From Iceland — Icelandic Smart Ring Gains The Attention Of Foreign Media

Icelandic Smart Ring Gains The Attention Of Foreign Media

Published April 7, 2021

Photo by
Genki

The Icelandic innovation company Genki has launched their latest smart device, the Wave for Work smartring, which allows for people to control apps such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Spotify with simple hand gestures.

The product has already attracted attention abroad and has been discussed by major technology media outlets such as Engadget , Fast Company , TechRadar and Apple Insider.

Business is a boomin’

This is stated in an announcement from Genki. There are three buttons on the ring as well as a screen that shows information such as volume or whether the microphone is active in remote meetings. Then you can tailor the ring to different finger sizes.

The new ring is a modified version of 2018’s Wave ring that was used for musicians to control sound, change effects and send commands with hand gestures.

An announcement from the company states that the Wave ring has sold thousands of songs around the world and musicians such as Daði Freyr, Imogen Heap and Jamie Lidell used it in their creations.

Last year, Genki introduced the Halo ring, which is used to control slides and presentations in a new way last year.

The epidemic inspired

Ólafur Bjarki Bogason, CEO of Genki, said in an announcement: “We have for a long time ruminated on expanding the scope of the circle beyond music. When we started working from home, at the beginning of COVID, we used Wave to control Zoom. We immediately found that it made life easier. Wave for Work is based on the same user-friendly hardware as Wave, but we redesigned the functionality of the ring to control the applications we use on a daily basis. For example, you can turn off the microphone on Zoom, replace the slide in PowerPoint, or raise music on Spotify, anywhere in the home. It offers more freedom and possibilities that we have never seen before.”

Wave for Work has a range of up to ten meters and supports software such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, PowerPoint, Keynote, Spotify, Photoshop and OBS.

Genki has received numerous awards, such as the Icelandic Design Award in 2019 for the Wave ring. Shareholders in Genki are Tennin, Davíð Helgason, Jón von Tetzchner and Nordic Web Ventures.

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