Place a finger to your ear for your next conference call

Source: Origami Labs. The ORII smart ring is splashproof.

Move over, smart watches. The world’s first voice-powered smart ring, ORII, has launched on Kickstarter. The Bluetooth-enabled ring turns the hand into a smartphone using cutting-edge bone conduction technology to transmit sound.

ORII has dual noise-cancelling microphones that lets wearers make calls, send messages and access Siri or Google Assistant without needing to take out their phones, all by placing a fingertip to the ear. With the ORII app, users can also set custom alerts using the four LED lights on the wearable, or have it vibrate.

Beta users' rings (US$399) will ship in November 2017, and the first batch of rings (US$149) will be delivered in February 2018.

ORII is the first product from Origami Labs, a maker of voice-enabled connected hardware. The company was founded by four Hong Kong-born university friends.

Source: Origami Labs. Make discreet calls wherever you are.

Kevin Johan Wong, CEO and Co-Founder of Origami Labs said, “Our inspiration came from my dad who has been visually impaired from a young age. He set out to develop a voice and text-based technology to help others like him and is a pioneer in his field with eight patents under his name. Integrating the same technology used in hearing aids, ORII uses bone conduction to send sound discreetly to your ear, creating a device which allows freedom from screen-based interaction.”

According to a CCS Insight report, 2020 will see a wearables market worth close to US$34 billion.


Interested?

The splash-proof ORII comes in three colours - matte black, sandblasted silver and metallic dark grey

It is estimated to be good for an hour of talk time, and will require an hour of charging

Visit the Kickstarter page for ORII. At the time of writing ORII has already surpassed its Kickstarter target, but early bird rings are still available for US$99