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Louise Thomas
Editor
Tech giant Samsung is about to release its first-ever smart ring.
The Galaxy Ring will be available to buy on July 24, and might well introduce a whole heap of people to the concept of smart rings, even though it’s actually very much an established device category.
Still, though, just because something has existed for a while, that doesn’t mean everyone’s heard of it, and if smart rings are new to you then you’re probably curious just what they actually do, and how they work. If you want to know more, you’re in the right place.
What are smart rings?
Smart rings are one of the more straightforwardly-named bits of tech out there right now, in that they’re literally rings that you can wear on your finger and thumb that are packed with techy smarts.
This means that while the outside might look relatively nondescript or subtle, the inside of the ring is lined with sensors that can cleverly track a range of metrics – with the biggest being your heart rate, but others including things like how much you’re sleeping, exercising and more.
They’re battery-powered, and generally charge on a sort of dock, and most of the popular models out there last for at least a few days on a charge, meaning you can wear them 24/7.
How do they work?
Each smart ring is different, but in the case of the most well-known out there, the Oura Ring, they’re deceptively simple.
That inner layer of a smart ring is the key to it all, housing sensors that can gather data about your body. If you look at the wrist side of an Apple Watch, for example, you’ll see a gathering of LEDs and sensors that can detect details about you through your skin. Smart rings basically have similar sensors, but they’re cleverly redesigned to fit into a ring shape (which is part of why they’re not exactly cheap bits of tech at the moment).
When you consider that the rings also have to fit batteries to last days at a time into them, you’ll start to appreciate just how impressive the engineering that has gone into them really is.
The final piece of the puzzle is Bluetooth – smart rings generally use this wireless technology to connect to your smartphone and sync the data they’ve gathered to a companion app so that you can review it all.
What are the best smart rings?
People are waiting with baited breath for the July 24 release of Samsung’s smart ring – it’ll come in three colours (black, silver and gold) and retails at £399.
When it launches, you can expect a wave of reviews from expert testers to come out to give an idea of how it’s performed – and whether it lives up to the promise of up to seven days battery life. However, the fact it will only work with Samsung phones is likely to be quite a big limit on how well it’ll do.
Until it’s out, and possibly after that point, too, the reigning monarch of the smart ring market is still Oura (which should work with either an iPhone or Android). The Oura Ring is the most popular smart ring for good reason, with loads of tracking options and features.
Its third-generation model, the most recently released, can even work out when you’re under the weather and let you know, so it’s a superb everyday asset. Prices for the ring start at £299, but it has a membership plan to pay for access to all its features (£5.99 a month or £69.99 for the year), which might not suit everyone.
Why should I get a smart ring?
Like many bits of tech, it’s entirely possible that you’re looking at smart rings and wondering why you’d ever want one. For some of us, all those stats and metrics might not actually be interesting, and just end up as pointless distractions.
Still, for many others, it’s compelling to know that you could get activity tracking, heart rate data and much, much more without having to wear anything bulky on your wrist like a smartwatch or fitness tracker.
The lightweight nature of a smart ring makes it about as unobtrusive as any wearable out there right now, and the fact that you can wear it for entire days without needing to take it off for any reason means it’s super adaptable, too. So, if you’re keen to know more about your fitness levels and activity without strapping on a smartwatch, a smart ring might just be perfect for you.
