Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Fujitsu smart ring prototype brings control to your finger



Wearables largely revolve around fitness and health at the moment, but we're slowly seeing ones with other functionality surface. Fujitsu has set its attention on turning your finger into a stylus, one that works by writing in the air rather than on a touchscreen. This wearable will prove particularly useful for those wearing head-mounted displays, allowing for non-auditory input and control in situations where it is preferable. Other useful situations can be things like having children practice penmanship using their finger.


The smart ring isn't terribly refined at this point in time, being a large white piece of plastic with things like status LEDs and sensors. The device will likely be more refined in the future. As far as functionality goes, there's an NFC tag reader, as well as an operation button for input commands.
Sensors include an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer.

There's also a microcontroller for processing the sensors, Bluetooth LE for pairing with things like smart glasses and other devices, and the battery to power it.A button-cell battery is used, and the entire assembly works to track finger movements when one writes in the air. The operation button is pressed with the thumb on the same hand before writing, letting the wearable know the user is going to input data.

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