i like a good green on black personally.

This is documented elsewhere quite extensively(and Amal has some of our prototype and production inlays) but it's NTAG 203.

We don't use any propriatory tech at all, it's all open source goodness :)

I just tried the alpha and normal ring on the note 2.
Both work well, but the alpha works a little better. I.e you don't have to hunt for the sweetspot as much.

posting her first so I can post a link in the topic I really want to start ... grmbl

Well, it looks like iOS7 changed the way the interface for the iCarte behaves and I can't get it to read any ntag203 at the moment. Being bored I decided to pull it apart to show how the sweet spots correspond to the antenna and how different things can be. The Alpha ring starts a read at the white cross and circle and the Normal ring starts a read at the red bullseye.
If you look at the green circuit board, there are two antennas. One circles the very outside of the board and the other is slightly further in from that. Interestingly the iCarte contains two seperate oscillating circuits at 13.560MHz with one connected to each antenna.

I've been having a play around with a Z10 today.

Some thoughts

With a normal ring it has to be millimeter perfect a little bit more forgiving with an Alpha.
Only one sweetspot
Only reads website links, it fails to read the side with my unlock data
It switches to landscape view far too easily.

I will try and get a pic up later of the sweetspot location.

That's a bit of a pain. Well, give support a yell and let them know it's quit on you again mate.

I struggle on my note 2 to get a lock sometimes. It has been mentioned on other post that rolling the ring can help.
More often or not it feels that the sweet spot can move sometimes. Crazy sounding I know.
I found the best place to get a read is in the top corner of the NFC reader on the back of the phone.

It's gonna be on a case by case basis (pardon the pun) until John can convince a manufacturer to release cases with sweet spot holes. Pretty much see how your phone acts with the ring.
If you need to be touching the phone directly in order to use the ring then try a skin style stick on cover, if you've got a reasonable amount of distance then you should be right with a non-metal case. It'll be up to you to see if you can test in store (it's very possible, some places are helpful like that) and maybe wow them with the reason why you need to test.
Bear in mind that a normal tag behaves very differently to the rings, you might be best to either hold off for the moment or buy a cheap thin case.

Yeah! go. me. I'm always the guinea pig. Sometimes I even volunteer. I'll report back with results.

@imscuba

hey lokki, i figured since you are a forum admin you might be involved with the whole project and might be able to answer my question rather than email the support email. i just saw the update that mentions faulty rings. how are we supposed to know if our ring is faulty? when i get my ring to work it seems like the read area is less than the size of the sweet spot sticker, so im not sure if thats as intended and the gs3 just doesnt like it or if it might be the ring. if you aren't involved in the whole project and just simply manage the forums i can send an email in or create a thread in the appropriate place.

Hi mate, I'm just a fan and persisted my way into a moderator position. Tom, John and Chris are the droids you're looking for if you need to throw praise, money or lukewarm custard. Tom's answer is the one to pay heed to though, the GS3 and GS4 seem to have rather small sweet spots that are really picky at times (and mileage between phones really varies a lot) but if they work at all then the ring is fine. :-)

It does take a little while to get used to but do persist and eventually you will be an unlock-ninja too :)

The rings aren't really 'bad performers', it's more that there's a change in expectations of what you can and can't do.
It's all to do with antenna matching, and having an antenna inside a metal ring.
It makes it both more secure and slightly difficult to read (hence more secure).
Sometimes with the rings you need to try different orientations, like horizontal ring to portrait phone or vertical ring to portrait phone.
Just take your time and slowly scan the phone, when you do find a trigger point, even if it makes a read fail sound, try more around there or try a rolling read in both orientations.

It's quite different to using a 'standard' tag.

I tried, but it felt like the sticker made it even harder for my nexus to recognize the ring :(
But after all it's my first day with this New little Friend so i'll try for a couple more days and See how it goes :)

That's great to hear! Would a change to a normal with different inlay also be possible? Im only 1,67m tall so I guess my hands aren't so big either :)
I got black/black inlays so i figured it's quite hard to know which side is private and which is public.. (Made a thread in General for that)

Also I'll get a New phone soon so hopefully ring recognition won't be a Problem anymore with a New phone.. :)
(Still using a Galaxy S for now..)

Thanks a lot for your fast reply!

You might happen to have a recommendation for a New phone wich recognizes the ring well? Would make choosing a phone much easier! ;)

I'm still waiting for a shipping email or for the ring itself lol but I'll post my info as soon as I can!

sounds more like a problem with the phone/os/nfc reader as with the ring. Try one of the additional inlays, those should be "empty" (no data on it).

I'm interested in hearing how you mod the zerolemon, I have a stock SGS3 battery but it works pretty terribad with the ring and nonexistant with my current case. Want to upgrade to the zerolemon if it works any better.