Can The "picoRing" Replace The PC Mouse?

For several years now, the PC mouse has been the cornerstone of digital interaction. Its familiar shape and motion have outlasted countless innovations, from touchpads to voice commands.

Yet as technology becomes increasingly wearable and mobile, especially with the rise of augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), the need for new, more natural input methods is growing.

Researchers at the University of Tokyo believe they may have found a compelling answer. They have developed picoRing, a tiny, ultralow-power ring-based wireless mouse that could make controlling AR glasses more intuitive and energy-efficient.

Despite rapid advances in computing, the mouse remains hard to replace because it’s fast, precise, and deeply intuitive.

Previous attempts to reinvent it through gesture tracking, motion sensors, or wearable rings have often stumbled due to size, complexity, or poor battery life.

Wearable, ring-style controllers in particular have struggled to balance functionality with comfort. But as AR and VR headsets become more common, a compact, desk-free input solution is increasingly desirable.

"My team and I created picoRing, an ultralow-power, tiny mouse that controls AR glasses for over a month on a single charge," said Project Assistant Professor Ryo Takahashi from the University of Tokyo’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Systems.

Takahashi said earlier smart rings couldn’t last long because their small 50–60 milliwatt-hour batteries couldn’t sustain the power needed for communication.

The team’s solution was to make picoRing consume hundreds of times less power, between 30 and 500 microwatts.

The researchers introduced a watchlike wristband that acts as a signal relay between the ring and the connected device. "This allowed us to use far weaker, and less power-hungry, communications components in the ring itself," Takahashi said.

Conventional communication methods couldn’t deliver both range and efficiency. Bluetooth, while efficient for many devices, used too much power for this purpose, and NFC, though power-free, only worked at very close distances.

To bridge that gap, Takahashi’s team developed a semi-passive inductive telemetry (semi-PIT) system.

It relies on a wire coil with distributed capacitors that naturally amplify magnetic fields, boosting communication range without active amplification. The result is a 5-gram ring that can transmit data using minimal energy.

"Although it’s just a prototype, picoRing could have several useful impacts on the way people interact with technology," said Takahashi. He added that beyond controlling AR glasses, the device could pave the way for longer-lasting wearables or serve as a base for health sensors.

Still, picoRing isn’t perfect. "It’s still relatively bulky for a ring, suffers from some interference and can only transfer quite simple information. Scrolling and pressing are OK, but complex hand gestures aren’t possible yet," Takahashi said.