small, discreet, and literally at your fingertips whenever you need it makes it a gadget worth considering for those who are in need of an elegant but reliable way of staying connected 24/7, in any context.

The MOTA SmartRing was designed to cut everything superfluous from your smart experience, and display only what you so choose: Twitter mentions, FB updates, or any other social media interaction can be further filtered, so only the few you personally choose are displayed. Also, the ring’s display will let you know who’s calling or texting before you even pull out your phone.

The project was being crowdfunded at Indie Gogo where it surpassed the goal already with almost a whole week to go still, so you can be sure we’ll be seeing more of the MOTA Smartring in the future. Who knows, maybe this is the next smartwatch after all.

Via Indie Gogo

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about how BMW made car chargers part of the smart home, and EmoSPARK, a console that brings AI into your home.

Ringly Smart Ring Buzzes when You and Your Phone Are Apart

Posted on by
Ringly Smart Ring 01

Smart rings are not exactly a novelty, but not many pieces of jewelry equipped with electronics were built for women. After all, they should represent the main audience of such products.

Christina Mercando, Ringly’s co-founder and CEO explained the reasons why she thought of making such a smart ring: “I’m always missing calls and texts, and it started to get really frustrating to have to keep my phone out on the table at restaurants and in meetings. I thought there just has to be a better way. What if my ring told me what’s going on?”

The team that built Ringly crammed quite a lot of electronics into the ring, fact that made Mercando notice that “A ring is the smallest form factor, so if you can fit the electronics into that, you can fit them into many different things, like a watch or bracelet.” She also noticed that the fashion and the technology worlds, while having a few elements in common, look at Ringly with different eyes: “The fashion world is blown away; they can’t believe something like this exists. And the technology world is like, is that all it does?”

Logan Munro, Ringly‘s mechanical engineer and co-founder, pointed out that the wearer of the one ring has the power to decide which notifications go through: “A lot of moms will say, if the babysitter calls, that’s the only person getting through on date night.”

Mercando noticed that smart rings should be less distracting than smartphones, if they are to serve a close purpose: “The angle of this is totally something that helps you disconnect is misleading because it does notify you when things are happening and then you want to go and check. It’s helping people not worry so much about their technology and not have so much anxiety around it.”

Ringly is already available for pre-order on the company’s website for $145-180, depending on the precious or semi-precious stone it is equipped with. As far as the size is concerned, this smart ring will come in typical sizes. More over, the manufacturer claims that the first 1,000 rings sold will sport a real diamond, besides the main stone preferred by the wearer.

All in all, Ringly seems to combine fashion and technology in a unique way.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Fin smart ring that makes a touch interface out of your palm and the Hexoskin shirt fitness tracker.

Fin Is a Ring That Makes a Touch Interface Out of Your Palm

Posted on by
Fin Ring Touch Interface

Bearing some similarities to Tolkien’s One Ring (in that it can control everything), Fin is a wearable that means to become the ultimate gesture based control device.

The hunt for new types of interfaces is never over, and the prevalence of wearable tech certainly helps push things forward. Of course, the main focus is on smart glasses and smartwatches, but rings haven’t been neglected either. Some come with NFC, others with integrated displays, but Fin does more than that. It is actually able to control smartphones, smart TVs and even car radios, provided that they support Bluetooth connectivity.

Here is how the company describes its own product: “Fin is a real life buddy for every individual to do their digital interactions as natural as possible. Fin is a trendy gadget you can wear on the thumb and make your whole palm as a digital touch interface.”

More than a fashion accessory, Fin also acts as a security authenticator. It is waterproof, dust proof and durable, so wearers shouldn’t worry about breaking it. The ring includes a microUSB port used for charging, and I assume that the port is somehow covered to make the product waterproof. The Li-Ion battery is meant to last up to one month, but that shouldn’t be surprising, given the energy requirements of this little gadget.

Rohildev Nattukallingal, founder of the Koch-based RHL Vision Technologies, the developer of the Fin ring, explained the new for a new way of interacting with our gadgets: “People in today’s world are becoming more busy, but still they are wasting a lot of time interacting with their smart devices. Fin removes this interaction gap by allowing users to quickly interact with those devices.”

RHL Vision Technologies is looking for funding on Indiegogo, and set a goal of $100,000. Till now, they’ve raised $24K, and there are 17 days left. As for how much you need to contribute to make sure you get a Fin ring, there are several options: $79 gets you a developer edition with only 5 gestures, while $99 secures a ring for early birds. Various combos and bundles are available for more.

The following video even explains how Fin could be used to help visually impaired people to interact with technology:

Given the high number of blind people in India, the country where this product was developed, emphasizing such features is completely understandable.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories such as the Tuit NFC security ring and the ring clock that brings fashion and technology together.