Kickstarter Update – Shipping, Stealth Bombers, Updates, yoyos!


Longer video for those who prefer to hear & see the whole update instead of reading it

Firstly we’d like to say thanks to all backers for being so patient and for backing this project. We know the delays are really tarnishing this projects success but we want you to know we are doing everything we can to get you a high quality ring and experience as quickly as possible.

There is some important information for backers due a PVD plated ring (Black metal/Blue metal/Stealth bmobers etc.) in this update!

We’re getting there!

It’s great to see lots of backers getting their ring(s) and sharing messages and photos on various social tentacles. Here are some posts, pics and videos:


And a cool review in a language we don’t understand

What’s in the post right now?

583 Rings just shipped to backers, taking the total % of fulfilled backer orders up to 47%, We have more rings to go out in the post on Monday from both distribution centers which should take us over 50%.

I got a Shipping Email but my ring hasn’t got here!

We are starting to see some rings being returned citing incomplete addresses or return to sender. If you ring hasn’t gotten to you within 14 days of receiving the shipping notification, please email support@nfcring.com letting us know and we will will investigate.

I’m still waiting on my ring(s), did you forget about me?

We have told the factory the last day we will accept ring dispatches is on the 19th of May, this is to ensure all backers orders are fulfilled in May. The factory are confident they can fulfill the rest of the outstanding orders however we will have to take rings through the normal QA process and naturally some rings will fail. We’re still gunning and working towards fulfilling all orders within May, it’s realistic we should be able to do this assuming the next two deliveries from our factory are of a healthy quantity.

Stealth Bomber QA Fails and changes to Stealth Bomber orders

The reason the Stealth bomber rings have been failing QA at such a high % is due to the inability of the factory to consistently polish black PVD plated rings. The PVD plating process creates a ~hundred micron lip around the inlay insert area and this creates an unsightly void when the enamel is applied. All of the stealth bombers being sent out are free rings and because they are causing such huge delays and because the factory is failing such a high % we are going to switch up all free stealth bomber rings to other options of the same type(alpha/classic) and size but different color metal and inlays. Remember these are only temporary free rings(but you get to keep them), when we finally have a factory that is capable of making the Stealth Bombers you will get a voucher to get one for free. Our patience has run out, the factory have had over 6 months to figure a way to go from prototype to production(they were 100% sure they could produce these and the prototypes & samples all looked great) but have failed to achieve this so it’s up to us to take affirmative action and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’d like to know which ring you prefer? The classic, signature or vintage or would you be happy with any? (You can see the different models here)

Reliability improvements

Remember those 1000 inlays that were sent in a rush because the inlay factory sent us inlays branded with their logo? Well we put them into rings but it turns out the epoxy glue designed to keep the IC attached to the antenna, wasn’t included in the package. This means we have experienced some rings where the IC has detached from the antenna after a period of use. This has been really challenging to replicate in a test/lab environment but after several months we have finally managed to solve this issue. We did this in two steps:

1. Ensuring the epoxy glue is on the IC as per our inlay design. This helps by holding the IC onto the antenna (kind of a big deal…!).

2. Ensuring the super glue we use on the ring blank to help attach the inlay is kept at a minimum. Previously the factory were getting a bit carried away with this, applying too much and this was causing the super glue to bond to the epoxy glue, which occasionally caused it detach from the inlay instead of flexing.

is the cool machine we built to replicate the failures. Instructions for how to build this are available by putting pipe on speaker and using audacity to create a variable square wave audio file.

If your ring does fail to read, head over to the forum for assistance firstly, as it’s possible your issue may be a result of something else. If you still have issues, contact support@nfcring.com and we will sort out a replacement ring through our returns process.

NFC Ring Unlock updates

We recently published an NFC Ring Unlock App update with a handful of bug-fixes in. If you do find a problem, you can search and create issues at on the NFC Ring Unlock repo

NFC Ring Unlock App feature requests

We’d like to know which features you would like us to develop next.
To have your say on what we prioritise, look through the requested features on the NFC Ring unlock feature request page by commenting with a +1 to any you would like, or alternatively reply as a comment on this post.
If you are enjoying using the app please do give us a positive review over at the NFC Ring Unlock play store page.

Rewarding innovation

You know all those QA fail rings? As we aren’t happy enough with the quality to send them out to backers we decided to do something useful with them by giving them out to hackers who have some awesome crazy implementations of the NFC Ring with other hardware.

Kick it with us

John is doing a real time QA session on IRC on Wednesday the 14th of May at 4pm GMT so head over and ask any questions or vent any frustrations.
#nfcring irc.freenode.net // facebook // Twitter // Forum // Blog

Thank you!

Thanks again to all backers for being so patient. These delays are worst case scenario for us and it’s great to get so many positive supportive messages.