Aina’s smart ring has a screen, a joystick and a mic so you can talk to AI agents

Hardware startup Aina today released a smart ring that has a screen, a joystick and a mic so you can talk to your agents and take notes. The $399 ring has a speaker, so you can also make calls using it.

The startup, which raised $5.5 million in July, is positioning Ring as a controller for both AI and non-AI apps.

The company previously made Mirage, a three-key controller that lets you call up buttons based on the app on your Mac’s screen. For example, if you were on a Google Meet call, you could map the keys to the camera on/off, microphone mute/unmute or leave the meeting.

Aina took lessons from that device to create the new ring, which she simply calls the “AI Ring.” With its mic, you can take notes, send a request to agents, set reminders and dictate notes on your Mac using Wispr Flow or the startup’s own dictation engine.

Now there are already smart rings on the market that do similar things, like the Pebble Index 01, Sandbar Stream, Oasis, and Natura, which is probably why Aina added more controls and functionality to stand out. Its ring comes with a speaker so you can take calls, and there’s a screen that lets you get notifications from your phone or whatever apps you’re checking.

For navigation, there’s a joystick, and it also supports gestures, so it can trigger different actions based on what’s on your Mac or phone screen. The ring also lets you control music or even smart home devices like Apple TV.

I’ve been using the ring for a few days, and it feels like a smartwatch in a ring format with more controls. I can receive notifications and reply to them. It surfaces my meetings; I can call Uber when I want to go home.

It’s easier to use the Apple TV’s remote itself, but the Aina Ring proved useful the few times I couldn’t find the remote. Granted, a lot of the software and features are still being worked out, so it’s hard to figure out where such a device ring might sit in my day-to-day use, but it’s squarely aimed at people surrounded by digital devices and AI applications.

“Phones and laptop screens were designed for an age of consultation where you think about opening apps. For interaction with proactive agents, we need a better interface, and this is what we had in mind while designing Aina,” Apoorv Shankar, Aina’s founder, told TechCrunch on a call.

Companies are trying to cater to programmers and AI enthusiasts with specialized hardware that can help them support different agents. This includes OpenAI’s experimental keyboard and the rabbit trying to position itself as a controller. The hope with such hardware is that enough people run some agents to invest in specific gadgets to keep them.

Aina’s ring goes up for pre-order starting Thursday at the early bird price of $399, and the company plans to ship the device in January 2027. When the early bird period ends, the ring will cost $499.