Bandai’s Tamagotchi ring virtual pet is now a thing you can wear on your finger: a 28mm device housing a 14.2mm colour LCD screen, touch controls, and 30 characters drawn from three decades of the franchise. That is, if your fingers are a size 10 or 14, and if not, a spacer is included to improve the fit, according to the Tamagotchi Wiki.
Announced by Bandai on 27 August 2026, the device marks the franchise’s 30th anniversary and arrives as the 39th Tamagotchi ever released. The original Tamagotchi launched in 1996, and this ring is roughly half the size of that founding egg-shaped unit. It also carries the smallest LCD screen the series has ever featured.
Tiny Screen, Surprisingly Complete Tech
For something worn on a finger, the engineering is quietly impressive. Timeout Tokyo reports that the screen measures 14.2mm and that the entire device is built from just 64 components. That is a significant constraint to design within, yet Bandai managed to fit in a colour display rather than the monochrome affairs most of us remember squinting at in the 1990s. Hypebeast notes the ring also features touch controls alongside that colour display, giving wearers a streamlined way to tend to whichever creature they have chosen.
And the choice of creature is no small thing here. All 30 characters available across the three ring versions come from different points in Tamagotchi’s 30-year history, so collectors who lived through multiple eras of the franchise will find plenty to argue over. The three colourways are black and silver, blue and gold, and pink and pearl.
Ordering the Tamagotchi Ring Virtual Pet From Outside Japan
Bandai is releasing the Tamagotchi ring primarily in Japan, with the Japanese retail price set at ¥7,700, which the original report puts at approximately £35/$48. Those outside Japan can order through Meccha Japan, which had the rings in stock at the time of writing, though their listed price of £60.03 reflects the additional fees that third-party international retailers need to account for.
Pre-orders opened on 27 August 2026, and if you missed the first window, a second pre-order wave opened on 29 August 2026. According to Toy People, that second wave carries an estimated shipping date of April 2027, so there is some patience required whichever route you take.
There have been 38 Tamagotchi devices before this one, which means the franchise has managed to find new angles on the same premise across nearly three decades. A watch version, a colour screen handheld, a tiny nano edition, and now a ring. The step of mounting the virtual pet onto jewellery does feel like something the brand should have tried sooner, although miniaturising the hardware to this degree presumably explains the wait.
The 64-component count is worth pausing on. The original 1996 device was already considered a marvel of low-cost miniaturisation for its time, fitting a Z80-adjacent processor and LCD into a plastic egg small enough to dangle from a keychain. Squeezing equivalent or greater functionality into a ring, with a colour screen and touch interface, represents a fair jump in engineering density even if the components themselves are much smaller by contemporary manufacturing standards.
With the second pre-order wave now open and shipping pencilled in for April 2027, anyone who grew up on Tamagotchi has a reasonable window to decide whether their fingers need a virtual dependent.
