NFC Ring launches their Eclipse Ring on Kickstarter

I'm not much of a stylish guy but I love my NFC Ring.  But that was a while ago that it came out.  It was due to have a new iteration.

As of today, the new 'Eclipse' is now on Kickstarter, and it brings a few improvements; notably the range on it is much better.  Whereas on my previous ring I would have to put it right up against the 'sweet spot' (they even give you little dot stickers so you can put on your phone so you can know where it is).

The other improvement is storage space on the tag.  Whereas the previous tag could store about 114b, the new ring is almost 10x more with 1kb (actually about 888b).

Very sweet.

Currently I can only fit about 2 lines of text on mine (I'm putting my name and my about.me page) - with the new one I can put in my cell, email, website, etc... no worries


If you've been hoping to get into the NFC Ring this is definitely something you'll want to look at.

What would you use your NFC Ring for?

Source:  http://nfcring.com/2016/

Fact sheet

Constructed from an advanced ceramic designed to improve operating range, comfort and appearance when compared with the metal original, the 2016 NFC Ring contains a pair of NXP Semiconductors NTAG216 near-field communication (NFC) integrated circuits with short-range antennas.

Completely passive when not in use, the NFC Ring requires no battery or charging and is safe to pass through airport security scans without loss of data. Fully waterproof, the NFC Ring is designed to be worn at all times to provide fast access to the stored data.

Each 2016 NFC Ring contains two of these NTAG216 chips, which operate entirely independently. The ring is worn with one tag facing inwards and the other outwards, providing a unique gesture-based access control system which allows for the sharing of public data using a closed fist and private data using an open hand.

Each NTAG216 chip can store a total of 1 kilobyte (1KB), of which 888 bytes are accessible to users for storage of any data they require. These are not designed for mass storage - it would take 600,000 NFC Rings to store the same data as a single 600MB CD-ROM. Rather, the tags are suitable for storing small portions of data such as encryption keys, contact information, or links to external websites. This data can be shared by touching the NFC Ring to any NFC-compatible smartphone, tablet, laptop, or other computing device, or NFC-enabled home security systems, locks, time-tracking attendance systems, keyless vehicle ignitions, and even microcontrollers and microcomputers like the Arduino and Raspberry Pi when paired with a low-cost reading device.

The 2016 model year NFC Rings costs $27 and $35, depending on pledge level, and are available in US ring sizes 4.5 to 16. Additionally, McLear and Mullenweg - as part of their dedication to open-source ideals - have made the designs for the ring public, allowing users with access to 3D printing technology to customise their own designs and print them at home.

"NFC Ring" is a registered trademark owned by McLear Limited.

The NFC Ring is covered by US patent 2015/0042450-A1.