One Ring to Rule them All, Except Not

Not on board.

Diana Clarke
December 02, 2014

Since Siri was rendered basically futile for us here down under, where the accents are in some elusive grey area between American and British that she cannot quite grasp, we have been waiting for the next innovative solution to actually having to make physical contact with our phones in order to use them.

Japanese entrepreneurial company LogBar promised to solve our Siri woes, with a magical wand-like creation in the form of a ring. The ring promised to allow smartphone users to access apps without ever touching their devices. Adjusting volume, changing song, emailing, tweeting, texting, and even able to sync with smart homes to control lights, appliances and televisions, the ring sounded too good to be true. Spoiler alert: it was.

The fact that the ring is creatively named “Ring” should've been our first warning. Even Apple puts an “i” in front of their product names. Ring was a Kickstarter campaign. It was well-received by the public, unsurprisingly, given its promise to bring us unfortunate muggles closer to the wizarding world than ever before with its magic, whilst simultaneously minimising movement to the point where the world’s population could potentially live their lives from a comfortably seated position. The fund reeled in an impressive near $900 000 from its Kickstarter, and managed to hype the public up to the point where countdowns to its release date were made, ring sales dropped dramatically and people began discarding their weddings bands to make room on their digits for Ring.

This is where trust issues are born.

Ring was released to the public, retailing at a seemingly reasonable $269 US. Considering the fact that most of the logical public would harvest an organ for an object so similar to Harry’s phoenix feather wand, the suspiciously low price caused some excitement. Then the rings arrived in the hands of consumers.

Let’s talk about their size. You know donuts? We choose to eat them rather than wear them. Why? Well firstly because they are not only edible but also delicious. Secondly, because they are far too large and awkward to dress a phalange on an everyday basis. Movement becomes near impossible, and don’t even bother trying to shake someone’s hand. Ring is similar in its dimensions. It is massive, not only in that it may well occupy the entire length of your finger, but the depth of the metal means that Ring protrudes nearly a centimetre from your skin.

On the other hand (tempting pun, but let’s keep it classy), technology reviewer Snazzy Labs has confirmed that Ring works… less than ten percent of the time. Your gestures need to be exact for the app to recognise them and react accordingly, and even then the chances of the correct app opening are slim. The worst part? You need to open your Ring app in order to operate Ring. That’s right folks. Instead of simply swiping up to open the camera, you must open the ring app, wait for the Bluetooth connection, and then gesture the correct symbol (multiple times), before the camera might open.

And so the hopes and dreams of magic lovers and lazy oafs alike are once again crushed into smithereens. LogBar’s Ring that intended to rule them all, literally rules nothing (other than the hand it occupies which is permanently stuck in a nanu-nanu motion thanks to the object’s hefty girth.) Our verdict: Give Frodo a call - add Ring to the growing collection of jewellery gone bad in the fiery depths of Mount Doom.

Published on December 02, 2014 by Diana Clarke
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