Hey all! It's Axel here, also known as the magnet guy. But magnets are not the only things to get under my skin; Today I'm taking you on a nostalgia trip with a very special prototype...

To answer your question right away: It isn't being made anymore. It was shortly manufactured by Dangerous Things before being discontinued due to repeated failures. This... is a FlexNeXT, a flexible 4.2cm disk containing both (HF) NFC and (LF) RFID chips, as well as not two... but three LEDs.

But the specific one I'm covering today was, in fact, my second one of these in the same spot. But contrary to the first one (which failed within a few months) this one was different. Experimental, one could say.

The big glowy doughnut

For my second FlexNeXT I wanted something different, something that would last even if the electronics died (they did after a few months), and so I asked for something that hadn't been done up to that point: to add glow-in-the-dark powder to the resin that coats the tags inside the flexible polymer. In addition to that the RFID chip and antenna were replaced with a hole in the middle to allow the tissue to reconnect in the middle and hold it firmly in place.

Needless to say, it's a big one. With it being thicker than a standard one, it was definitely noticeable.

As expected after a few months, I lost the NFC tag and then progressively the LEDs. But the glow was doing great, and I was in love with it. Without even needing to charge it with a flashlight, I could see it all night like a lorious green doughnut in the dark.
And when I did charge it with a flashlight well...

It was great, but it's out now

I have so many cool memories with my glownut, but the one I cherish the most and tell every time is that night I went swimming in the Caribbean and found myself glowing amongst waves of bioluminescent plankton. It is something I will never forget.

Sadly, the largest (and first?) ever glowing flex implant is now resting in peace. After a year or so with it, I decided that it was time to move on. While the glow was great, I had lost all the electronics, and by then, new and better things were coming out. And so, I swapped it for an Apex Mega Spectrum, another short-lived (although much more reliable) flex implant that combines an Apex chip with a cycling RGB LED! And in a much, much more reasonable size of (only?) 2cm.

A fun fact is, when I removed it, I still had a slightly more tanned circle where the glow powder was, probably due to the extra light making it back and forth through the skin.

If you're wondering about the installation process, how it felt, or see more pictures the head over to the entire adventure, including the first one or check out the entire collection of night shots.

Now I glow again, but without a huge chunk under my skin!

Thanks to Abyss Walker selling the first-ever biosafe glow powder, I was able to get a glow ring on my middle finger and finally be glowing again! And this time, no implant, it's just powder in a scar.. but for that, check out our other post:
The Amateur Surgeon's Guide to Slicing and Dicing: An Overview of Various Methods for Making Your Skin Glow

But also make sure to check out this blog post from one of our core team members here at Abyss, Merlin:
Glow Powder Cuttings!

Bye!