upvote
It's just a big faux pas in this day and age of environmental consciousness really. In my country we used to joke that people would buy a new car because the ashtray was full. This reminds me of that.
reply
I don't really care about the environmental consciousness, my issue is that presenting a product with a battery that lasts for years when it actually lasts 15 to 20 hours makes me feel like I'm being lied to.
reply
If it lasts 15 hours of recording and you record on average 5 seconds at a time, that’s about 11000 activations. I think 5 seconds is a pretty conservative estimate, most things I imagine this being useful for would be more looks 2. Easy to see it lasting years in those conditions, but yes you could drain it faster if you used it very heavily.
reply
This is true, but there's a big difference between saying "15-20 hours battery life, which is 11000 5-seconds activations, which last you a few years with 10 5-seconds activation a day" and "years of battery (btw in small text the real number is given). Especially since they mention that this project is hackable/you can do other things with it, knowing in advance you have something like ~100k button presses means some projects feel perfectly and some others won't really work.
reply
> This is true, but there's a big difference between saying "15-20 hours battery life, which is 11000 5-seconds activations, which last you a few years with 10 5-seconds activation a day" and "years of battery

Same issue Apple had when the iPod was new. How big is 20 gigs? Better put 150,000 songs instead…

reply
I am restraining myself from mocking this idea of pollution from discarded smart rings. It takes some effort, but I'm being very mature and saying nothing.
reply
You are not restraining yourself from mocking, you are somehow doing something even less conducive and more annoying
reply
I did my best! You should reinforce this attempt at self-restraint!
reply
What is there to mock? Making ten smart rings because each one is consumable sounds worse for the environment than making one that has a simple charging circuit?
reply
Well, it would have gone something like this, what I would have said: smart rings everywhere, littering the streets! Landfill sites, crammed full with smart rings! Towering trash heaps of smart rings, unmanageably vast, on fire, falling on us in an avalanche of smart ring pollution, what will we do! This might sound ridiculous, but it all adds up. We have to be concerned about every little bit of waste, because our concern successfully prevents it, as can clearly be seen nowhere.
reply
It is a small amount of resources yes but all these little bits add up too.

There's a reason that we're banning all types of disposable electronics including vapes.

reply
So either these disposable smart rings are banned or they're not.
reply
deleted
reply
Wait, so it can record for 12-15 hours, then it dies and there's no way to recharge it?

That's like, horror game flashlight levels of longevity.

reply
> other smart rings like Oura cost $250+

It's crazy they manage to say this with a straight face when their product still costs $225. Gee, $225 for a disposable piece of e-waste or $250 for a rechargeable device... but hey, at least it reminds you with an advertisement to spend another $225 before it dies!

reply
From the website it seems the ring is $75. So definitely cheaper
reply
The Oura Ring costs $350 now and it has an optional $6/month subscription.

Also, rechargeable does not mean it is infinitely rechargeable. After around four years, the Oura's battery will not hold a charge long enough to be useful (record a night's sleep), so it is also disposable.

We are comparing apples and oranges though because the Index is not a smart ring.

reply