The Pebble Index 01 is a smart ring with a built-in microphone

Eric Migicowski, the founder of Pebble and the person leading its recent comeback, is largely in the business of making gadgets for himself. And he seems very interested in what’s on his finger: It’s called the Pebble Index 01 (but we’ll just call it the Index), and it’s a $75 ring meant to be worn on your index finger (surprise!). It has a microphone, a button to activate this microphone, and nothing else. It’s as if you wrapped one of the adjustable cable ties around your finger and then secured it very tightly.

Migicowski has been working on it for more than a year — I first saw him wearing a prototype at CES last year — and says it’s become the simple pickup tool he always wanted. You press and hold the ring button with your thumb next to the ring to record. Everything you record is sent to the Pebble app for iOS or Android, where you can see a feed of the audio and transcripts you’ve collected. It all happens over Bluetooth, although the ring has about five minutes of local storage and a local copy model on the device, in case you get disconnected from your phone. “You can disconnect from the Internet and the whole thing will still work,” Migicowski says.

Migicowski refers to the cursor as “an external memory for your brain,” and says ensuring nothing gets lost, no matter what, is key to getting the product right. That’s why it has a button, not a wake word, and why every bit of recorded audio appears in the app. The Pointer doesn’t even have a charger, and its battery should last a few years, Migicowski says, as long as you use it a few seconds at a time several times a day. (Apparently, it might also drain your battery if you record for 15 hours straight. Don’t do it.) The point is that you don’t have to think about it. “If it’s not 100% reliable, I’ll stop using it,” Migicowski says. “I’ll go back to my failure mode of just sending emails to myself.”

The most common uses for a device like this are fairly straightforward: taking notes, setting timers and alarms, and creating reminders. These are the big three of Migicowski, and they’re probably yours and mine too. In all three cases, the index and its accompanying app can be a little smarter than just putting audio in the feed. Migicovsky’s pointer is hard-coded to send all his notes to Notion, for example, as he does his other work there. If he sets a reminder, he’ll receive a notification at the scheduled time, and on Android, Pebble can set alarms directly in the Clock app. (Apple doesn’t allow third-party accessories to do the same thing on iOS.) Using the Index as an input system and a Pebble watch on his arm to receive those notifications, Migicowski can get a lot done without ever pulling out his phone.

By the way, Migicovsky says you’ll be able to do a lot of this on your smartwatch. The new Pebble 2 Duo has a built-in microphone, while the upcoming Pebble Time 2 has two microphones; They both support voice input and can do the same things as Index. “But the ring stayed,” he says. Having a dedicated input button, and interaction requiring two fingers instead of two hands makes a big difference.

Pebble will eventually get more features related to notes and tasks, but ultimately the idea is for the index to be a bridge to other services. If the application understands that you are trying to create a calendar event, it should create only that event. If you want to add a song to a playlist, reserve a car, or any number of other things, Index and Pebble may one day be able to do those things.

Go far enough, and all of this will seem like the agentive AI dream that currently seems to be driving every other company in technology. Smart rings like Wizpr and Stream Ring are building microphones into your finger for AI purposes, and devices from companies like Plaud are hoping to get you chatting away in small wearables sooner rather than later. Migicovsky definitely sees some AI potential here: He’s thinking that maybe if you double-click the index button, your recordings could be sent directly to ChatGPT, and he’s planning to integrate the Form Context Protocol to allow Pebble to interact directly with lots of other forms and apps. But he was also quick to say that he is not trying to build a friend, and that even MCP is not the goal. “This is an external memory of my mind,” he says. “It does one thing and it does it really well.” Then it stops again. “But it’s hackable.”

Like the rest of the Pebble ecosystem, all parts of the index will be open source. This means that people can create new types of devices to enable input, add features to an app, or use the technology and do something else entirely. For Migicowski, this seems to be the best of both worlds: he’s able to build exactly the things he wants, and if you want something else? Here’s the source code, fuck yourself.

Index 01 is available for pre-order now for $75. After it starts shipping in March 2026, the price will rise to $99. It comes in three colors and a range of ring sizes. Migicowski says he uses it up to 20 times a day and it lasts for months. He thinks a lot of other people might enjoy talking into their hands too, as long as it’s really easy and never fails.