This week’s Inner Circle Q&A features a conversation with Christina Mercando d’Avignon, founder and CEO of Ringly, a New York City-based company composed of designers and engineers dedicated to blending fashion and technology in meaningful ways.

Credit: Ringly

Melissa Campanelli: Tell me about your background.
Christina Mercando d’Avignon: My passion for art and technology started at an early age. I graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in both Fine Art and Human Computer Interaction. Prior to founding Ringly, I was vice president of product at Hunch, a machine-learning company that connects people to the things they love. I’ve always had a strong interest in user-centered design and its power to enrich and strengthen both online and offline experiences.                                      

MC: Why did you decide to start Ringly?
CMD: I continued to miss calls and texts from my friends and family because my phone was buried in my purse and I hated leaving it on the table every time I went out. I also disliked feeling so dependent and chained to my phone. I started to realize a lot of my friends were having the same issue, so I thought, “what if I could make my jewelry smart?” I got really excited about creating a solution to the problem while also designing something that women would get excited about wearing. We wanted to build a technology that was discreet yet stylish. Most women don’t want to wear something that screams “tech gadget.” Ringly creates simple and unobtrusive jewelry, focused equally on fashion and technology.

MC: What types of products does Ringly sell?
CMD: Ringly is a fashion-technology company that creates smart and stylish jewelry, created to help women live a more balanced and healthy lifestyle. Ringly smart rings and bracelets connect to your phone via Bluetooth and help you stay on top of your most important notifications through customized alerts. The smart accessory also acts as a fitness tracker, enabling you to effortlessly track steps traveled and monitor calories burned. In addition to setting and tracking physical activity goals, Ringly users can set daily reminders to achieve mindfulness and balance with guided audio meditation and breathing exercises. Tracking wellness and personal health plays a big role in women’s lives and further supports our belief that wearable tech can be more discreetly — and beautifully — integrated into our lives. 

Credit: Ringly

MC: I understand your products are integrated with more than 100 apps. Can you explain how that works?
CMD: Ringly allows you to get the alerts you want from the apps that are most important to you. We integrate with over 100 applications, including Uber, Gmail, Bumble, JetBlue and LinkedIn, enabling you to choose your important alerts and filter out the rest (check out our full list of supported apps here). Our users can choose which notifications they want to receive, and Ringly will notify them through vibration and subtle light patterns. For instance, when I receive a Slack message, my Ringly will flash blue and vibrate twice.

MC: In May, Ringly unveiled a new collection of smart bracelets at 200 Target stores nationwide and online. Please tell us about the bracelets?
CMD: Appropriately titled Ringly GO, the new smart bracelets are complete with an entirely new look and lower price point. Priced at $125, the new smart bracelet collection offers a 14k gold plating or a polished stainless-steel finish as well as completely unique stones (in both color and pattern). We debuted the bracelets in two different styles — black and blush-nude — but the full-grain Italian leather straps are interchangeable. What’s more, we now have additional strap options available for purchase on Ringly.com.

Credit: Ringly

Aside from Target and Ringly.com, beginning June 30, Ringly GO became available for purchase on Nordstrom’s website as well as at eight store locations through August 13 as part of Pop-in@Nodrstrom: GETS WIRED.

When we launched Ringly GO, we also introduced mindfulness exercises and content to our app, which means that now in addition to setting and tracking physical activity goals, Ringly users can set daily reminders to achieve mindfulness and balance with guided audio meditation and breathing exercises. Of course, users can still customize mobile alerts with all rings and bracelets.

MC: Why launch a line like this? Do you see the bracelets being used in addition to Fitbits or smart watches, or in place of?
CMD: Watches aren’t for everyone. Consumers, especially women, care about fashion and expression. We’re not looking to do everything your phone can already do. We want to create simple products that do what your phone can’t do.

There are a lot of wearable products on the market today, but they lack the aesthetic quality that women are looking for when they shop for accessories. Many technology companies building wearable tech products are making products that are “unisex” or modular. We take a different approach by making the technology discreet and creating products that our customer would want to buy even if it didn’t include technology.

Credit: Ringly

We’re not a tech company that’s trying to be fashionable; we’re a fashion-first company that’s packing small and powerful technology into beautiful jewelry. Ringly isn’t trying to replace your phone. Rather, we want to integrate technology to make your life easier.

MC: What’s next for Ringly? What are your goals for 2018?
CMD: We want to continue to grow Ringly into the leading smart jewelry brand for women, creating beautiful pieces to be distributed through our website and retail partners, as well as in collaboration with other designers.