Nod Labs forges one (Bluetooth) ring to rule them all

A team of engineers formerly from Google and Jawbone thinks it has cracked gesture recognition for electronics with a Bluetooth-equipped ring that can control cursor movements and manipulate household devices. Nod Labs Bluetooth ring The Nod sans cover The Nod is a somewhat bulky black ring of surgical steel with a …

[FireWorks]

meh

After seeing the video I think I'd prefer to use a "laser-pointer-like" stylus than wear a ring.

[DropBear]

Re: meh

You... do realise you're in fact talking about a... wand? Hmmm, now I wonder if anyone registered "Ollivanders" yet....?

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Re: meh

Agreed. The ring form-factor looks pretty impractical.

I've tried a couple ways to control tech, and really nothing beats a proper keyboard; I use a small one with a built-in trackball, much better than a trackpad; I would not exchange it for this ring thing which incidentally is 10 times the price. A wand-like device? Perhaps, the wrist movements and the clicks would be much more natural. As long as you don't have to type text of course, unless there was some sort of 5-keys system à la wrobot on it, as virtual on-screen keyboard are all a bit shit (especially the move-the-pointer-and-click ones).

[Alistair]

hmmm. Might be worth a look.

I've never liked mice. -> trackballs and pointers (hate trackpads with a passion worse than mice) -

Possibly as a remote pointer it makes sense. Wired up properly two of them could be a gaming rig. Might be worth a look.

[Barry Dingle]

An interesting idea

quickly killed by its own price. Maybe the knockoffs will get that part right.

[Barry Dingle]

Re: An interesting idea

Also, I'm afraid there are some things I do with my fingers that might cause "input errors".

[Mage]

Re: An interesting idea

yes, far more interesting than the NFC only ring the other day.

[Fazal Majid]

Dilbert foresaw this

relevant comic strip here.

[Dan Paul]

Re: Dilbert foresaw this (Who'da thunk it)

That's great, prior art in 1994!!

[POSitality]

How about one on each hand...

...beats holding digital nun-chucks! Imagine Wii Sports with these babies :)

2014 *is* the year of wearables is it not?

[Tromos]

And with two of these...

...one on each hand, you can zoom out using the famous 'angler' gesture.

[Anonymous Coward]

OOH!

I'd like to finger one of those =)

Allright, pass me my coat. Its the one with a middle finger on it.

[Gordon 10]

wft

Why on earth has this got processors in it and running android? Shouldnt it be handing off the processing to a phone, and saving its power budget for the comms necessary?

In other news I've been able to control other humans rather than technology almost since birth. My ring can clear a room in seconds.

[Anonymous Blowhard]

Re: wft

I presume the processors are for processing the data from the accelerometers so that it can talk to the host device as a motion controller (e.g. emulating a PS3/4 remote) rather than being limited to only working with devices which can process the raw data from the motion sensors (i.e. custom designed to work with the ring).

In which case using Android is a no-brainer as it is open source and already has the code for handling accelerometers.

But I agree that battery life will be pretty crucial to its day-to-day usability.

[Caff]

harvest

Hmm would be more interesting if they had developed a way to harvest enough energy to make it self powering.

I do realise that most people would be able to charge it while sleeping but given your hand moves all the time and plenty of watches are able to harvest enough power to keep running it would be nice to think that a low power ring could too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: harvest

It would certainly get powered-up if I wore one on my wanking hand.

*fap fap fap*

"What are you doing in there?"

*fap fap fap*

"Just charging up my ring"

[27escape]

as a bluetooth 'button'

it gets my vote, I would like a simple thing like this to control music on my phone or take a pic etc

[Damian Skeeles]

What an utter waste

Ok - so I assume these developers are the ones Google and Jawbone didn't mind losing...

They've got a great tech in the size and form factor, and yet they're showing complete lack of imagination in the UX. It's a new HID that needs a new UI.

I want to be virtually flicking my finger through playlists and have it translate that to scroll forward/back gestures of varying range, yet they proudly display someone erratically waving around an onscreen keyboard. The Onion "MacBook Wheel" sums it up.

As for text input needs - how about voice recognition/headset profile?

Someone send them "Minority Report". On betamax.