The Smarty Ring is the laziest piece of wearable tech ever, and it may never even exist
There are crazy crowdfunding campaigns, and then there are crazy crowdfunding campaigns. The Smarty Ring falls into the latter category, and since its Indiegogo project has raised less than half of its goal with just a couple of days to go, it seems like most would-be funders agree.
The idea behind the Smarty Ring -- a project out of India -- is that smartphone owners check their phones too much, so maybe they'd rather get their notifications on their finger instead. The Smarty Ring allegedly has 24-hour battery life, features Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity to your iOS or Android phone and can also control your music playback and answer calls on your phone. It features a digital clock with up to five time zones, a stopwatch and a countdown timer. In short, it's a smartwatch on your finger.
Aside from being one of the laziest gadgets in the history of wearables -- is checking your finger really more convenient than checking your wrist or phone? -- there's a good chance it may never actually exist.
Looking at the Indiegogo page, which is covered with digital renders of the ring, there doesn't seem to be an actual image of the device anywhere to be seen. It's also been Photoshopped onto some bad stock photos, where it happens to look completely different than the rest of the images. Then there's the brutally ugly "screenshot" of the companion app, which has been stretched and crammed onto a stock iPhone image.
Once you make it to the end of the project page the reality is spelled out for you: The company has only just finalized the design of a theoretical prototype model. I'm not sure how you promise things like 24-hour battery life without having built a physical version of the gadget... but there you go.
[via Mashable]
