Meet Nod, the Bluetooth Ring That Wants to Replace Your Mouse

As touch-based surfaces become increasingly common for how we control our various devices, Nod Labs has introduced an interesting alternative: Control where there's no surface at all. The company on Tuesday unveiled Nod, a Bluetooth-enabled gesture control ring that lets you communicate with your devices without needing to reach out and touch them.

Physically, Nod is a plain black ring. It's designed to be worn all day, and waterproof so you don't need to take it off. Made mostly of matte black plastic with a stainless steel insert, it looks rather innocuous, if a bit chunky. The ring is meant to be worn around whichever digit feels most comfortable. For most people this will be the index finger, allowing you to access the back of the ring with your thumb.

When wearing Nod, what most people won't see is that the part on the inside of your hand doesn't look like a ring at all, but rather a bumped-out flat surface. This is home to a touch panel as well as two tactile buttons, which give you some physical options in addition to the gesture-based controls.

So how do those gesture controls work? I didn't get a chance to try for myself, but was shown a live demo of Nod connected to an Android tablet. It connects via Bluetooth 4.0 LE, and on supported devices, allows you to move the cursor around on screen by simply moving your hand. While the cursor itself moved somewhat jerkily, it actually looked relatively easy and fluid to control; think Minority Report. It's designed to ignore the average shake of the hand, so when your hand isn't in motion, the cursor remains completely stationary. In addition to standard motion, Nod also supports specific gestures such as swiping and rotation. Nod Labs claims the 32K DPI ring is precise enough to use even for hardcore gaming, but I only saw it play Cut the Rope.

The touch panel on the inside of the ring can be used to scroll up or down on a Web page, while the physical controls can act as mouse buttons. But these are just ideas: All of the controls are programmable, so you can map them out as you see fit. I can definitely see the Nod being useful for simple tasks, like a remote camera trigger or paging through slides on a presentation.

Nod can work with compatible Bluetooth 4.0 devices directly, but will otherwise require a bridge in the form of a smartphone or computer. Android and iOS apps will be available at launch that help you connect Nod with various other supported devices. It also comes with a fully open API, which allows developers to add a wide range of functionality and device support.

Theoretically, Nod allows you to control a number of connected devices, including phones, tablets, computers, televisions, home appliances, and plenty more, but it will only be as useful as the devices that support it. So far Nod Labs has done a good job making sure that Nod will be compatible with a number of gadgets out of the box. When it ships, Nod should work with devices from GoPro, Nest, Philips' Hue, Roku, WeMo, and LG televisions released since 2012. Nod Labs also has partnerships with Broadcom, Boxfish, and Metaio.

Nod is available for pre-sale starting today for $149 and orders will begin shipping in the fall. It comes in four different sizes, with three additional sizing inserts for each. We're hoping to get our hands on one prior to the release, so check back for a full review.

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