Ring Clock - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: notzippy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 27, 2013, 11:59:35 pm
content: Now apple needs to come out with an iRing :-Dhttp://igg.me/at/ringclock/x/1733288Putting $200 down for a ring that the unreplaceable battery will reach it's end of life 3 years down the road seems pretty pricey to me. Considering the whole video is purely concept driven what is the chance that the reality will match the cgi ?Nz

author: Hypernova
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 12:58:31 am
content: This is the first non-scam looking IGG I've seen in god knows how long.The battery issue can't be helped IMO with that kind of form factor.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 11:33:48 am
content: Wouldn't the stainless steel ring body create at least a partial short circuit of the inductive magnetic field, emanating from the Qi wireless charger pad? The induced back-EMF around the ring circumference would at first blush seem to be of the same magnitude as the incident field, making wireless inductive charging at best quite inefficient.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 12:59:07 pm
content: Quote from: mojo-chan on August 28, 2013, 10:46:13 amI think you're misinterpreting how the current version works. The old 2011 design was intended to have 3 leds and be motorised but the current version doesn't rotate and instead has a large number of leds (144) and only 3 of them switch on at once to illuminate the number for H M S.The issue i have with the product is reading the time quickly. If its 2pm and the number 2 is not visible the ring will need to be rotated before you can see the time. This will be the case for pretty much every time you check it.EDIT: Actually i guess its not too bad. you can see most of the area by rotating your wristBut US$192 is far too expensive for what it is. A laser cut metal ring, some leds, a flex pcb and a battery with some wireless charging tacked on. US$80-120 is more what i would have expected.

author: GK
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 01:29:33 pm
content: Looks an unpractical and useless thing to me.I'd hate to wear a ring, and especially something as bulky as that. What next? A blinking LED thimble to stick on your knob?Perhaps some people with a bent be trendy would find such a thing fashionable and therefore worth ~$200 for 3 years, regardless of how impractical it is as a timepiece. Then again I shave my head for practicality as I hate the tedium and bother of maintaining a head of hair and mostly wear steel caped work boots. Guess I don't know much about fashion.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 07:42:27 pm
content: That probably would be a good thing to use the new flexible Samsung LCD displays in, in a watch form factor that is flexible and wraps around the wrist. Uses a large area to display time, and if you can get a BT interface in it can be connected to a phone as well providing you can get battery life to a week.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 09:05:54 pm
content: Itdoeslook pretty, but I suspect it's going to be useless as hell.Well, that and I suspect there will never be any actual working versions coming out of that project...Still, looks nice. I'd buy one for 15 euro at Aldi. Maybe 20, tops. And then give it to someone who likes these sort of gadgets.

author: ElectroIrradiator
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 09:30:18 pm
content: A friend told me earlier this evening that in his opinion the design has some flaws.First: Skin residue/fat, known from the backs of watches and in the crevices of jewelry. My friend is a watchmaker (a genuine craftsman watch repairer/restorer). He suspect that for many people the works will quickly gum up with skin fat and dead skin cells, making the whole thing quite yucky and possibly making it jam.Secondly: Hand hygiene. Do you take the ring off when washing hands, leaving the potentially contaminated ring next to the sink, or is it waterproof? For surviving washing hands the ring needs to be able to survive being fully immersed in hot, soapy water, something which he claims simply won't happen in this form factor, movable parts and all.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2013, 09:41:19 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on August 28, 2013, 12:59:07 pmI think there is a lot more to it than that... the rings rotate (which is how you activate it to show the time), so they are at least 3-4 separate pieces that are machined. Then the numbers would be laser cut in a very high-zoot laser (powerful enough to cut through steel accurately and also with a B-axis to rotate the part). The machining and laser cutting are expensive propositions and costs would be high except in massive volume. I would expect a shop to easily charge $50-75 per unit (or more) for the machine work and lasering, if you could get them made 1,000 units at a time. I know I wouldn't touch those parts for less than that.If you can do 100,000 at a time or more, then you could make some custom tooling which would speed it up (but said tooling would have a high initial cost). Add in the electronics, manufacturing costs, warranty, shipping, returns, and the potential for distribution in the future, and I think their price is about as low as it can be.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 01:06:28 am
content: The rings individually rotate on the 2011 concept, in the video he says he had to make some changes to make it practical.It doesn't actually say but i'm 99% sure the 'new' version (they one the funding request is for) is just two pieces of metal, an inner ring and an outer ring that are permanently fixed together with the PCB in the middle.The new version looks to be proximity/touch to switch it on.I don't think it rotates at all, or, if it does it's just a slight twist motion to turn it on rather than a rotation.He really shouldn't be showing the 2011 design picture. it just going to confuse people.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 02:11:19 am
content: Quote from: Psi on August 29, 2013, 01:06:28 amI completely agree with you - I find it confusing as well. What complicates it more is that I can tell all his "real" pictures are just a machined non-functional mock-up of the real thing - it's just a machined cylinder laser-cut all the way through.In the "Design from 2011" pic, he says "rings rotate individually" (but does not explain why or to what end). Then under "Ring Clock as part of every day life" he mentions guessing the time before you rotate it. But from looking at the pics in that section (renderings), you're right, it looks like a single rotating piece. However, it's still a bit complex mechanically, since the two pieces need to fit together and have a way to prevent them coming apart. But if the "display ring" just slides over the "PCB base" ring, what holds it in place? What seals the edges? What detects it being turned? The renderings definitely (from my eyes) show the numbers ring being too small to slide of axially, so that mechanism would need engineered....which I don't think they have done since the real pics of their actual part are just solid machined cylinders with laser cut numerals.Sort of like the South Park Underwear Gnomes...Step 1 - Steal underwearStep 2 - ??Step 3 - ProfitThese guys haven't figured out step 2 yet

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 02:14:45 am
content: Rotation could work with an accelerometer. (But i don't think he's doing this)An accelerometer would allow it to detect the entire ring being rotated on your finger and could trigger illumination.A lot of accel chips have an interrupt output which can be used to wake up a mcu when the device flips or rotates or freefalls.

author: c4757p
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 02:15:19 am
content: Quote from: Corporate666 on August 29, 2013, 02:11:19 amThat seems to be a rather common theme with these crowd-funded things...

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 02:57:08 am
content: Pffff, I wish. I wouldn't even trust most crowd-funded project starters to reliably steal underwear.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2013, 06:10:41 am
content: Quote from: mrflibble on August 28, 2013, 09:05:54 pmYour Aldi must be a lot cooler than my Aldi. I know I can get cheap milk, eggs, and meatballs there.

author: MFX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2013, 04:58:31 pm
content: There are certainly parts of the design that are practical but :-Inductive charging on a stainless steel ring?Outer rotating ring is asking for trouble both engineering and reliability wise particularly as they have expressed a desire to make it waterproof/resistant. Touch activation might be more practical.Multiplexing 144 LED's on a tiny two layer flexi PCB Doable? Maybe, but rather them than me.Non-replaceble battery with 3 year life, er. no thanks I'm out.At least they do see to have made some effort/personal investment with real life prototypes (which couldn't have been cheap) but not sure they're going to pull this off unless they make some compromises.Martin.

author: edavid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2013, 05:23:33 am
content: Quote from: Stonent on August 29, 2013, 06:10:41 amThe Aldi stores in Europe sell a few consumer electronic items every week, usually "Medion" brand.

author: mrflibble
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2013, 07:25:47 am
content: Quote from: edavid on September 01, 2013, 05:23:33 amIndeed. Right now they have a laptop, external harddisk, an omgwtfbbq brand smartphone, things like that. Plus things like power tools (usually Topcraft). Got my angle grinder, drill and drill press there. It's okay-but-not-great quality at an decent price.

author: IvoS
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2013, 01:09:58 pm
content: This project stinks. Where is the working prototype? All I see is manufactured metal rings and rendered pictures.

author: MFX
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2013, 03:06:15 pm
content: Quote from: IvoS on September 01, 2013, 01:09:58 pmHey that's more than many projects offer and as I said before getting those test rings made even without the electronics couldn't have been cheap so at least they must have some belief in the project themselves rather than it be a complete "Give me loads of money and I'm sure I'll figure out how to do it" job which many are. This is more a "Give me loads of money and I'm sure we'll figure out the tricky bits that we haven't figured out yet" job.Martin.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 03, 2013, 05:15:51 pm
content: Well, like it or not it seems this one is going to have a go. They just reached their minimum funding with 9 days left.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 03, 2013, 09:49:18 pm
content: 100 quatloos on this becoming the next Mu Imager fiasco!

author: alank2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2013, 12:56:16 am
content: Here is my still unfinished ring clock:

author: thefatmoop
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2013, 04:37:56 pm
content: "we are in the process of finalizing our prototype"Good grief who puts money on that? Those were only cg shots people

author: coreybus
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 06, 2013, 11:48:20 pm
content: Will you have to continuously rotate the ring lol?

author: NewfieTechie
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 09:15:06 pm
content: Hmm... it LOOKS awesome, but it's just CG. If the final product actually looks like this, I would totally buy one.

author: shk1d29
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 07, 2013, 10:30:50 pm
content: Has anybody actually funded some of these projects on kickstarter? I finally bit the bullet one time on one of the projects a while back which was supposed to be delivered in September, here we are in October and still nothing. After doing some search on kickstarter regarding accountability, apparently, the project owner doesn't have any accountability. They do not even have to produce anything at all and no promise of delivering you anything period. Is it just me or has this happened to someone else? Does anyone know who to contact other than the project owner?

author: VintageHenk
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 08, 2013, 09:33:11 am
content: The ring itself looks really nice, but I'm wondering how they will manage the power.

author: MacAttak
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2013, 03:21:03 am
content: Quote from: shk1d29 on October 07, 2013, 10:30:50 pmI fund a lot of projects. But I won't fund this one. No way. All the red flags are up on this one.A certain percentage will always fail. It's not a zero-risk thing. The best you can do is perform your own research before pledging (this section of the forums has been fairly useful in that regard). Also pay a lot of attention to the backer comments before the project finishes funding... sometimes people who know a little bit more about the project owner's dubious background will pledge a dollar, which gives them the right to post in the comments to warn other potential funders. Lastly, if it seems too good to be true then it almost certainly is a scam or will fail to deliver.One thing that you CAN do if a project isn't delivering, depending upon how far out the delivery estimates were from the funding period, is a chargeback from your credit card. I think the time limit is 6 months for that. There is a similar policy with Amazon Payments, but it only covers for 3 months I think, and they usually don't even honor that.Also, a one-month delay is really *nothing* for these projects. I've seen only about one out of 20 projects (ESPECIALLY tech projects) that actually ship on-time. One to three months late is the most common. I have gotten some that were an entire year late (but it was still totally worth it). And yes, I have a few that are around a year late but that I doubt I will ever see them deliver.

author: Corporate666
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 09, 2013, 07:24:36 am
content: Quote from: shk1d29 on October 07, 2013, 10:30:50 pmI have contributed to many. Most delivered, but I would say very very few lived up to expectations. By definition, creators must sell their project, so they sell the dream. Also, by definition, they are almost universally inexperienced in doing what they seek funding to do (after all, if it was something they do regularly, they would not need funding to do it). So the reality very rarely lives up to the hype. Sometimes that takes the form of a crappy product, but it almost always means a long delay. Sometimes both. Sometimes nothing ever gets delivered.Kickstarter, IGG and others do virtually zero due diligence on the projects or the creators. And actually, they specifically exclude people who are "too competent" and who they don't believe need the money. For example, if Microsoft tried to Kickstart the next version of Windows, they would be likely denied, because they don't fit the model and rules.So by nature, you have inexperienced people who couldn't make it happen themselves - which often leads to problems.I think it is a matter of time before the government steps in and (much) more heavily regulates crowdfunding. And frankly, it can't happen soon enough. It's really just unaccredited investing, and based on the comments by many 'funders', it's clear the site owners don't make clear that funders are not buying a product. They claim they make folks aware, but it's done with a nod and a wink as a thousand new suckers get deprived of their cash.There is virtually zero recourse, too.