Who you are can't be measured: the story behind the YRH® Smart Ring Jacket

So today we're finally launching something I've been working on for over a year now: the YRH® Smart Ring Jacket. It's basically a solid 925 silver jacket that slides over your smart ring, so it looks like an actual piece of jewelry and not like a device. It fits the Oura Ring (Gen 3, Gen 4, Ceramic and Gen 5) and the RingConn (Gen 2 and Gen 3). The sensors stay exposed on the inside, so your ring still tracks everything exactly like before. You just get to decide how it looks.

And honestly, this isn't just a new product or another collection for us. It's a whole new category of jewelry. Jewelry made for the tech you already wear.

Here's the story of why I made it, and why it almost didn't happen.

Why I kept taking my Oura Ring off

I've had an Oura Ring for a while now. I started with the Gen 4, and now I'm wearing the Gen 5. And to be honest, I took it off all the time.

Not because of what it does. I actually really liked that part. The sleep tracking, the recovery and all of that. That was never the problem. The problem was that every morning I'd put on my jewelry, you know, the silver pieces we make here at yoreh, and then there was this shiny tech ring sitting right in the middle of them. It just looked like a gadget.

Everything else I wear means something to me. The silver, the clothes, the way it all comes together. That's how I express who I am, I guess. And this tech ring just didn't fit into any of it. So I'd take it off for dinners and stuff like that, which, I mean, kind of defeats the whole point of a ring you're supposed to wear 24/7.

The idea: a silver cover for your smart ring

So I started playing around with the idea of making some kind of a cover for it. Something that just slides over the ring, so it doesn't look like tech anymore. Just a ring. Your ring.

I had that idea in my head for a long time, and about a year ago I finally decided to actually do it. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into...

Why a smart ring jacket is so hard to make

On paper it sounds pretty simple, right? A silver jacket that goes over your smart ring. But the fit has to be perfect. So just for you to understand, if it's too tight, your smart ring will get stuck inside. But if it's too loose, it'll twist around on your finger or could even fall off. And there's almost no room in between.

We make all of our jewelry with lost-wax casting. So basically the design gets turned into a wax model, the wax goes into plaster and gets burned out, and then molten silver gets poured into the space the wax left behind. It's a really old process and I love it, but the thing is, stuff shrinks along the way. The mold shrinks a bit, the wax shrinks a bit, and then the silver shrinks again when it cools down. We're talking fractions of a millimeter here. On a normal ring nobody would ever notice. But on a jacket that has to sit perfectly on a smart ring, that's literally the difference between it working and not working at all.

The first design we made was the 01, our most minimal one. I wanted to start with the simplest shape possible, so the only thing we really had to figure out was the fit.

The first sample was close. The second one was close too. But by the third and fourth one, I started to see the real problem. Every time we fixed one thing, something else came back. We'd get it tight enough so it wouldn't twist anymore, but then it was a pain to get on. Then we'd make it a bit easier to slide on, and suddenly it would spin around or slip off again.

I remember holding that fourth sample and thinking, ok, maybe this just isn't possible. Maybe you just can't get silver this precise. Maybe this should just stay an idea.

I honestly almost gave up.

But I couldn't stop thinking about it. So we went back. Adjusted the models, changed the measurements, cast it again, tested it again. And again. In the end it took 11 samples until it finally sat the way I'd imagined it from day one. Snug. No twisting, no slipping. It just stays where it is.

And I know 11 samples might not sound like a lot. But every single one of them meant weeks of waiting. New measurements, a new wax model, a new mold, casting, polishing, and then finally trying it on, just to find the next little thing that wasn't quite right. And then you start all over again. Months of that, over and over, all for fractions of a millimeter.

Fitted to every Oura and RingConn model, in every size

And then there are the smart rings themselves. Oura Gen 3, Gen 4, Ceramic and Gen 5. RingConn Gen 2 and Gen 3. Every model is a little bit different in shape, width and thickness, and they all come in a whole range of sizes. Just to give you an idea, the new Oura Ring 5 is about 6mm wide, which is almost 2mm narrower than the Oura Ring 4.

So we had to buy each model and size of the actual tech rings, so we could fit every single design to every single one of them. Not from some size chart, but on the real thing.

So when you order, you just pick your smart ring's model and size, and your jacket gets made to fit that exact ring.

Does a ring jacket affect your Oura's sensors?

This was the big one for me. Before we sold a single jacket, I wore one myself for months. I wanted to make sure the sensors still worked properly, that it still synced with the app like normal, and that nothing changed in my data.

And nothing did. The sensors on a smart ring sit on the inside, against your skin, and the jacket only covers the outside. So it doesn't change how your ring works at all. It only changes how it looks.

I'll be honest though, it does add a little bit of thickness. You'll notice it the first day, and after that you kind of forget it's even there.

These days I'm wearing the 04. Bones wrapped around the ring with a skull in the center. It's the one I never take off.

How Reddit shaped the designs

Earlier in the year I posted a few photos on Reddit, mostly just to see if anyone else had the same problem. I asked people what they thought about the designs and in what direction they'd want them to go, just to get some feedback.

And honestly, I was so stoked about the response. It was way bigger than I ever expected. Literally hundreds of people commented. People asking where they could get one, people telling me exactly what they'd want next, people sharing what they'd wear and what they wouldn't.

That helped me so much. First of all, it showed me there's real demand for this, and that it wasn't just me with this problem. But it also helped a lot on the design side. Seeing what people actually wanted, what styles, what shapes, what they'd love to wear every day. A lot of the designs you see now were shaped by those conversations.

At the same time, I always tried to stay true to who we are. I really value all the feedback, but yoreh has its own look and its own way of doing things, and I didn't want to lose that just to please everyone. So it was kind of a balance between listening to people and still making something that feels 100% like us.

So if you were one of those people commenting, thank you. You're part of this.

What it's really about

Look, I think tracking your sleep, your heart rate, your recovery and all of that is great. But the moment that device starts deciding how you look, how you dress, how you show up.. then something's off. The data should work for you. It shouldn't change who you are.

Your ring can measure a lot of things. But it can't measure who you are.

And that's really what this whole thing is about.

The campaign

And it's not just our jewelry that's handcrafted. Most of our content is too. For this launch we shot our campaign on 16mm film in Budapest, with real people in real places. No studio tricks, no perfect setups. Just a small crew, a couple of film cameras and a lot of early mornings. It felt right to make the images the same way we make the jewelry, slowly and by hand. I'll tell you more about that shoot in a separate post soon.

One last thing

This one means a lot to me. It started as a fix for my own problem, something I honestly just wanted for myself, and it turned into the hardest and most rewarding thing we've made so far. There were moments I really didn't think it would happen. So seeing it out in the world now feels kind of surreal.

To everyone who commented on those Reddit posts, sent me messages, waited for the right size, or just believed in this before it was even real.. thank you. This exists because of you.

If you want to have a look, you can see all 8 designs here. And if you end up wearing one, I'd honestly love to see it.

Whole lotta love,
Fin