Electronics companies seem to be banking on smartwatches being the next big thing. Practically every major device maker has already announced one or is expected to launch one soon.

MOTA already has a smartwatch… so the company’s taking the next (il)logical step and announcing something smaller: meet the MOTA SmartRing.

Seriously. I think.

Update: The MOTA SmartRing has raised more than $100,000 in crowdfunding, hitting its campaign goal.

smartring_01

The SmartRing slips onto your finger and pairs with your iPhone or Android phone over Bluetooth. You can then view tiny notifications by glancing at your finger.

MOTA says the SmartRing can show notifications for email, text messages, calendar appointments, or incoming calls. It can also support other apps including Facebook or Twitter. You can view a text notification and you can also set the ring to vibrate when a message arrives.

The watch ring is water resistant.

MOTA plans to show off the watch ring at the IFA show in Berlin this week, where we may learn more about pricing, the release date, and other specs including the screen resolution and battery life.

At a time when it’s not entirely clear if shoppers want to buy smartwatches nearly as much as manufacturers want to sell them, I suspect smart rings will be a very niche product.

via MarketWired

 

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14 replies on “MOTA SmartRing: Because smartwatches are too… I dunno”

  1. Looks cool, but when could they ship? There’s a team that’s ready to go with a similar product – a ring that is super cheap at under $50 with a month-long battery life called Siring:
    http://www.sansensi.com

  2. Yup, been waiting for this one, anonymous could check my google history and verify my claim. Smart rings will work, but for god sakes put an led flashlight on it somewhere

  3. I want a smart small-something like this as an anti-theft system. If my android phone moves more than 10 meters (or whatever I set) away from me (from the thing I wear) the phone beeps an alarm for some minutes and will then encrypt all contents and then shut itself down. Something like that.

    1. If the MOTO Contact Lens has the same notification vibration as my Pebble, that would be one weird, weird feeling…

      1. Haaa yeah. “sorry officer I got an email and it vibrated my contacts, thats why I drove into the tree”

  4. “Oh, no, I’m not giving you the finger, I’m watching the game from last night on my smartring.”

  5. Actually I think there is room in the market for such devices to be successful. For one thing the tech needs to improve a little so they can be smaller.
    Beyond that though they need to refine their uses. A ring which tells me I’ve got e-mail isn’t that great because it’s too small to tell me what the e-mail is. I’ve always got mail. I don’t care.

    However if it told me something I wanted to know – like perhaps that there was mail from my spouse or girlfriend or whatever – then that might be more interesting. Perhaps it could just vibrate with different rhythms or turn different colors depending upon the alert, which would be settable by me.

    Now that’s interesting.

    Maybe it doesn’t even need e-mail. Maybe it has it’s own app. Maybe a certain color just means my significant other was thinking about me and wanted to say hello without being intrusive into my work/day. A little secret signal like a smile across a crowded room or a wink or nudge of your hand.

    Or maybe it glows a certain color when your spouse or child gets to a certain point – home from school or disembarking the train at the commuter station or whatever. Or perhaps when your roast in the oven hits its target temp.

    Heck maybe it even reads a sensor net on your loved one and acts as a mood ring – but for your loved one. Now that would be useful.

    My point is that they need to deliver much more relevant and personalized information in discrete usable ways and then I think such stuff could get very popular.

    1. Hey, you stole my pitch from a few weeks back!

      🙂

      Yeah, just as watches are dual purpose — accessories and functional time pieces — I see no reason why rings and bracelets can’t be, There will probably come a point where display technology is vibrant and low power enough to come in all kinds of wearable forms that can be used to accessorize an outfit as well as serve some kind of functional purpose. That’s why it’s Google Wear, and not Google Watch.

  6. “The watch is water resistant.

    MOTA plans to show off the watch..”

    Freudian slip there because Brad subconciously couldn’t accept anyone would really release something like this >.<

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