NERVA Ring build log

The waitlist has its own page

2026-10-13T12:00:00Z

There is now a page that is only the email field, at nervaring.com/waitlist. Everyone on it gets build updates from me, about once a month, starting with the next hardware milestone.

The bench prototype is working

2026-10-05T12:00:00Z

The flex PCB is assembled, wrapped inside a black ceramic housing, and powered up with its green LED lit. These are the first photographs of the ring itself rather than renders of the CAD model.

Next it goes to the University of Vermont to have its Bluetooth tested on a vector network analyzer. A ring is a hard place for an antenna, and the VNA shows how far the housing and a finger pull it off the 2.4 GHz band.

The design is settled on paper

2026-07-12T12:00:00Z

The power architecture, the skin-conductance front end, the Bluetooth module and its antenna layout are designed. The housing and the way the flex PCB wraps inside it are modeled in Fusion 360, and the resin-potting process that seals the ring is defined.

Still open at that point: the boost converter that drives the green LED, the final PCB layout, and all of the firmware.