Amazfit Helio Ring pricing and US release date officially announced
Back in January at CES, Amazfit unveiled the Helio Ring, a wearable that's apparently aimed at athletes and is said to work best with an Amazfit smartwatch - that's an interesting proposition, seeing as how most people would probably look at a smart ring as a replacement for a smartwatch.
The Helio Ring is now almost ready to finally become available in the US. It will go on sale on May 15 for $299.99, and will also be offered as part of a bundle with either the Amazfit Cheetah Pro or the Amazfit T-Rex Ultra. When you get it as part of such a bundle, it only costs $149.99.
The initial inventory "carries limited sizing", mind you, but in the future more sizes will be offered. General availability in markets other than the US will also follow "soon", according to the official press release on the matter.
The elephant in the room will appear in July, however - we're talking about Samsung's Galaxy Ring. This is likely to eat every other smart ring's lunch, at least until Apple releases one of its own, so it seems like Amazfit knew that and is trying to protect itself by fully going into niche use case territory. Whether or not that will work, in terms of sales, remains to be seen.
It is rather unlikely that the Galaxy Ring would cost more than $299.99, and when comparing brand awareness it's really no contest - nor will there be one in terms of marketing budgets for these. So Amazfit may be playing the niche game out of sheer necessity here.
The Helio Ring "offers unparalleled insights into athletic performance and recovery". It also monitors sleep, and heart rate.
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Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 04 May 2024
- y94
The prices are not that smart.
- PepperPot
- 02 May 2024
- q2b
Amazfit is supposed to be a budget brand. $299 is not cheap. Makes me think the Samsung ring is going to be $350 minimum.
- autocascading
- 02 May 2024
- Y9r
It depends on whether they use a subscription model to access desirable features. OTOH I look at something that costs $300 one time and wonder how a company can survive without some type of ongoing subscription based revenue. Who wants to buy i...