HONG KONG - Start-up company Origami Labs desinged a "smart" ring called the Orii ring.
Orii allows people to take phone calls, handle text messages and interact with a phone's digital assistant, all by transferring sound to a user's ear through bone conduction.
The ring was inspired by Peter Wong, the visually impaired father of the firm's co-founder Kevin Wong.
"As a visual-impaired person, I rely on the software on the smartphone to read the icons, the texts to me," said Peter Wong, who is a technical adviser for the ring.
A key feature of the device ensures that only the user can hear the information by the ring.
"Can you imagine it reading out your password? That's inconvenient and inappropriate," Peter Wong said.
"We want to keep our heads up, we want to be able to stay more in the moment," said Kevin Wong, 29, who set up Origami Labs in November 2015 with three friends from university.
The tech wearable market grew 51 percent in Asia last year, according to consumer research firm GfK. The overall industry is expected to be worth $34 billion globally by 2020, research provider CCS Insight has said.
The Orii ring is expected to reach the commercial market by February.