Hackaday Links: August 23, 2026

August 23, 2026 by Tom Nardi 1 Comment

We’ll start this week off with some disappointing, though not entirely unexpected, news — the ambitious commercial mission to save NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is officially a bust. The space agency provided an update earlier this week explaining that the attitude control issues with the LINK spacecraft that started a few weeks after it launched will prevent it from being able to safely dock with the Swift Observatory and boost its altitude. As such, the space telescope is now expected to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up before the end of the year.

Although LINK won’t be able to live up to its name, NASA did say operator Katalyst Space has been given permission to continue with the rendezvous attempt. The two craft won’t actually make contact with each other, but teams on both sides feel there’s lessons to be learned and data to be collected by seeing the orbital dance of these two vehicles play out for as long as possible.

Speaking of hardware that couldn’t quite hit its design goals, TechCrunch is reporting that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Oura by customers that say the company made misleading claims about the sleep-tracking accuracy of their smart rings. Namely, that the rings could somehow detect which stage of sleep the wearer was in with only the pulse and temperature sensors it has onboard.

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The Repair Nightmare That Are Smart Rings

June 20, 2026 by Maya Posch 21 Comments

In the quest to make every wearable device ‘smart’, a lot of electronics along have to be crammed in very small spaces, along with ways to make them resistant to environments that our bodies do not mind, like getting hit by a rainstorm or simply washing our hands. These two factors combined make especially devices like smart rings an interesting case study for repairability, with [iFixit] recently taking apart a modern Oura smart ring to assess its e-waste factor after the built-in battery dies.

The tiny 10.5 mAh Lipo cell in the Oura Ring 5. (Credit: iFixit)

The subject of the teardown video is the Oura Ring 5, a $400 smart ring that’s designed to track your vitals much like a wrist-worn fitness tracker — just in a much smaller package. This metal-and-epoxy sandwich can definitely survive a good rain shower and washing of hands, but to get to the internals rather forceful methods were needed, unlike previous Oura and Samsung smart rings where some applied heat was enough.

In the Ring 5’s case even more heat was needed to make the inner ring start to slide out, but by that point the Li-ion battery inside had already popped from the heat. The inner ring then got stuck and more violence was required to continue the disassembly and get to the super-tiny, 10.5 mAh battery. Of course, at this point the smart ring really won’t be getting back together, never mind still work or be waterproof, which is a central issue with these smart rings.

With the EU’s February 2027 deadline for user-replaceable batteries looming on the horizon, it’ll be interesting to see whether devices like this can squeeze into an exception category, or whether manufacturers will have to massively redesign or stop selling these devices to this rather large market. So far this particular regulation has already forced Nintendo to make a special Switch 2 console for the EU.

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Cheap Smart Ring Becomes MIDI Controller

January 31, 2026 by Zoe Skyforest 3 Comments

The Colmi R02 is one of the cheapest smart rings on the market. It costs about $20, and is remarkably easy to hack. [Floyd Steinberg] took advantage of this to turn it into a rather unique MIDI controller.

What makes the Colmi R02 somewhat unique is that the manufacturer did not try to lock out users from uploading their own firmware. You don’t even really need to “hack” it, since there is no code signing or encryption. You can just whip up your own firmware to make it do whatever you want.

To that end, [Floyd] set up the ring to act as a device for musical expression. When connected to a computer over Bluetooth, data from the ring’s accelerometer is converted into MIDI CC commands via a simple web app. The app allows the MIDI messages to be configured so they can control whatever parameter is desired. [Floyd] demonstrates the ring by using it to control filter cutoff frequencies on an outboard synthesizer, with great effect.

You could theoretically just strap an accelerometer to your hand with a microcontroller and achieve similar operation. However, the magic of this is that it costs only $20 and it’s already in a form factor that’s optimized for wearing on your finger. It’s hard to beat that.

Files are on GitHub for those eager to experiment. We’ve previously featured some hacks of this particular smart ring, too, with [Aaron Christophel’s] efforts directly inspiring this work.

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Cheap Hackable Smart Ring Gets A Command Line Client

March 4, 2025 by Arya Voronova 18 Comments

Last year, we’ve featured a super cheap smart ring – BLE, accelerometer, heart sensor, and a battery, all in a tiny package that fits on your finger. Back when we covered it, we expected either reverse-engineering of stock firmware, or development of a custom firmware outright. Now, you might be overjoyed to learn that [Wesley Ellis] has written a Python client for the ring’s stock firmware.

Thanks to lack of any encryption whatsoever, you can simply collect the data from your ring, no pairing necessary, and [Wesley]’s work takes care of the tricky bits. So, if you want to start collecting data from this ring right now, integrate it into anything you want, such as your smart home or exoskeleton project, this client is enough. A few firmware secrets remain – for instance, the specific way that the ring keep track of day phases, or SPO2 intricacies. But there’s certainly enough here for you to get started with.

This program will work as long as your ring uses the QRing app – should be easy to check right in the store listing. Want to pick up the mantle and crack open the few remaining secrets? Everything is open-source, and there’s a notepad that follows the OG reverse-engineering journey, too. If you need a reminder on what this ring is cool for, here’s our original article on it.

Hackaday Links: November 24, 2024

November 24, 2024 by Dan Maloney 6 Comments

We received belated word this week of the passage of Ward Christensen, who died unexpectedly back in October at the age of 78. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, that’s understandable, because the man behind the first computer BBS wasn’t much for the spotlight. Along with Randy Suess and in response to the Blizzard of ’78, which kept their Chicago computer club from meeting in person, Christensen created an electronic version of a community corkboard. Suess worked on the hardware while Christensen provided the software, leveraging his XMODEM file-sharing protocol. They dubbed their creation a “bulletin board system” and when the idea caught on, they happily shared their work so that other enthusiasts could build their own systems.

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Illustrated Kristina with an IBM Model M keyboard floating between her hands.

Keebin’ With Kristina: The One With The 24-Hour Macro Pad

July 15, 2024 by Kristina Panos 2 Comments

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but this great little music-controlling macro pad by [nibbler] actually was. Why? Because as Hackaday’s own [Donald Papp] reminded us, we all need a win sometimes, especially as projects drag on and on without any end in sight.

A small macro pad with six buttons. — Image by [nibbler] via Toxic Antidote

As [nibbler] points out, what really constitutes a win? Set the bar too low and it won’t feel like one at all. Too high, and you may become too discouraged to cross the finish line. With that in mind, [nibbler] set the bar differently, limiting themselves to what could be done in the one day per week they have to devote time to electronic matters.

One-day turnaround usually means using parts on hand and limiting oneself to already-learned skills and techniques. No problem for [nibbler], who, armed with an Arduino Leonardo Tiny and a some colorful push buttons, set about designing a suitable enclosure, and then putting it all together. Was this a win? [nibbler] says yes, and so do I.

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The ring shown on someone's index finger

The ErgO Ring Makes Computer Interactions Comfortable

July 3, 2024 by Arya Voronova 6 Comments

[Sophia Dai] brings us a project you will definitely like if you’re tired of traditional peripherals like a typical keyboard and mouse combo. This is ErgO, a smart ring you can build out of a few commonly available breakouts, and it keeps a large number of features within a finger’s reach. The project has got an IMU, a Pimoroni trackball, and a good few buttons to perform actions or switch modes, and it’s powered by a tiny Bluetooth-enabled devboard so it can seamlessly perform HID device duty.

While the hardware itself appears to be in a relatively early state, there’s no shortage of features, and the whole experience looks quite polished. Want to lay back in your chair yet keep scrolling the web, clicking through links as you go? This ring lets you do that, no need to hold your mouse anymore, and you can even use it while exercising. Want to do some quick text editing on the fly? That’s also available; the ErgO is designed to be used for day to day tasks, and the UX is thought out well. Want to use it with more than just your computer? There is a device switching feature. The build instructions are quite respectable, too – you can absolutely build one like this yourself, just get a few breakouts, a small battery, some 3D printed parts, and find an evening to solder them all together. All code is on GitHub, just like you would expect from a hack well done.

Looking for a different sort of ring? We’ve recently featured a hackable cheap smart ring usable for fitness tracking – this one is a product that’s still being reverse-engineered, but it’s alright if you’re okay with only having an accelerometer and a few optical sensors.

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