Nod Labs’ Nod gesture ring, which responds to gestures, makes Siri and Google Glass look definitely prehistoric. The ring has high resolution movement sensors to track various gestures that you make with your fingers for everything, including gaming and virtual keyboards. While we are too busy adapting to machines, Nod created a machine to adapt to us. The mouse and the keyboard have stayed pretty much the same, touch screen devices are flooding the market, limiting as they may be. Of course, these devices have speech recognition systems, but anyone who has used it knows how frustrating it can get.
Nod is a unified input device. It is a lightweight ring that looks quite chunky, and houses 80 components, which include two CPU’s. All of these are kept safe with a waterproof covering. It also has touch sensors and buttons and syncs itself with your phone or any other device via Bluetooth. Once you wear it, and move your hand around, you can easily control the pointer on your screen, the various menus in your TV (it supports all LG television sets manufactured from 2012), your smartphone, and your tablet. You can also operate a virtual keyboard. There are other gestures for better control of various instruments – from your thermostat to your gesture controlled lights.
It can be a bit too sensitive for certain uses and the makers advise turning down the reactivity for beginners to get a hang of the thing. The sensors have the capacity for controlling a resolution of 32,000 dpi (dots per inch). This makes it extremely sensitive to browse through the menu on your TV, but quite suitable for games involving shooting.
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That's the theory, anyway. We were unable to try Nod out ourselves, with the company pointing out that it's very much sizing dependent to get the right accuracy and response from the ring. A total of twelve different sizes will be offered, split into four main categories - S, M, L, XL.
You can use it to unlock your handset when you are near it and to re lock it when you are away. The ring has the ability to pair up with multiple devices simultaneously, giving each device the impression that it is enjoying a dedicated pairing. As of now, you need to manually switch between various devices, but the makers plan to integrate intelligent differentiation for multiple devices.
The last few years have witnessed the emergence of a large number of products, claiming to be the next big thing after polio vaccination, but have failed to stand the test of time. Nod has its flexibility and portability in its favor, but that does not determine whether it will be accepted by the masses.
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If you want it, you can order it for $99 from their site http://store.nod.com/products/nod-gesture-ring. Let us hope the ring is the next big thing!