Samsung may have launched three new smartwatches this year, but the wearable I’ve been most excited for from the company is the Galaxy Ring. After months of teasing, Samsung officially announced the $399.99 smart ring at today’s Unpacked event — and I finally got to play with it. Granted, I’ve only had the Galaxy Ring for a short time, but I like what I’ve seen so far.
The Galaxy Ring’s hardware is nice right out of the box, though the overall design isn’t all that different from other smart rings (I know, because I wore four other smart rings during my hands-on). It comes in three colors: gold, silver, and black. They all have titanium frames and look attractive, though like a magpie, I favored the gold as it had the shiniest finish. I can’t speak to durability yet, but it has a 10ATM water resistance and an IP68 rating.
With a width of 7mm and a thickness of 2.6mm, it is felt It’s slimmer when worn next to my Oura Ring, though that may be because the ring itself is slightly concave. It’s also lightweight, though not noticeably so compared to other smart rings. It weighs between 2.3 and 3 grams, depending on the size. Speaking of sizes, there are nine in total, ranging from size five to 13.
But while the Galaxy Ring didn’t stand out among the other smart rings on my finger, the charging case is. Samsung isn’t the first to put a smart ring in a charging case, but the ones I’ve seen don’t have this futuristic transparent design and LED situation. Not only does it look fancy, it’s pretty practical, too. Some other smart rings, like the Oura Ring and Ultrahuman Ring Air, come with easy-to-lose, puck-shaped docks. A case like this is much easier to throw in your bag if you run out of power while on the go. (It’s also more resistant to mischievous cats who like to swipe things off your nightstand.) The case itself holds 1.5 times as much charge, and the rings get six to seven days of battery life. A full charge takes about 80 minutes.
I also got to try out Samsung’s sizing kit, which I highly recommend even if you know your standard ring size. You can order the kit online and it’s worth the extra effort since size really matters with smart rings. Fingers can swell in warmer weather, and no two fingers are exactly the same size. For example, I’m usually a size 7.5 for non-smart rings, a size 8 for every other smart ring, and a size 9 for the Galaxy Ring. And that’s without even mentioning the size that affects battery life. The smaller rings (sizes 5 through 11) last six days on a single charge, while the two largest last seven.
Samsung is also largely sticking to the tried and trusted in terms of technology. Like the Oura Ring and the vast majority of currently available smart rings, this is primarily intended as an alternative, more discreet health tracker. If you were hoping for something that could send notifications or have silent alarms like previous smart rings — then you’re out of luck. There are no vibration motors, LED lights or anything like that. As for sensors, you get an accelerometer, optical heart rate sensor (including green, red and infrared LEDs), and a skin temperature sensor. Broadly speaking, you’ll be able to track sleep, heart rate data, and activity, though Samsung is throwing some new Galaxy AI-powered metrics into the mix.
These include new Energy Score and Wellness Tips features. The former uses Galaxy AI to determine how you’re feeling based on your sleep, activity, heart rate while sleeping, and heart rate variability while sleeping. It’s similar to the various readiness metrics that other health trackers have started to include in recent years. Meanwhile, the latter delivers personalized insights into your well-being based on your data, again very reminiscent of what the Oura Ring and other competitors offer. Other health features include cycle tracking, high and low heart rate alerts, live heart rate readings, automatic workout detection, and inactivity alerts.
Like other smart rings, the Galaxy Ring places a heavy emphasis on sleep. Users are given a Sleep Score that takes into account metrics like movement during sleep, sleep latency, and heart and breathing rates. But while smart rings are great for tracking sleep, the Galaxy Ring will not get the new FDA-cleared sleep apnea detection feature, and also no irregular heart rhythm notifications. Those are limited to the Galaxy Watches.
Since this was a hands-on, I couldn’t really test the Galaxy Ring’s software, tracking accuracy, or battery life. That said, Samsung has some interesting ideas for how smart rings should work within its own gadget ecosystem.
Sorry, iOS users, but Samsung spokesperson Cole Hagedorn told The edge Note: This ring is Android-only (provided your Android phone can run the Samsung Health app), but you’ll get a better experience if you’re in the Samsung ecosystem. For example, new Health AI features like Energy Score won’t be available if you have a non-Galaxy phone. The same goes for Find My Ring. It uses Samsung Find, which again requires a Galaxy phone. If you use a Samsung Galaxy Watch with the Galaxy Ring, the Samsung Health app can choose which device it pulls data from. If you’re out for a run and the signal from your watch is clearer than the ring, it’ll go with the data from the watch. That could, in turn, save battery life.
But the coolest example of this is that if you have a Samsung Galaxy phone, you can use a double-squeeze gesture to control your phone’s camera or turn off an alarm hands free. It’s essentially the same as the double-tap gesture (also known as pinchy pinch) for the Apple Watch. Is it a gimmick? Yes, and it still looked pretty cool when I tried it. Getting the gesture right takes a bit of trial and error, but I haven’t seen it on any other smart ring yet. Unfortunately, it’s limited to the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 at launch. Samsung tells me it’s also coming to the S24 “very soon.”
Based on my extremely limited time with the ring, it already has a few things going for it. The hardware is slick, and despite its $400 price tag, there’s no additional subscription fee (I’m looking at you, Oura). But the Galaxy Ring’s success hinges on two things: accurate tracking and good battery life. If it can do that while integrating these ecosystem-specific ideas, Samsung could very well take the lead in the smart ring category. And if not, it’s made an ambitious case for where smart rings should go next.
The Samsung Galaxy Ring is available for pre-order today and will be generally available from July 24.
Photography by Victoria Song / The Verge