After bringing back the Pebble smartwatch, founder Eric Migicovsky is broadening his hardware lineup with a new smart wearable: an AI-enabled ring called Index 01. Named after the index finger it’s designed to sit on, the $75 ring isn’t trying to compete with always-on, always-listening AI gadgets like the Friend AI pendant. Instead, it’s meant to capture quick notes and reminders with a simple button press on the side of the ring.
AI is only involved through open source speech-to-text and AI models that run locally on your smartphone via the open source Pebble mobile app. If you’re not pressing the ring’s button, nothing is being recorded. The input is triggered by a press-and-hold action, so you can’t tap it once and then secretly record a long conversation.
The stainless steel ring is safe to wear in the shower, while washing your hands, doing dishes, or out in the rain, but you’ll need to remove it for more intense water exposure, like swimming. At launch, it’s rated water-resistant down to 1 meter.
Index 01 is not a fitness band or sleep tracker. It doesn’t monitor heart rate or health metrics, and it’s not designed to act as a chatty AI companion.
“I’m not trying to build some AI assistant thing,” Migicovsky told TechCrunch. “I build things that solve one main problem, and they solve it really well,” he says. “I think of [the ring] as external memory for my brain…that’s what this is. It’s always with you.”
He adds that the ring is engineered to be dependable and privacy-first, since all your recordings live on your phone rather than in the cloud. There’s no subscription fee.
Migicovsky has been using the ring himself for three months and says he now finds it hard to imagine not having a dedicated memory device on him at all times.
“During the day, I get ideas or remember something, and if I don’t write it down immediately, I lose it,” he explains. The ring fixes that issue without turning into yet another gadget you’re constantly charging.
“The battery lasts for years,” Migicovsky claims.
Technically, the ring can handle around 12 to 14 hours of total recording time. On a typical day, he uses it 10–20 times to capture 3–6 second snippets. At that pace, he expects about two years of battery life. When the battery finally dies, you can mail the ring back to the company for recycling.
With Index, you can record up to five minutes of audio at once, which is stored on the ring and later synced to your phone. That’s ideal for short, personal notes and ideas when your phone isn’t nearby, but it’s not meant for long-form recordings like full meetings, presentations, or in-depth interviews.
The ring supports more than 99 languages and includes a small amount of onboard storage for times when you’re out of Bluetooth range from your phone, where the audio is ultimately saved and transcribed. The raw audio is also kept, so you can recover from poor transcriptions caused by noisy environments.
If you own a Pebble smartwatch or another compatible watch, your captured note can appear on the watch display so you can quickly confirm it was transcribed correctly.
Index 01 connects to the Pebble mobile app, which provides notes and reminders and can optionally hook into your phone’s calendar or third-party tools like Notion. The ring’s software is open source, making it modifiable by the community, Migicovsky notes.
Thanks to that openness, the ring’s button is already customizable. Beyond the press-and-hold for recording, you can assign single- or double-press actions, such as play/pause for music or triggering your phone’s camera shutter. You could also use it to send a message via Beeper, the universal chat app Migicovsky also founded, or define your own voice actions through MCP.
A different hardware strategy
Migicovsky recognizes that building hardware is challenging — something underscored by Pebble’s eventual sale to Fitbit. (Fitbit itself was later acquired by Google in 2021.)
“I didn’t earn any money during Pebble — we exited, but it was not a great exit,” Migicovsky concedes.
This year, he chose to revive the Pebble effort after Google open sourced PebbleOS, creating an opportunity for new devices.
With his new company, Core Devices, Migicovsky intends to take a different approach.
He stresses that he doesn’t regret his earlier path.
“I wouldn’t have gone back and changed anything. I loved what we built. I loved what we did. I love the company that we built, but it’s not the only way to build a company,” he told TechCrunch. “And, speaking as an ex-YC partner, there are — there’s a time and a place for building a venture-backed startup. Some companies are phenomenal when they raise money and build a big team, and I tried that…I think what I’m doing now is trying an alternative path, which is [to] start from profitability,” he says.
Core Devices is currently a five-person, self-funded team with a focus on sustainable hardware.
To date, the company has shipped the Pebble 2 Duo smartwatch with a black-and-white display. The initial batch sold out, and Core Devices is now gearing up to deliver the Pebble Time 2, an upgraded stainless steel model with a larger, color e-ink screen that has already attracted 25,000 pre-orders.
For Index 01, the pre-order pricing runs through March 2026. After that, the cost will rise to $99. The ring is available in silver, polished gold, and matte black, and is compatible with both iOS and Android. Buyers can choose from eight ring sizes and three finishes.