We’ve reported in the past about the NFC Ring Kickstarter project where users can purchase a ring that will use NFC for a multitude of functions. If the Kickstarter fund hit enough money, the developers agreed to make a Windows Phone 8 app and indeed that is what has happened thanks to your contribution.
Now, we get our first look at the NFC Ring App for Windows Phone. Although the video says it’s available in the Store, we have not been able to locate it yet (perhaps it is a private beta). The app was supposed to be a PhoneGap release and that looks to be the case. It’s bold and clear looking with the sole purpose of programming your NFC Ring for various functions, including launching Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, a website etc. In fact, since it is NFC, you can tell it to do very specific tasks.
The NFC Ring has recently switched from a stainless steel build to a more premium nickel-free titanium. That’s the good news, the bad news is it has caused a delay and now shipments aren’t expected until late November or early December. Basically, all 25,000 of the NFC inlays stopped working with the titanium build so the team had to re-design it to get it to work. However, readability has now improved so there’s that upside too.
The NFC Ring is a fascinating project as you can use the ring to unlock doors (if you have an NFC lock), share your contact details, launch apps and on Android devices unlock your phone. Windows Phone has an annoying confirmation dialog window and NFC can’t unlock it either. Those are things though that Microsoft could theoretically fix and we may see such improvements in GDR3 or Windows Phone 8.1.
The NFC Ring operates with two inlays – one ‘public’ the other ‘private’ – so you can have two options for programming. For the public, you could have your contact details, making the ring act as a virtual business card, while the inner private inlay can unlock your door or launch and app. It should be interesting to see what people choose to do with the new wearable technology.
Seeing as we contributed to the project, we’ll of course be getting a ring, so expect a hands on demo when it finally ships. For now, you can watch the two videos above with one featuring the new Windows Phone app and the other being the demo of the project.
Source: YouTube; Thanks, MBaumi, for the tip
