Way back before GAMbIT was even a twinkle in my eye, I was writing for another online publication when the people at AAUXX came to my attention. It was January 2014 and we were attending our first CES show in Las Vegas when we came across a tiny little booth from a company that was trying to get noticed. We stayed and talked with the two man team that were at the show and got to see the iRing in action. The iRing was a sweet little ring that stuck to the rear of your smartphone or tablet with some incredibly strong adhesive. Just as the name suggests the iRing is in the shape of a ring, that means you can slide a finger through the loop to have a great hold on your phone. It also rotates on a semi-stiff hing so you can use the iRing as a kickstand without the need of a big bulky case. The iRing has saved my phone from what otherwise would have been some nasty falls that would have put my smartphone out of commission for good.
Those two features would be enough to recommend the iRing, but it wasn’t done with its neat tricks. Alongside the iRing came a tiny hook mount that you can stick to anything you want. It’s not far off saying this thing is so small people probably won’t notice wherever you place it. I can’t count the number of times that I jumped in my car with someone, tossed my phone onto the iRing clip, and proceed to explain to my passenger that it wasn’t being held up by voodoo magic. It was a neat product that and I constantly has friends and colleges asking where they could get one. Flash-forward to a year later and now we were once again at CES, this time representing GAMbIT Magazine, and we once again bumped into our friends at AAUXX.
The same guys were in the booth, but this time had a larger space with a few more helpers. Before we got to talking about what the team was unveiling at the show, we got into the original iRing that they gave us the year prior. Even after all that time, and over the course of two phones with several cases, that original iRing was still plugging away with only minor cosmetic damage. How often does a small piece of kit manage to last that long, especially when this kind of stuff falls apart in a matter of months, at best. Perhaps even the people at AAUXX didn’t know, or even expect to see an iRing in the wild working after so long.
Today AAUXX is back again, but this time with something new to the iRing family. The iRing Dock takes what made their portable hook such a cool little thing and cranks it up to eleven. The iRing Dock is a cone-shaped stand, with a flat top that has a slit built into it. This allows you to slide the iRing into the unit to create a really impressive stand that now fits anywhere. While you can still add this little guy to you car, I think it’s more tailored to set someplace on or around your desk. So often I would just toss my phone on my desk, or stick it to some large gaudy clip (I’ve been through 3 in the last year), but the iRing Dock changes all that. I have the iRing Dock mounted to the side of my computer tower which allows me to have my phone plugged into my PC, but now I can use my phone as a sort of second screen for getting work done. No longer do I have to search for my phone, or wonder who text or emailed me, as the iRing Dock makes everything a breeze.
Better still is that the iRing Dock comes in a package that includes a standalone iRing as well. For me this was great, as a year and a half after I picked up my first iRing it was time for a fresh one. Don’t get wrong, I didn’t toss my old iRing out as it was still fully functional, I only moved it over to my tablet so I could have even more screens pointed at me on my desk. It sometimes feels like I work at a desk that is quickly turning into the bridge of the starship Enterprise. The iRing Dock is pretty cool, but just like the iRing it comes with a surprise that sets it apart from other such devices. The dock is designed like a cone for stability, but the design also lets you rotate the unit 360 degrees. This allows you to adjust your phone into a multitude of positions. I can easily go from a vertical position when peaking at incoming emails and messages and quickly rotate it to a horizontal position when the need arises.
Covering a lot of tech products you often get used to seeing cool things, but you also see a lot of cool things that end up in the junk drawer faster that you would have liked. Both the iRing and the iRing Dock are not only cool, but practical, and I fully expect that a year from now I’ll once again bump into the people at AAUXX to see what new tricks they have up their sleeves still using both. I can’t recommend the iRing and Dock bundle highly enough as it’s the best clip and stand that is currently on the market.
The iRing Dock releases sometime later this year in the states, but you can head over to the iRing website (here) to purchase an individual iRing and to keep up to date on the Dock release date.
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