The wearable technology landscape has recently witnessed a proliferation of innovative solutions, with multiple companies already introducing smart rings that have redefined the genre. Despite being the first major player to venture into this space, Samsung’s dominance in the industry makes its foray into this new market particularly significant. Samsung’s Galaxy Ring was initially hinted at during Mobile World Congress 2024 in February, but it wasn’t until a further three-and-a-half months later that the product officially made its debut.

The Galaxy Ring officially debuted on July 10, expanding into numerous international markets and featuring a range of US sizes from 5 to 13. The unique size options also feature one of three distinct battery capacities – larger variants benefiting from their increased surface area to deliver extended runtimes. We thoroughly tested a Dimension 11 laptop in black, allowing it to operate extensively long enough for the Galaxy AI features to fully engage, and these are our findings.

Unboxing and operation

With every Galaxy Ring purchase, you’ll receive a complimentary sizing tool. Samsung provides you with an array of interchangeable plastic fashion options in various sizes, recommending that you wear them for at least 24 hours to ensure optimal comfort before selecting your preferred fit.

The assessment unit measured approximately 11 millimeters in length and weighed a mere 2.9 grams with the 18 milliampere-hour battery included. While remarkably lightweight, this ring’s presence becomes almost imperceptible, yet its size ensures you remain aware of it when using the affected hand.

While its lightweight design may not mimic the feel of an everyday ring, this unobtrusiveness proves advantageous when considering its role as a wellness tracker catering to a broader audience.

The distinctive concave design makes for an undeniable visual appeal, with a subtle indicator from Samsung ensuring the correct orientation of the device’s facets. The device features three core sensors: an optical biosensor that tracks cardiac activity, a skin temperature sensor that monitors sleep patterns, and an accelerometer that records physical movement.

The Galaxy Ring does not vibrate, transmit, or illuminate except for its HR sensor. Although the sensors emit a gentle glow during readings, their placement between the ring and your finger makes it improbable that you’ll notice them.

While Samsung may have touted the Galaxy Ring as a feature exclusive to their own smartphones, the truth is that this wearable device pairs effortlessly with any Android phone, leveraging Samsung’s Wearable and Health apps for a seamless user experience. Upon reviewing the phone with Honor’s technology, one feature that eluded us was the gesture control functionality, specifically the ability to silence alarms or utilize the device as a remote shutter release using gestures alone. Notwithstanding our crucial assessment, we conducted it using a Galaxy phone within the Samsung ecosystem.

Well being monitoring

The Wearable app facilitates setup, updates, and battery management, while the Health app provides daily recommendations. Galaxy AI flexes its technological prowess by harnessing biometric expertise to provide actionable intelligence for your benefit.

The most striking feature is arguably the vitality rating, which is designed to accurately reflect your current physical and mental well-being. Factors such as high-quality sleep, cardiovascular health, and exercise levels are all taken into consideration to determine this score.

After a week of consistent physical activity, the AI started discerning patterns, identifying exceptional workout days and proposing possible underlying factors contributing to restless evenings. The system was remarkable in its ability to identify and address concerns such as excessive drinking or external disruptions with impressive precision.

The Galaxy Ring’s subtle presence enables seamless sleep monitoring capabilities. Compared to larger timepieces, the Ring’s compact design makes it significantly easier to wear in the evening, increasing the likelihood that many people will opt for it as an evening accessory.

Samsung Health provides remarkably accurate sleep tracking and leverages these findings to offer valuable sleep insights. We precisely identified key areas that require enhancement.

There’s a tried approach to gamify this process more effectively – with each rating varying correspondingly to an animal, which motivates users to strive for the next level or class. The smart ring can even detect and track loud nocturnal respiratory sounds, leveraging the phone’s built-in microphone to monitor your sleep quality and discreetly notify you of any significant changes or disturbances.

What’s the most iconic power in the Galaxy Ring’s arsenal? Mastering phone control with mere pinches, effortlessly navigating calls and messages with precision and ease. This innovative device allows for seamless functionality in two key areas: serving as a remote shutter release, thereby enabling hands-free photography; and providing a convenient means of silencing alarms without the need for physically interacting with one’s phone. Currently, it exclusively functions on phones running One UI 6.1.1; Samsung advises wearing the ring on the index finger to ensure precise gesture recognition.

With its robust 10ATM water resistance and IP68 rating, the Galaxy Ring is unafraid to face moisture head-on. Worn on your finger, the device will naturally become moist with each arm wash, yet reassuringly, this moisture has no impact on its performance whatsoever.

Although the titanium is robust in nature, it still accumulated a few faint scratches following our use of it for barbell exercises. While a strength test wasn’t explicitly stated, our decision to refrain from wearing rings at the gym serves as an implicit demonstration of durability. While we expect the Ring’s durability, it should withstand regular wear well beyond a year or two, with any signs of aging potentially delayed due to its titanium construction and resistance to scratches from casual contact with harder materials in daily use.

Samsung boasts seamless automated exercise detection capabilities in its health monitoring features. The device quickly and accurately detects movement, but its overall operational proficiency is unimpressive. Without GPS, reliance solely on the accelerometer results in significantly reduced accuracy for estimating velocity and distance, rendering the data largely unreliable.

In direct comparison to a Huawei Watch and the Strava app on a Samsung Galaxy phone, the Garmin ring consistently yielded the most unreliable data statistics. The device struggled to differentiate between walking and jogging, making it unsuitable for anyone engaging in these activities, let alone other sports requiring precise tracking.

Lastly, let’s discuss battery life. Samsung asserts the Galaxy Ring’s battery life can sustain up to six days on a single charge, yet our testing revealed a more modest result of around five days. The smart ring’s charge time is under 60 minutes, and its accompanying case enables wireless recharging, capable of replenishing the Ring’s power two times before requiring a refill.

According to Samsung, pairing the Galaxy Watch with the Ring can yield up to 30% extended battery life as the watch’s larger battery handles some measurement tasks. While many people struggle to track their sleep levels, there’s a simple solution if you’re eager to gain insight into your sleep patterns – but only if you’re willing to compromise on wearing a wearable device while asleep.

Verdict

Samsung’s Galaxy Ring aspires to pioneer the health tracking industry, introducing an innovative product category. While numerous excellent ring options exist, Samsung’s extensive distribution network and substantial marketing budget virtually ensure its ability to surpass competitors that entered the market beforehand. Although that may seem like the limit of the corporation’s aspirations, it is in fact just a starting point.

To convince numerous individuals that The Galaxy Ring is an essential addition to their daily lives. Has this individual got the drive to succeed?

While it seems half-baked, the device genuinely provides an enhanced sleeping experience, rendering it an even more effective sleep tracker in our opinion. The AI-powered strategies and user-friendly app interface suggest that tech enthusiasts will certainly place it near the top of their consideration list.

While battery life is a concern, the Galaxy Ring’s edge over the Galaxy Watch series lies in its marginally longer endurance. While a unified open-source operating system could ultimately prevail, the lack of standardization among proprietary OS developers from various manufacturers hinders its widespread adoption, thereby preventing it from reaching a promotion milestone just yet.

The main obstacle hindering widespread acceptance remains the pricing model. The Samsung Galaxy Ring retails for $399, £399 or €449, a substantial investment considering its limitations compared to the more versatile Galaxy Watch 7.

Despite the assurance that the Well being app won’t demand a paid subscription, a minimalist smart band without visual feedback becomes challenging to justify at this price point, especially when compared to a feature-rich WearOS watch.

While we might be misjudging the significance, jewelry is often an irrational indulgence, and the Galaxy Ring excels at adorning your finger in style. Monitoring’s subtle reward is an added bonus.