After rebooting the Pebble smartwatch brand, founder Eric Migicovsky is expanding his company’s device lineup with a new smart wearable: an AI-powered smart ring known as Index 01. Named after the finger that wears the ring, the new $75 ring isn’t meant to be a competitor to always-on, always-listening AI devices like the AI pendant Friend, but instead offers a way to record simple notes and reminders with the push of a button. ring side.
AI works exclusively through open source, speech-to-text, and AI models that run locally on your smartphone through the Pebble mobile app. In other words, if the button on the ring is not pressed, it is not recording. (This is also a long-press gesture, meaning you can’t start recording a ringtone and then release your hand to secretly record a conversation.)
The stainless steel ring can be worn while showering, washing hands, washing dishes, or in the rain, but must be removed for other water-related activities, such as swimming. Initially, it will be water resistant up to 1 meter.
This ring is also not a fitness tracker or sleep monitor. No details about your heart rate or health status are recorded. And it’s not there to be your AI friend.
“We’re not trying to create some kind of AI assistant,” Migicovsky told TechCrunch in an interview. “I’m building things that solve one main problem, and they solve it very well,” he explains. “I think of[the ring]as an external memory in my brain…that’s what it is. It’s always with you.”
What’s more, Ring is designed to be reliable and private, with all your thoughts stored on your phone rather than in the cloud, he says. There are no subscriptions.
Migikowski’s Ring enters the growing voice memo wearables market. Last month, Sandbar, a New York-based startup founded by former Meta employees, announced Streamling, which allows users to record their thoughts via a touch-operated microphone. However, unlike Index 01’s no-subscription model, Sandbar’s $249 ring offers both a free tier with limited AI interactions and a $10/month Stream Pro subscription that provides unlimited chat and early access to features. Stream Ring is scheduled to ship next summer.
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Migikowski has been wearing his ring for the past three months and says he can’t imagine returning to a world where he doesn’t carry a memory device with him at all times.
“The problem is that during the day I get an idea or remember something, but if I don’t write it down in that moment, I forget it,” he says. Ring solves this problem without becoming another device that requires charging, he added.
“Batteries last for years,” Migikowski claims.
This ring is said to support approximately 12-14 hours of recording. On average, founders say they use it 10-20 times a day to record 3-6 seconds of thoughts. If this continues, it will last for about two years. When your ring’s battery dies, you can send it back to the company for recycling.
Index lets you record up to 5 minutes of audio, which you can save to your ring and sync to your phone later. This makes sense for recording more concise personal thoughts and notes when your phone isn’t at hand, but it doesn’t work for recording longer chats, such as presentations, meetings, or some kind of in-person interview.
The ring also supports over 100 languages and has a bit of on-device memory for when you’re not within Bluetooth range of your device, where recordings are ultimately saved and transcribed. (The raw audio is also preserved in case loud background noise garbles the speech-to-text conversion.)
If you have a Pebble smartwatch or a smartwatch from another brand, you can also see if your recorded thoughts are correct because they appear on your watch’s screen.
The ring works with Pebble’s mobile app, which provides notes and reminders, but can also optionally integrate with your phone’s calendar system or other apps like Notion. And Ring’s software is open source, which allows for community hacking, the founders point out.
Due to its open nature, the buttons on the ring are already programmable. In addition to the long-press gesture, you can program the ring to perform other actions with just one or two presses, such as playing or pausing music or controlling the shutter of your phone’s camera. You can also use it to send messages through Beeper, the universal chat app that Migicovsky also created, and add your own voice actions via MCP.
A new approach to hardware
Migicovsky acknowledged that getting the hardware right can be difficult, as Pebble’s exit from Fitbit showed. (Fitbit was later acquired by Google in 2021.)
“During Pebble, I didn’t make any money. We exited, and it wasn’t a great exit,” Migikowski admits.
But this year, after Google open sourced PebbleOS, opening the door to new hardware, he decided to restart the Pebble project.
Migicovsky plans to do things differently with his new company, Core Devices.
Still, he made it clear that the founder doesn’t regret his previous choices.
“I wouldn’t have gone back and changed a thing. I loved what we built. I love the company we built. But that’s not the only way to build a company,” he told TechCrunch. “And speaking as a former YC partner, there’s a time and a place for building venture-backed startups. Some companies do wonders when they raise money and build a big team, so I tried that too…What I’m doing now is trying a different path of starting with profitability,” he says.
The new company is a small team of five people, self-funded and focused on sustainability.
So far, Core Devices is shipping the Pebble 2 Duo smartwatch with a black and white display. The first production run has sold out, and the company is currently preparing to ship an upgraded version, the Pebble Time 2. The new device, which had 25,000 pre-orders, is a stainless steel watch with a larger color e-ink screen.
As for Index 01, pre-orders for the ring end in March 2026. After that, the price increases to $99. It currently comes in silver, polished gold, and matte black colors and works with iOS and Android devices. You can choose from 8 ring sizes from 6 to 13.
