I really like the idea behind Ringly: A Bluetooth-enabled notification ring that connects to your smartphone and keeps you in the loop about incoming texts, calls, and emails through coloured LEDs and vibrating patterns. And I like the fact that Ringly is clearly making an attempt to make "smart" jewellery enticing enough to be worn as, nicely, jewelry. After taking the Ringly for a spin over the past two weeks, I even love the way it really works as a tech product. It units up in seconds, customizing the device via its companion app is a breeze, and it comes with a cute ring field-formed charging case that costs the ring inductively (and holds a charge of its personal, for as much as 10 days). But I don’t love the Ringly as jewellery, and that’s sort of a big problem. I mean, the point of the Ringly is to combine tech and style-if it’s not going to do this, I could as effectively buy a smarter, less trendy tech product.

The Ringly at the moment comes in eight different variations, Herz P1 Experience which range in value from $195 to $260, Herz P1 Experience relying on the kind of stone used. Probably the most costly variation, "Into the Woods," sports activities an opaque, Herz P1 Smart Ring cushion-reduce emerald and a matte 18-karat gold-plated base. All Ringly rings have roughly the identical rectangular shape, however some stones have totally different cuts. My review unit was the "Opening Night" Ringly-a cushion-reduce black onyx stone in a shiny, gunmetal-plated brass setting. Here’s the Ringly, in "Opening Night time. See how big its band is? At first look, the Ringly is pretty unimpressive for a chunk of jewellery that prices $200. It’s not significantly stylish, nor does it look or really feel like a weighty, expensive piece of costume jewelry. I’m not an enormous fan of onyx to start with, however the cushion-reduce stone appears to be like just a little plasticky, whereas the gunmetal plating is cool but very vulnerable to fingerprints. I spent lots of my time with the Ringly cleansing it off with my shirt.

The Ringly is water-resistant, however not waterproof, which implies it ought to be wonderful getting wet whenever you wash your fingers (simply don’t immerse it in water). The Ringly is an interesting, form of in-between size. It’s not small and delicate (gotta put the tech and battery someplace), but it’s additionally not that big-actually not large enough to make a method assertion. This is actually going to come back down to personal taste, but I like my cocktail rings to be big enough to cover my complete finger-and I have comparatively slim fingers (my largest finger is a measurement 5). The Ringly’s stone awkwardly almost covers my finger, however doesn’t fairly make it. Undecided how I feel about the dimensions, but here’s the Ringly compared to different jewellery. The Ringly isn’t something I can see fashionistas lusting after, and it’s certainly not something I’d look twice at on a shelf. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t like what the Ringly does, even if it’s not going to revolutionize runways.

It may not look the part, but the Ringly does numerous things proper. For one factor, it’s super comfortable. The band is slim, which is slightly cheap-looking, however incredibly simple to put on (if you’ve never worn a ring with an uncomfortably thick band, consider yourself fortunate). I’m simply distracted by uncomfortable jewelry on my fingers and wrists, and I discovered myself forgetting about the Ringly as I went about my day. For those who squint, you may be capable to see the LEDs. The Ringly has a pinprick-sized LED light on one aspect, which emits 5 different colors (blue, inexperienced, yellow, crimson, and pink/purple) for notifications. The Ringly also has an internal vibrating motor, and the Ringly app lets you customize your notifications using the five colours and four different vibrating patterns. Here are some of Ringly’s notification choices. For example, you possibly can set up your Ringly to vibrate once and flash pink for a brand new e-mail, however vibrate twice and flash pink for a brand new textual content.

Or vibrate thrice and flash blue for Facebook, however vibrate three times and flash yellow for Twitter. This sounds a little sophisticated, however I discovered it very easy to get the hang of. Ringly works with greater than 80 completely different apps, including Line, Gilt, Uber, Instagram, and Tinder, and can also be set up to notify you while you get a text or cellphone call from a particular person. All Ringly does is notify you-if you would like to reply to a textual content or answer a telephone name, you’ll want to pick up your cellphone. It’s definitely not an Apple Watch, functionality-wise, but it works nicely if you’re ready for someone to call or textual content and you’re in a social setting (resembling a bar or club) the place you can’t continually be checking your telephone. For the most half, a fast buzz to your finger is all the information you need if you’re waiting for a buddy to point out up. Because of its size, the Ringly doesn’t have superb battery life-the ring will last 24 to 48 hours on a single charge, depending on how usually you use it (how many notifications you get).