Samsung Galaxy Ring hands-on

10 July 2024

The pinnacle of unobtrusive health and activity tracking – that’s the Galaxy Ring in a nutshell. It’s made to excel at sleep, activity and health tracking which you can also do on the Galaxy Watch series but the Ring is a fraction of the size, weighs next to nothing and claims up to 7 days of battery life. We got the chance to briefly test out the Galaxy Ring and these are our first impressions.

Galaxy Ring comes in nine sizes, ranging 5-13 on the US scale, and they are all made from grade 5 titanium alloy. Regardless of which size you pick up, you’ll barely notice that it’s on your finger. The concave shape of the Galaxy Ring is an interesting choice which Samsung claims will help prevent scratches.

Picking out the right size is key and Samsung will offer a Galaxy Ring sizing kit containing plastic mockups of all nine sizes which you can test out before you select the correct size for your finger. The sizing kit is included in the retail price.

The smaller-sized Galaxy Rings are just 2.3 grams while even the largest size 13 Ring is the barely felt 3 grams. That’s mighty impressive considering all of the tech housed inside - a battery, PPG optical sensor, temperature sensor and battery indicator LEDs to name a few. It’s also much more convenient to wear while sleeping compared to a smartwatch.

Wearing the Galaxy Ring feels even less obtrusive than wearing a normal ring. It may take some getting used to if you don’t wear jewelry but it’s miles better than having a watch on your wrist. It can also handle water splashes and even deep dives thanks to its 10ATM water resistance rating.

Galaxy Ring comes in three colors – black, silver and gold. The black and silver versions feature a matte coating while the gold model is shiny and reflective.

Unlike some established smart ring makers (ahem Oura), Galaxy Ring comes without any additional subscriptions so you can freely access your health and activity tracking data. Samsung confirmed that Galaxy Ring will work with any Android 11+ phone with Samsung Health installed. Galaxy Ring pairs to your phone via Bluetooth LE 5.4 and requires an active Samsung account and Samsung Health app.

Once paired, Galaxy Ring will start monitoring key health metrics including heart rate, skin temperature, and sleep as well as basic activities like walking and running.

Galaxy Ring is billed as an advanced sleep monitoring device with heart and respiratory rate, movement during sleep, and sleep latency. Samsung also says that you can get even more accurate results by wearing the Galaxy Ring alongside a Galaxy Watch. The combo also extends the Galaxy Ring’s battery endurance by 30% over the original 6 to 7 days (depending on the ring size).

Samsung claims the Galaxy Ring is rated at "hundreds of charge cycles" and a full charge takes 80 minutes. Charging happens via a dedicated charging case which ships with each Galaxy Ring and takes a USB-C cable.

Apart from its health and activity tracking features, Galaxy Ring features some basic remote control functions via a pinch gesture. You can pinch your thumb and index fingers while wearing the ring to trigger the camera shutter on your paired Galaxy phone or dismiss alarms. These features are currently limited to the Z Fold6 and Z Flip6 but Samsung confirmed it will add support for the Galaxy S24 series down the line.

Galaxy Ring also supports the Samsung Find network and can flash its LEDs to help you locate if it’s misplaced.

With a price tag of $399/€449/£399, Galaxy Ring is no cheap gadget. It’s more expensive than the just-announced Galaxy Watch7 which offers a much larger pool of health and activity tracking features and it only works with Android smartphones. We’ll have to spend some more time with the Galaxy Ring to give you our final verdict but it's certainly an exciting device worth checking out.