If you ever watched Twin Peaks and thought it might be nice to have a portable recorder you could speak all your idle thoughts into, good news: Sandbar is working on a smart ring that doubles as a voice recorder with its very own AI assistant.
It’s called the Stream Ring, and Sandbar launched a pre-order page for the device this week, promising to start shipping out units in the summer of 2026. The Stream Ring starts at $249 for a matte silver version or $299 for the gold variant, and it comes with a free 3-month subscription to Sandbar’s Stream AI assistant service.
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The Stream Ring (pictured here in its charger) is rated for all-day battery life, though rival rings can go days or even weeks without charging. (Image credit: Sandbar)
That’s awfully simple, of course, and there’s a noticeable lack of a heart rate monitor, body temperature sensor or sleep tracker on the Stream Ring— features that are widely available among the best smart rings on the market.
But those fancier rings are often more expensive than the $249 Stream Ring, with the exception of the $199 Amazfit Helio Ring (our top recommendation for the best value in a smart ring). It sounds like the founders of Sandbar are less interested in competing with modern smart rings than they are with providing a hassle-free way for you to talk to an AI assistant in public.
“For some people, rather than tracking their heart rate, they want to track their thoughts,” Sandbar cofounder Mina Fahmi told Wired in a recent chat. “This is a particularly powerful tool for that.”
The Stream Ring will reportedly rely on a mix of LLM (large language models) and select the most appropriate one for a given task, with some processing done on your phone while the rest is done on the web. For example, you can ask the ring’s assitant to look up a recipe for goulash, and if it finds an online recipe you like, you then can ask it to generate a shopping list for you based on the ingredients.
That does mean that you’ll need reliable Internet access to use the ring’s full capabilities, though the Stream Ring can reportedly offer limited functionality when you’re in areas without service.
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What’s even more interesting is the fact that the Stream app will generate an “Inner Voice” by default that it will use to speak back to you during conversations. This Inner Voice is generated partly using your own voice when you set up Stream for the first time, though you can choose to pick a more generic voice if you don’t like the effect of essentially talking to yourself.
Sandbar expects to begin shipping the rings out in limited quantities next summer here in the U.S., with plans to expand to more regions in the future.
Bottom line
(Image credit: Sandbar)
I don’t expect everyone will be excited about the idea of an AI assistant built into a ring, especially given how unreliable and frustrating I’ve found most AI agents to be when you actually want them to remember things or give you accurate information.
Even so, I’m intrigued. I don’t regularly write about AI or wearables these days, but after checking out the new Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 2) smart glasses at Meta Connect recently, I have to admit there’s something appealing about the idea of being able to quietly chat with your phone while you’re out and about. However, you can also use those glasses to capture photos and record video, listen to music or podcasts and take phone calls, added functionality that helps justify their $379 cost.
What’s hard for me to swallow is that the Stream Ring won’t even be that useful when it debuts. I love the notion of being able to hold my fist to my face and quietly record notes, but I don’t know that it’s worth nearly $300 to save me from having to fish my phone out of my pocket and hold it up when I need to remember something.
Being able to control music playback and volume without having to fiddle with your phone or headphones is a nice addition to the Stream Ring, and it’s possible the ring might get more useful over time since the company intends to roll out new capabilities — though you’ll need an active Stream Pro subscription to check out the latest new features as soon as they’re available.
But who knows? I take long walks on a regular basis and sometimes have a thought or two worth remembering. Perhaps the Stream Ring and its Stream AI assistant are more helpful than I give them credit for. Maybe it could work like a decoder ring for your inner self, helping you understand what you’re thinking and worrying about and why.
There’s only one way to find out, and we’re working on getting one of these rings for review so we can tell you all about it. Stay tuned!
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