14 DAY TRIAL // Bored with the unending plethora of smartwatches and wearables that are being launched every single day? At the CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) trade show, which is taking place these days in Japan, the term “wearable” was taken into a different dimension.
We talked about wearable rings before, presenting you products such as the MOTA SmartRing, which is basically a finger mounted piece which does the same job a smartwatch would do on your wrist – it relays notifications from your smartphone.
16Labs brings a new dimension upon smart rings
But you’ll consider all that child’s play when you hear about the 16Lab’s own ring. Unlike “mainstream” rings, this little piece of disguised technology can do much more than just relay notifications, because it’s actually a fully-fledged computing device.
The wearable is made of titanium and has been designed as an alert tool, e-wallet and gesture controller. Sounds a bit complicated, doesn’t it?
Well, let’s take gestures control first. This feature should allow the smart ring to double as a make-shift mouse, when the occasion calls for it or to act as “keyboard” for other wearable devices such as Google Glass.
In theory, all this sounds pretty futuristic and interesting but in practice we’re quite unsure what it would be like to actually type a whole document using just gesture controls, pretty sloppy at first to say the least.
The 16Labs ring is going to be quite sturdy
Another peculiar aspect about the 16Lab wearable is that it is going to be made of titanium, so the company will have to build the ring exactly according to the wearer’s measurements, because an adjusting mechanism will not be available.
The company says the ring can go as far as 20 hours without a charge and the battery inside should be able to live through a thousand charge and discharge cycles.
Furthermore, the ring is waterproof so you’ll be able to take a swim or a shower without taking it off your hand.
As you can see in one of the images, the ring seems to be quite bulky and not very stylish, so hopefully by the time this wearable makes it to the market, 16Labs will have finessed the design of the product, turning it into something more attractive.
Speaking of which, this little computing device should make it out on the market in Q2 2015, but we’re not told how much interested parties will have to pay to get their hands on one of these babies. However, given the fact that the ring will be manufactured of titanium, it’s not likely the 16Lab ring will be a very price-friendly device.
