Proxy plans to bring digital identity signals to smart rings for the first time

Proxy plans to bring digital identity signals to smart rings for the first time
April 27, 2020
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From Why Proxy acquired smart ring startup Motiv on Proxy blog:

At Proxy, we believe wearable technology is still in its infancy. Wearables are where mobile phones were in in the 90s, the flip phone days. For the most part, they have been relegated to fitness and sleep tracking, when we see more profound purposes possible.

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We started the company with the vision of a universal identity signal that each individual owned and controlled, and we named our company Proxy because our wireless identity signal technology acts as a person’s proxy in the physical world. It made sense to start building this signal into smartphones because everyone already has one in their pocket, but smartphones were always just the first step towards creating the future we envision, where ultimately humans and signals merge as one. Enabling smart rings and wearables is the critical next step in our journey.

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The smart ring offers the unique opportunity for biometric authentication that is constantly in contact with you, continuously confirming your identity and augmenting you and your presence along with your personal preferences, and secure credentials towards devices and spaces around you. The smart ring is designed to be worn 24/7, and advances in battery technology are enabling longer battery life of 7 days and more between recharge. The ring form factor also goes places your phone doesn’t. You swim with it, you sleep with it, you run with it, you cook with it. While we do carry our phone’s with us most of the time, it’s not 24/7, and efforts from industry leaders like Apple and Google have been aimed at actually reducing screen time to avoid negative impacts to health and wellbeing.

This vision assumes that people will be happy to either wear an additional ring all the time or replace their wedding rings with smart rings. The latter seems far fetched, but it's worth noting how the Apple Watch has replaced a huge number of analog and digital watches worn by people on daily basis in just a few years.