In the process of making everything ‘smart’, it would seem that rings have become the next target, and they keep getting new features. The ring that [Aaron Christophel] got his mittens on is the SR08, which appears to have been cloned by many manufacturers at this point. It’s got an OLED display, 1 MB Flash and a Renesas DA14585 powering it from a positively adorable 16 mAh LiPo battery.
The small scale makes it an absolute chore to reverse-engineer and develop with, which is why [Aaron] got the €35 DA14585 development kit from Renesas. Since this dev kit only comes with a 256 kB SPI Flash chip, he had to replace it with a 1 MB one. The reference PDFs, pinouts and custom demo firmware are provided on his GitHub account, all of which is also explained in the video.
Rather than hack the ring and destroy it like his first attempts, [Aaron] switched to using the Renesas Software Update OTA app to flash custom firmware instead. A CRC error is shown, but this can be safely ignored. The ring uses about 18 µA idle and 3 mA while driving the display, which is covered in the provided custom firmware for anyone who wants to try doing something interesting with these rings.
For the life of me, I don’t see what the attraction is to these devices (specifically “smart” rings). they seem completely impractical for anything useful.
I just want one that can last a few months with an LCD to show the time. Doesn’t exist.
I have attention problems and waiting for LED displays to show the time is awful. I want to glance and go. A pair of glasses with embedded time would be amazing, without the AI and data hoovering please.
I have cheap clocks scattered here, there, and everywhere around my shop, as well a couple of talking clocks that announce the time on the 1/4 hour. Of course that only helps when I’m in the shop.
Casio watch ring.
I’ve had one for years! It’s cute but a little too bulky for actually wearing daily. I’m surprised Casio haven’t made a modern version.
Agreed, i mean they might be useful for tracking certain health stuff, but i’ve understood, that they really aren’t very accurate, so it’s crap data you get.
The men of the world need one that’s accurate at prostate diagnosis.
Coming soon: the smart suppository.
Mine gives very similar readings to the Withings watch (which is 20x more expensive).
75% of the jobs of my working career would crush or maim that little gadget
75% of the jobs I’ve worked in my life would crush or at least maim that ltlle gadget
If you’re working at a job where, say, a ring is dangerous to wear, you probably already know this thing isn’t for you. But it might be fun/ funny to get it to work as a presence detector when pairs to apc so you’re screen doesn’t lock, like you can do with android and chrome os.
You can use your smartphone or smart watch for that.
I need a OTPassword
for my ssh and probably for my knock port software
75% of the jobs I’ve worked in my life would benefit from that little gadget
3rd identical comment from 3 distinct posters. what’s going on?
Just the comments tool being as bad as it’s always been.
I don’t know any the first two, but if you reread this one, he’s saying the opposite of the earlier posts. I suspect he’s trying to be funny.
Thank you for noticing.
She
Less funny, more trying to put some positivity and optimism in the comments.
I seriously have been looking to get a smart ring for a few purposes but none meet my needs exactly. This project actually fixes that and might be just what I need.
Spam, spam, spam, Egghead, Egdar, Cad, and spam. It’s not got much spam in it.
All we need is eggs now
75% of the jobs I’ve worked in my life were significantly improved by reading the comments under Hackaday articles
75% of the jobs I phoned in because following stuff like Aaron does is way more interesting then doing what I’m supposed to do.
Can it play DOOM?
Absolutely, however the display may be difficult to read.
This is why the ice caps are melting.