7 Ring First Impressions

The actual hardware is of very high quality too, built from zirconia ceramic and polished to a glass-like finish, it does look the part whether you’re at a black tie event or a PJ party. Yes, the domed insides make it extremely comfortable to wear all day, even to bed. Not that you’d be making payments in your REM cycle, but having such a comfortable wearable do more than just payments would be fantastic.

As India’s first contactless payment ring, the 7 Ring sticks to the plot and does just that. And nothing else. No fitness tracking. No sleep tracking. No step count. Nothing. And that liberates it from the shackles of charging and pairing processes. It works via NFC, using power only on a need basis from the POS machine. In essence, it works like a Debit card on your finger instead of in your wallet and will be accepted anywhere that deploys a tap-to-pay transaction.

Its two-tier security includes a finely tuned map of the ring in relation to the contact point on the POS machine, so the payment can only be made if the 7 Ring is parallel to the contactless symbol on the machine. This prevents accidental or fraudulent payments if the ring and the POS machine are in close proximity to each other. Secondly, it’s disconnected from your bank account entirely. Instead, it uses a prepaid wallet, powered by RuPay, where you can recharge up to ₹10,000 as a daily spend limit (₹5000 per transaction). It’s an elegant-looking app that gives a clear report of transactions in a Passbook tab and options to auto top-up.

It doesn’t currently support online transactions, nor ATM withdrawals and in my time wearing the 7 Ring for about a month, there were multiple occasions where I was reminded of the practical limitations. Tap-to-pay not enabled at the shop or restaurant, transaction value exceeding 5K or the merchant solely relying on QR codes for UPI payments. It almost feels like a wearable that’s ahead of its time in India and hence the lack of any other functionality makes it feel limited. But when it did work, it was instantaneous and without any errors, highlighting its well-baked backend. With more vendors and merchants poised to install the PayTM sound box from 2024 onwards, the number of tap-to-pay points will increase and the acceptance of the 7 Ring will also grow exponentially.

In the meantime, the 7 Ring also makes a strong fashion statement with its smooth, glassy finish, water and dust resistance, seven sizes to fit everyone and a cool quotient that does feel like magic when it works. The only fly in the ointment here is the asking price, which is slated to come down drastically. That, along with the proliferation of more tap-to-pay POS devices means that the 7 Ring could come into its own in 2024.