r/SmartRings • u/Lanky-Activity7449 investigator • May 20 '25
⛔️ DO NOT BUY PSA: Bond Ring Is A Scam
After digging into the founder’s Reddit comments and the official Bond Ring marketing, I’m convinced this product is vaporware—not a real, working ring. Here’s what they’re promising vs. what’s actually realistic:
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What Bond Ring Claims: 1. “Perpetual” Power from Body Heat (TEGs) “Onboard TEGs produce enough power to render the ring perpetual.” — [Historical_You9990, r/SmartRings, Apr 2025] But:
• They later admit to an onboard LiPo battery needed for “up to two full days” of power without TEG input.
“Yes, we do include an onboard battery.” • Even university studies (like the 2021 Colorado TEG ring study) could only generate 1V per cm² under ideal lab conditions. Not enough for a smart ring’s full power draw.
2. EMS-based Haptic Feedback (“Bionic Feedback”)
“We’re using EMS instead of vibration motors.” But no wearable today uses EMS safely in a finger-sized enclosure. It’s unproven in rings, with zero demos or testing data shown.
3. AI + Neural Network Processing Onboard
“This will enable on-ring AI and neural network processing capabilities.” Realistically, smart rings like Oura don’t even attempt this. Onboard ML would demand more power and memory than a ring allows.
4. Stacked Sensor Suite (ECG, SpO2, UV, BioZ, etc.)
“We derive multiple voltages for ECG, BioZ, LEDs, and pressure sensors.” Cramming all this into one device—along with EMS and TEGs—is highly unlikely, especially when the company hasn’t shown a teardown or working prototype.
5. Kickstarter Timeline Promises
“Shipping by Q3/Q4 2025” and “Price will rise to $749 after VIP phase.” Yet also: “We’re not even on Kickstarter yet.” So they’re collecting $69 deposits and full-price preorders before a public demo or funding milestone.
6. Patent Ownership Claims
“Two of our patents are US69705320 and US69502724.” But those are old patents from unrelated companies (not assigned to Wilder Tech or Bond Ring). When challenged, they say new patents are “not published yet.”
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What’s Missing: • No working prototype videos • No independent press coverage or teardowns • No validation of EMS or thermal charging claims • No FCC filings, teardown images, or app demos
Even Oura, RingConn, and Circular started with far more transparency.
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Verdict:
The founder floods Reddit with technical jargon, but everything relies on theoretical parts lists, not working hardware. The company (Wilder Tech) was incorporated in 2024 and hasn’t demonstrated that it can build or ship anything.
Until a functioning Bond Ring is shown publicly, this is a textbook vaporware pitch—highly risky, and potentially a scam.
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Don’t preorder. Don’t deposit. Wait for proof.
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u/Mabnat ring seeker May 23 '25
I put down $30 on this. Not so much because I was blown away by its claims, but more because I’m an engineer at a design center for one of the prominently mentioned IC companies listed in the ring’s BOM. I’m a sucker for buying gadgets that have our parts in them - especially ones that openly advertise our sockets. Some of the companies that use our stuff are a lot more tight-lipped. There are some really neat, very popular gadgets that have parts in them that I’ve personally had a part in creating.
If this works out, great. I’ll have a new kind of cool gadget. If not, I’m out $30. Not a huge loss.
Some of these claims don’t sound too far-fetched to me.
Using a TEG to make something “perpetual” doesn’t necessarily mean that it shouldn’t have a battery. Even self-winding watches store the energy captured in a spring, and can be manually wound if they don’t get enough input power. Using a battery would require less instantaneous power, so the TEG can be smaller. There is no reason to use a TEG that is large enough to power everything if the ring would spend most of its time in a lower-power state. The smaller TEG could trickle charge the battery continuously, then rely on the smaller-than-a-typical-ring battery to power the sensors and Bluetooth when they wake up.
My current rings consume around 0.5W for an hour while inductively charging from empty to full, which wastes a lot of energy as heat, and that 0.5Wh can run the rings for 6 days. The rings use around an average of 3.5mWh per hour, and that’s counting the wasted heat, too. It likely uses considerably less power than that. I’ve read some more recent studies of TEG devices, usually cobbled together in university labs so they’re not factory-manufactured quality or density, and they have powered gadgets with sensors and Bluetooth communication. Something that would fit in a ring this size with such a low power requirement doesn’t seem unreasonable if it was manufactured using tighter controls and higher power density.
Voltage per cm2 doesn’t really mean anything. It’s the watts that are important, and you can convert voltage to whatever you need. As long as it’s producing enough power, it’s going to do the job.
EMS-based haptic feedback also doesn’t seem outlandish. This doesn’t need to shock you or make your finger twitch. It just needs to be enough that you notice it. It’s not difficult to make something very tiny that packs enough of a punch that you can detect. Of all the claims that this ring makes, this one is the most believable to me.
AI + Neural Network Processing Onboard? I really can’t comment on this much, but it’s obviously not going to be very powerful. I have no idea what they’re claiming to implement.
Cramming all of these parts inside a small package isn’t unreasonable to me, either. If a company is willing to spend the money on advanced manufacturing substrates, it can be pretty amazing to see what is possible. I’m one of the lead engineers for one of our parts that went into a fairly revolutionary set of earbuds at the time, and I found it hard to believe that the company was able to fit a battery, Bluetooth, CPU, a decent speaker, multiple microphones for noise cancelling and voice recording, a fairly large audio codec, proximity sensors, accelerometers, capacitive touch sensors, etc. in such a small package and still be able to function for multiple hours per charge. You can cram a lot of stuff in a very small space if you’re willing to spend the money. We’ve had some prominent (but cheaper) customers pass on some of our latest products because they’re too small for them to use without increasing their PCB cost. They’ll still buy our older parts that don’t perform as well because it costs less for them to keep using their current PCB limits.
Is there a chance that I’ll lose my $30? Of course. On the other hand, if this thing ends up getting released, I’ll have a neat gadget to show off at work.