Have you ever imagined what it would be like to interact with your PC without a mouse? We've already seen the likes of Apple's Vision Pro introduce friction-less pointing mechanisms where it almost feels like what you think is what magically happens on-screen. Ideas for something similar for PC have floated around before, with the most iconic one probably being Leap Motion from 2013, and now a new contender has stepped into the ring. Meet Prolo Ring — a smart wearable that allows you to control your PC with your finger.
At first glance, the Prolo seems like any other ring, maybe slightly taller than a usual one, but still not anything gaudy. The Kickstarter campaign tells us that the ring is made up of anodized aluminum, comes in three neutral colors, and has three core components: a 6-axis motion sensor, a trackpad, and a "modstrip" that all combine to make up the entire feature set.
The trackpad is arguably the main selling point. You can tap, hold, and swipe to trigger various actions, such as selecting task or simulating right-clicks for opening context menus. You can also tap it to play/pause media, swipe up to increase volume, along with various other app-specific actions. This is before the app comes in play, which enables full customization so you can set up macros for all sorts of stuff, which the demo video shows nicely:
Beyond the touch-sensitive surface, you can press the modstrip situated at the top of the ring to enhance the trackpad's functionality, essentially acting like a modifier. This unlocks a whole new level of flexibility. The app, again, opens you up to a lot more tricks for the modstrip.
Lastly, the motion sensor enables over 40 air gestures, like swiping through a slide of pictures by subtly waving around your finger. This is reminiscent of Google's Soli, a radar-based motion detecting system that largely died down since its debut on the Pixel 4 XL failed back in the day. It's always seemed awkward to flail around, trying to get a gesture to trigger, but the promotional material shows it won't require such grandiose intentionality, so maybe there's hope.
The Prolo Ring is available on Kickstarter right now, you can back it up for $99 to get your hands on one, but you'll need to pledge $129 to get the wireless charging case. Speaking of, you'll get 8 hours of battery life on a single charge, and the dock can let you squeeze up to 30 days worth of juice. The ring connects via standard Bluetooth and can do a lot of the gestures without the companion app, which means it's compatible with every operating system/platform out there.
Unfortunately, there is one big caveat — licenses. Each ring comes with a single-use license that will allow you to access pro features on one device. If you want to use your ring across, say your computer and phone, then that one license won't be enough, which, by the way, isn't even included in the Basic or Standard Editions that we mentioned earlier to begin with. Only the $149 Pro and onwards gets you the license, and you need that to tweak gestures, do custom remapping, and build macros. It's unclear whether you can buy the license separately, though.
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