I’ve been experimenting with smart rings lately—specifically, ones like the Oura Ring and similar wearables for tracking sleep, fitness, and overall wellness. While these devices are already impressive, it got me thinking: How close are we to integrating these technologies with bio-implants?
For instance:
Could we see NFC-enabled smart rings acting as a gateway to implantable chips, enhancing usability?
How might implantable tech evolve to eliminate the need for external wearables altogether?
Could wearables one day help with real-time implant diagnostics?
Curious to hear your thoughts:
Do you see wearables as a stepping stone or competition for implantable tech?
Have you experimented with combining smart rings, NFC chips, or implants?
Looking forward to hearing insights from this innovative community!
I guess my question is, assuming this one for example is spam, what would be the point of spam like this?
Maybe they are looking to get an answer that may paint the community in a poor light?
Maybe they are trying to get us to hit a link?
To answer one of their questions in good faith, I don’t think that wearable tech is either a stepping stone or a competitor in a sense to implantable tech. There’s no reason one couldn’t use both, and each have their benefits. Smart rings (like the Samsung one that they’ve pushed advertising for recently) use a battery, which at this point is something we generally want to avoid putting in the human body when not medically necessary due to risk.
I think both sets of these devices could very much ‘live’ in harmony. I don’t wear a smartwatch, but I’m sure that most of those that do would prefer it on their outsides rather than their insides. And I’m sure most anyone here with a glassie would like to keep it inside of them, and I’ll be the start of that list.
I’m sure there are a few people here that have both a smart watch and an implant, and they may or may not choose to weigh in on this.
(Edit, threw their link in tor browser, and it looks even spammier than their post lol)
I don’t wear a smart watch either, but I want as much tech inside of me as possible.
Still, wearables have never scratched this itch of mine and didn’t inspire me to get implants. In fact, I wanted to have tech in my body since the days of Palm OS…
Some applications for implants simply require wearables to be realistic. There are several proposals for full body power for a series of implants from a wearable, inductively, direct electrically through the skin, or using the body as a resonant cavity.
Plenty of biosensor applications are basically wearables with an implant to improve performance or user experience. There’s also the possibility of passive drug delivery implants having the addition of wireless communication for intermittent status monitoring.
In my opinion implants and wearables are very similar concepts under the same umbrella. They’re technologic augments that improve or add to our capabilities. Sometimes it’s either more practical or more likely to be adopted if you put it over the skin as a wearable. Sometimes it’s more practical as an implant, like for more accurate biosensor measurements, or for physical security concerns
I agree here… the only thing I would add would be the primary reason, at least for me, for focusing on implants - management burden. The number one reason I even got an implant versus wearing some kind of bracelet or something was I did not want to manage the bracelet. Adding to my daily management burden is not my idea of augmentation, it’s willingly putting on a technological yolk, which is often only there as a necessary evil. For example, carrying a key around or a key card or a RFID bracelet is all for the same purpose - identifying me to some access control system somewhere. So now for the rest of my life I have to carry this damn thing around because of the thing I need access to. Acquire enough keys and now you need to carry them on a keyring. Set up enough passwords and now you need a password manager to keep track of everything.
Implants which are designed for zero management burden are, to me anyway, a panacea.
One could argue that the phone is a kind of wearable that you need to manage all the time in order to use NFC based implants, and you would be correct in my opinion. I hate having to manage my phone, but it’s one of the daily necessities and at least it is multifunctional. Being able to do so many things with one necessary evil is tolerable. Imagine if you had to still carry around a dumb phone and a digital camera and a separate GPS unit and carry along printed maps and all this crazy stuff we used to do back in the day (yes I’m that old).
On the other hand, implants like the Apex are also multi-functional and do not require a specific phone reader to use. If I ever lost my phone or it was simply not charged, and I needed to generate an OTP code or use the Fido security key functionality, I could borrow a phone. This kind of “portability” dramatically reduces the stress related to good phone management
