Smart devices and peripherals have been popping up left and right, but if there’s a line to be drawn, it hasn’t been found yet. In fact, it seems like consumers greet every new smart device with open arms. Case in point: Smarty Ring. Smarty Ring is – you guessed it! – a smart ring that’s heading toward the end of a very successful Indiegogo funding campaign. The campaign kicked off on November 11, with the creators of Smarty Ring asking for $40,000 in funding. It will end in just over a day, and so far it’s managed to pull in more than $110,000. That’s close to three times the amount Smarty Ring’s creators were originally asking for.
So, it would seem that consumers haven’t had enough of smart devices just yet. Looking at a run down of Smarty Ring’s features, we’re not sure we can blame them for showering the campaign in cash. Smarty Ring features an LED screen that can potentially display all sorts of information, depending on how much you want to do with it. The ring can communicate with your Android or iOS smartphone using Bluetooth 4.0, displaying caller ID and providing alerts when you get a new text message.
Taking things one step further, you’ll be able to accept or reject calls using the Smarty Ring, as well as make outgoing calls to preset phone numbers. You can also link your various social networking profiles to Smarty Ring through the device’s companion app. Once you’ve connected it to services like Facebook, Twitter, and Skype, you’ll get real-time updates right on the Smarty Ring. Not bad at all, especially since it means you won’t have fish out your phone just to see if you’ve got new notifications. Rounding out an already robust feature list is functionality that allows users to activate their phone’s camera and even keep tabs on its location – Smarty Ring sounds an alarm if you end up more than 30 feet away from your phone. It also tells time, though admittedly that feature is somewhat tame compared to all the other things Smarty Ring does.
It looks like Smarty Ring is expected to start shipping out Itoo ndiegogo backers in April 2014, so those who shell out the cash now will be getting their smart ring in just a few months. The retail price of a full-featured Smarty Ring comes in at $275, though early bird backers can still snag one for $175. If you want to take home a Smarty Ring but still don’t want to spend quite that much, a $100 pledge gets you a Smarty Ring remote, which lacks notification functionality. Keep in mind that with just over a day left in the campaign, you’ll have to get those pledges in soon. Are any of you tempted to go in on a Smarty Ring?