A growing number of brides and grooms are embracing technology for their big day.
Instead of traditional gold bands, Czech couple Jiri and Ondrej Vedral exchanged smart rings on their wedding day.
Smart rings are wearable electronic devices with functions similar to smartwatches. They typically allow the user to monitor his or her heartbeat, and make a contactless payment.
It’s a fast-growing tech sector, reported to be seeing global sales rise by 21% a year.
Jiri and Ondrej’s smart rings are, however, designed to be more romantic than most — they allow them to see and feel each other’s heartbeat.
Each ring is connected by Bluetooth to an app on the wearer’s smartphone. And via the app two rings can be linked together.
So every time Jiri presses his wedding ring, it both physically pulses with Ondrej’s heartbeat, and displays the heartbeat as a moving red line. And the same in reverse for Ondrej.
As long as their mobile phones are both connected to the internet, they get a real time heartbeat. If either is offline, they get the last recorded one.
«We were never into gold and diamonds,» says Jiri. «We wanted something different, so we liked the idea that this was something new. We feel like pioneers in this.»
The rechargeable ring, called the HB Ring, is made by Czech firm The Touch. Although the first iteration went on limited sale back in 2016, the company is now seeing an increase in global interest thanks to the wider surge in the smart ring sector.
In addition, the business has this year launched a new parallel product — The Touch Locket. To be worn on a necklace, this has the same technology as the smart rings.
Its target customers include engaged couples who might like the idea of being able to feel their loved one’s heartbeat, but don’t want to forgo having traditional wedding rings.
Jiri and Ondrej are among the many couples now increasingly using tech in their wedding celebrations. From drones for wedding photography, to digital tools to help with wedding planning tasks, such as managing the budget and seating arrangements, tech has infiltrated many important aspects of the wedding day.
