Smarty Ring on IGG

[Kean]

I know there are a metric tonne of dodgy crowd funded projects, but I still can't believe this hasn't been mentioned here.

www.indiegogo.com/projects/smarty-ring/
http://smartyring.com/

Only a few hours to go, but they've raised a significant amount of money in the last couple of days due to media hype - for a project that has no prototype or proof of concept shown.

Weirdly, they've just told me they can ship before April 2014 because they've already sourced parts.  BS!

Kean

[Corporate666]

I threw a dollar at it - because it's worth a buck to be able to comment on it as it goes down in flames, which it will.

There is exactly a 0.00% chance of this product ever actually shipping.  Make that 0.000%

[Jon86]

Can't wait to see how long that 22mAh battery actually lasts with their 'dazzling led display'. I can't imagine how they're going to cram that into a 'ring' anyway 
As if this is even going to come close to production... IGG should really monitor these, but I guess they're only making money so they don't care.

[fcb]

If you look at your cellphone every 6 minutes (according to their blurb), I think you deserve to invest in this one.

What does $300,000 buy in Chennai?

[jonmarx]

Looking at the supposed prototype PCB design I struggle to see how that can curve around and fit into a ring.  Also is the grid-like feature near the right-hand end of the PCB the LED display array?  If so the resolution looks rather low - I foresee some disappointed customers...

http://images.indiegogo.com/file_attachments/198005/files/20131114145731-pcbdesign.png?1384469851

[Jon86]

If you look at your cellphone every 6 minutes (according to their blurb), I think you deserve to invest in this one.

What does $300,000 buy in Chennai?

I look at my phone quite often, probably not every 6 minutes, but there's no way this would be useful. It really doesn't bother me at all to slider my phone out of my pocket and check it. Stupid piece of garbage that's going to be no use at all.

[Legit-Design]

Can't wait to see how long that 22mAh battery actually lasts with their 'dazzling led display'.

It doesn't need to dazzle all the time. Check nixie watches, they usually have light sensor and/or accelerometer and will only show time and other things when user desires.

[CanadianAvenger]

That ring is HUGE at a minimum of 15mm wide [to accommodate the LED matrix], and god only knows how thick. You might as well put a pipe fitting on your finger!

The user has to press a button to activate the display [at least that was the answer given in the comments on IGG]

As for the LED matrix, the resolution is 24x11, more than enough for time display and scrolling text, so I don't see that as an issue. Though OLED is probably a better solution here, and would allow for a higher resolution.

Having said that, I don't think this project will ever come to be. While they appear to have a legitimate PCB designed, for the application. The shown design could never be curved into a ring [as is]. It also doesn't fully match up with the renderings. I'll guess that the shown PCB is the prototype design, for functionality, on a rigid PCB, and not mechanics. To cram that into a ring they would need to get all their IC's in wafer form, and bond directly to their flex circuit, something they will need sufficient quantity to be able to do.

[Corporate666]

I think the problem is that the rendering shows something that current manufacturing technology is unable to achieve, so there will inevitably be a large gap between the expectation and the end result.

It's easy to say the backers should know this, but to a much greater degree, IGG should know this, and Kickstarter should know this.  Some may say KS learned this when they stopped people from using renderings, but they still don't vet projects or claims, nor do they hold people to claims or hold them to actually delivering anything.

Then they get around this with some tiny disclaimer on the pledge page about how you should do your own due diligence.  Funny though, I put $1 into this Smarty Ring last night and it never made clear that there was any risk involved or asked me to clearly read any terms and conditions or anything even close to it.

[Kean]

They stated the ring is 13mm wide and 4mm thick, and available in US ring sizes 5 thru 15.  So I 3D printed some samples (US ring sizes 12 & 14) and I found they were uncomfortable to wear, stopping normal motion of my fingers.  Mind you I don't normally like to wear my wedding ring, but that is partly because of the risk of shorting computers/electronics while I work on them.

The specs for the ring say they are using a Nordic nRF51822 - which gives them an ARM Cortex M0 and BT low energy.  I believe the BTLE stack uses 80kB of the flash, so without sufficient time to optimise code they'd probably struggle with the 128kB version and need to go for the 256kB one.  Add a couple of additional larger notification LEDs, some push buttons, a chip antenna & jellybeans, some shift registers/LED drivers (12 outputs each) and run the 24x11 LED matrix in Charlieplexing mode, and all you need is software.  Total electronics BOM isn't too bad - maybe $10-$20 depending on volume.

Oh, yes... you also need a very thin battery, a battery charging circuit (Qi supposedly, but not on the PCb shown), plus the metal ring itself and glass covers, as well as all the mechanical nouse and sepecialist experience to mass produce the parts and assemble them.  And fit it all in mutliple ring sizes!

And on top of that, there is a Qi charging stand to design, build, & pay for.

The IC's are wafer scale BGA, so pretty small.  Nordic requires me to register to download the data sheet, so I'm going to guess the main chip is 3.5x3.5mm (I think I saw that quoted somewhere).  The sample PCB they show would thus be about 55x7mm (which should just fit in the circumference of a size 5 ring), and the LED matrix about 12x5.5mm.  So that is using very small chip scale LEDs, not something handled by your average pick and place, and I suspect easily damaged if the tiny flex PCB is mishandled.

I'm not saying any of this is impossible - but the battery is a big problem, and the BT & wireless charging through a stainless housing (or a copper/LED matrix behind the glass) is going to be awfully tricky to get right.  If they do manage to eventually ship anything, I don't think it will be anything like the renders.

Kean

[Jon86]

You have to press a button to activate the display?! I might as well check my phone or just look at my bloody watch.
They at least could've implemented something like what casio did with tilting your watch to turn on the backlight.

[Kean]

Yeah, but the battery would run out very quickly - unless you're asleep or something your fingers pretty much move constantly
Oh, and I don't see any use for the ring - but it would be a cool little device to play with

[Orpheus]

I note they are still selling these through the end of January on their own website

Interestingly, their base price is now $175 (their former "first 1000 units" early adopter price) with substantial discounts from there (~15% off for 2 or $150ea; ~30% off in qty 10). While I realize that such discounts can be practical once you have the tooling made, relationships formed, etc., this deep discounting tells me that they are awfully confident of something. I'd like to think it means they are far enough along into their pre-production phase to be confident of success and capitalize on their now-amortized sunk expenses, but that doesn't make much sense. Why offer such deep discounts now? It would offer them little benefit and hurt them when negotiating with retailers (as they would, if this succeeded). I hate to say it, but I fear that they are "confident" they'll never carry through, so all orders are just money in the bank

I realize that this is cynical. One might choose to believe that they're simply in the honeymoon phase before realizing how profoundly they are screwed on DFM, were it not for the April ship date that they still advertise.

Having toyed with making electronic jewelry in the 90s, I was so skeptical about this design [modern advances notwithstanding] that I didn't even think to come here and read the inevitable evisceration.

Aside from the issues above, I have difficulty reconciling the waterproofed/metal exterior with the necessary RF antenna. Rings are worn on fingers, but more importantly, between them, which tends to attenuate the signal. In the past, I briefly explored inductive and other coupling through the human body itself for medical applications. but existing consumer cellphones aren't equipped to transmit such signals.

I'd love to hear some discussion of this by the smart RF types around here. If it's remotely feasible, I want to start experimenting!

[Orpheus]

Someone just reminded me of this. They are still taking website orders with shipments to start in the first week of April, and they have a new IndeGoGo drive with 36 hours left that has raised an additional $100,000 (on a target of $500!) for shipment in May.

They say they are on schedule. It should be interesting to watch, starting in about weeks...

[Fox]

Look here for a good article about smartyring and other more or less dodgy Projects
 http://drop-kicker.com/

[scientist]

They're throwing assorted useless functions onto this ring like a pedometer. Why can't these idiots keep to their goals instead of inflating the projects to impossible proportions?

[Kean]

They "have some issue with pcb assembly" - what a surprise!!!   

[miguelvp]

After looking at the girl showing the ring I couldn't help myself.



No, really! I'm just showing you what time it is!

[Jon86]

Hahaha! They've posted pictures of a plain metal ring, and a wireless charger... Looks like it's going well   

[corrado33]

Someone on another site brought up a good point. Google hasn't quite figured out glass (a larger product that does similar things) and they have a crap ton more money than these startups.

We really don't even have a good smart bracelet yet, or watch for that matter. Let's see that first. Seriously, do people thing a ring will stay in one direction on their finger the whole time. Half the time the display will be pointing away from you anyway...

[CanadianAvenger]

Someone on another site brought up a good point. Google hasn't quite figured out glass (a larger product that does similar things) and they have a crap ton more money than these startups.

We really don't even have a good smart bracelet yet, or watch for that matter. Let's see that first. Seriously, do people thing a ring will stay in one direction on their finger the whole time. Half the time the display will be pointing away from you anyway...

I wouldn't consider Glass and the SmartyRing to be in the same league at all, or even remotely similar. Glass has much more functionality, complexity, and intelligence. The ring is essentially a remote status display, with some control feedbacks. Technologically the functionality of the ring is quite easy to do, but getting it into a package as small as a ring is not.

[fcb]

If you look at your cellphone every 6 minutes (according to their blurb), I think you deserve to invest in this one.

What does $300,000 buy in Chennai?

Read the comments on IGG re: Smarty Ring

[corrado33]

I wouldn't consider Glass and the SmartyRing to be in the same league at all, or even remotely similar. Glass has much more functionality, complexity, and intelligence. The ring is essentially a remote status display, with some control feedbacks. Technologically the functionality of the ring is quite easy to do, but getting it into a package as small as a ring is not.

Fine, we'll compare it to samsung's galaxy gear, which was released what... late last year? Sure, I think the galaxy gear has a touchscreen, but the ring has the finger motion things, just two different input devices. A remote display watch/wristband makes sense. A remote display ring does not. The display is not always guaranteed to be facing you (on a purely circular ring.) (Aka one that can spin around your finger with nothing impeding it.) And I'm SURE this thing would have size limits, meaning no normal sized female could probably ever wear it. (Or men with dainty hands)

Besides, I hate wearing rings, therefore it should never be made. 

EDIT: Wait I just noticed... do people really check their phone every six minutes? Wow...

[CanadianAvenger]

Fine, we'll compare it to samsung's galaxy gear, which was released what... late last year? Sure, I think the galaxy gear has a touchscreen, but the ring has the finger motion things, just two different input devices. A remote display watch/wristband makes sense. A remote display ring does not. The display is not always guaranteed to be facing you (on a purely circular ring.) (Aka one that can spin around your finger with nothing impeding it.) And I'm SURE this thing would have size limits, meaning no normal sized female could probably ever wear it. (Or men with dainty hands)

Besides, I hate wearing rings, therefore it should never be made. 

EDIT: Wait I just noticed... do people really check their phone every six minutes? Wow...

Don't get me wrong, in no way was my comment meant to be in support of SmartyRing, I think it's a ridiculous product idea.  I was only saying that Google Glass and the SmartyRing are not really comparable, as they are in no way similar.

As you said, a bracelet/watch makes sense, a ring does not. Look at the girth of that thing! I can't imagine anyone being able to wear something that thick for more than 5 minutes. That ring would constantly be getting in the way, not to mention how uncomfortable it would be as it would force your fingers to be apart more than their natural distance. [unless you wear it on your thumb]

[Kean]

Latest SmartyRing update (after 2 months of silence):

We are redesigning the PCB to make ring thinner and better, in Couple of weeks the Final product will be ready, sorry for the delay