The Amazfit Helio Ring is a wellness-tracking smart ring with no buttons, screens or physical controls to speak of. Health monitoring sensors along the inside beam directly to a paired Apple or Android device running the brand's companion app.
Unlike its nearest competitor, the well-established Oura Ring gen 3, the Amazfit Helio Ring, a first-generation product, requires no recurring subscription cost for its core features, like keeping tabs on energy levels, sleep, stress, workouts and fitness recovery.
When paired with one of the brand's flagship smartwatches, like the Amazfit Balance, you can unlock even more insights into their exercise and training.
Amazfit Helio Ring cheat sheet
- The Helio Ring is $299 through Amazfit directly but is presently only available in sizes 10 and 12.
- Built from titanium alloy, the smart ring weighs less than the Oura Ring Gen 3 but the outside scratches easily.
- Battery life should be good for around five days and the ring charges up in under two hours, making it easy to wear all day and night.
- The Helio Ring tracks a bevy of sleep, stress, workout and recovery data points and requires no subscription fee to use its core features.
Amazfit Helio Ring: price and availability
The Amazfit Helio Ring is available now for $299 through Amazfit directly. Note: As of June 2024, only sizes 10 and 12 are for sale.
In addition to the (free) companion Zepp app, the Helio Ring comes with a three-month trial of the more premium Zepp Aura app, for deeper insights into sleep data, and six months of access to the Zepp Fitness app where you can learn more about your workout data.
Amazfit Helio Ring: design
The exterior of the Helio Ring is titanium alloy, the inside is plastic. Just 2.6mm thick and weighing around 4 grams, the ring is light and, as a I found when I first put it on, quite comfortable to wear, even to bed. It's also a little lighter than the Oura Ring Gen 3.
A vertical line on the exterior indicates where the sensors are located. For optimal tracking, that line should face the inside of your finger, ideally the index, middle or ring. In dim lighting, however, it can be hard to spot said indicator.
The Amazfit Helio Ring is well-constructed and feels like it will last for the long haul. In under a week, it's survived countless bumps and knocks. It even fell out of my pocket and rolled across a marble floor with no apparent damage to speak of.
That said, it scratches a tad easy. In just under five days, I have two noticeable abrasions on it. Did I wear it while washing my car, riding my bike, doing some woodworking and cleaning out my outdoor space? Yes to all.
So, perhaps I'm just hard on rings. In the interest of full disclosure, this is the first time I've worn a ring of any kind, smart or not, in decades.
Like the Oura Ring 3, the Helio Ring has 100 meters of water resistance, which is suitable for most water-based activities outside of serious scuba diving. Design-wise, there's not much to speak of aside from a very subtle dimple pattern on the outer third of the ring meant to face your adoring public.
Amazfit Helio Ring: sleep and activity tracking
I don't ordinarily like wearing a smartwatch or fitness tracker on my wrist to bed, but I don't mind wearing the Helio Ring one bit. Better yet, it offers all the important tracking data I've come to expect from a premium health wearable, like insights into my sleep stages, overall sleep quality, breathing, REM, blood oxygen levels and resting heart rate.
The Helio Ring also offers a daily sleep score based on the above along with a readiness score for the day. This metric takes into account recent workouts and physical activity. The device additionally provides insights into stress levels and can be used to track menstrual health, too.
For activity tracking, the Helio captures calories burned, max and average heart rate, speed, duration and a few other stats. To track a workout, you'll need to head to the Zepp app where you can select from just four activities: walking, running, cycling and treadmill workouts.
There's no onboard GPS, so the Helio Ring uses your smartphone for location and elevation monitoring. Of course, if you're wearing one of the brand's fitness trackers with GPS, you can leave the phone at home.
Post-workout, the Zepp app provides an easy-to-digest report with graphs, charts and tables providing insights into basic metrics, like stride and step count — as well as those mentioned above — and more advanced ones, like aerobic and aneraboic thresholds. It also provides recommendations for workout recovery times.
Amazfit Helio Ring: battery life
So far, I'm finding that the Helio Ring uses about 20% of its battery a day. I've been wearing it most of my waking hours and all of my sleeping ones. Having charged the device fully up to 100% on a Monday evening, it was hovering around 20% on a late Friday afternoon.
The Helio Ring comes with a dock for wireless charging. You'll need a USB-C cable to connect it to a power source, which is not included. You can expect a full charge to take under two hours, which is quite convenient.
Amazfit Helio Ring: Outlook
The Amazfit Helio Ring is the first smart ring I've tested. As someone who isn't a particularly big fan of wearing rings in general, after less than a week of use, I'm nearly sold on it. It's comfortable to wear, much more so than a traditional fitness tracker or smartwatch, needs to be charged far less frequently and because of its button-free nature, there's nothing to gum up the work. Simply wear it and it tracks stuff.
Of course, with the Samsung Galaxy Ring set to launch in the next few months and a fourth-generation Oura Ring likely to follow, is Amazfit's first attempt in the space going to look like enough come September? Stay tuned for our full review.
