Samsung Galaxy Ring Review: Comfortable With Great Battery Life
The Samsung Galaxy Ring Is A Sleek, Inconspicuous Wearable With Great Battery Life
| Samsung Galaxy Ring - Starting at $399 Samsung's Galaxy Ring is a comfortable, lightweight wearable with sleep and activity tracking, which command a premium.
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It’s been a couple of months since Samsung launched the Galaxy Ring ($399), its latest health and wellness wearable. We’ve been using the company’s first smart ring for about a month now, and we’re ready to share our thoughts and observations. This is our first smart ring review here at HotHardware, but this product category’s been around for a roughly decade now, with the Oura Ring ($299) being the most well known.
What sets the Galaxy Ring apart from the competition is that it’s the first smart ring from a major tech manufacturer, and that you don’t need a monthly subscription to use it. Plus, it integrates seamlessly into the Samsung Health ecosystem, and works alone or together with the company’s Galaxy watches. So what are the pros and cons of the Galaxy Ring? Who is it for? And should you consider buying one? Let's find out.
Samsung Galaxy Ring Hardware, Design, And Durability
The Galaxy Ring is primarily made of grade 5 titanium. It comes in nine sizes (5 to 13) and in three colors (gold, silver, and dark gray). The inside of the ring contains the sensors, electronics, and battery – all sealed in a resin-like, transparent polycarbonate material. As such, the Galaxy Ring is IP68 dust and water resistant (down to 10 ATM), and hypoallergenic. It also features a concave cross-section, making it extremely comfortable to wear.Depending on size, the Galaxy Ring weighs between 2.3 and 3.0g, and it’s only 2.6mm thick. It packs a Nordic Semiconductor microcontroller with 8MB of RAM, a Bluetooth 5.4 radio, an accelerometer, and an 18mAh battery (sizes 5-11) or 23.5mAh battery (sizes 12 and 13). Heart rate, blood oxygen, and skin temperature sensors are clustered into three small bulges protruding from the inside surface of the ring, within the same quadrant.
To charge the Galaxy Ring, Samsung supplies a 2 x 2 x 1-inch translucent plastic case. It opens like an earbuds case to reveal a white cradle on which you place the ring. A 361mAh battery on board charges the ring wirelessly up to 1.5 times (40% in 30 mins), and the case itself charges via USB Type-C, or any Qi-compatible wireless charger. Pressing the button on the cradle activates a series of white LEDs that show the ring and case’s battery level.
Our Galaxy Ring is a size 12, in the dark gray colorway, and we’ve worn it on the middle finger of our left hand (our non-dominant hand) almost non-stop for about a month now. We’ve worn it day and night, in the shower, in the pool, and even while building things and handling tools. It’s been exposed to everything from hot tubs and ice cubes to soap and bleach – without any issues, except (surprisingly) for some cosmetic wear.
Within the first couple of weeks, we started noticing signs of wear in the dark gray finish, revealing the brighter titanium along the edges on both sides of the raised marks on the outside surface of the Galaxy Ring. Then again, these are the parts of the ring that are the most likely to come in contact with hard or abrasive materials when you grip objects with your hand (like knobs, handles, railings, and tools,etc.), or run your hand on surfaces (like countertops).
Samsung Galaxy Ring Software, Features, And Battery life
To use the Galaxy Ring, you have to install three apps: Samsung Health, Galaxy Wear, and Galaxy Ring Manager. Don't worry, though. Samsung makes the entire setup process painless. The Galaxy Ring is compatible with any phone running Android 11 and above, but some features – like double pinching your fingers to take photos or silence alarms – only work with Samsung devices.Once you’re all set up and logged into your Samsung account, the Galaxy Ring is able to track sleep, activity (steps, workouts, etc.), stress, heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen level (SpO2), and skin temperature. The Samsung Health app then uses machine learning and the company's latest AI algorithms to provide you with helpful metrics such as a Sleep Score, Energy Score, and Wellness Tips. It can even predict and track menstrual cycles.
You won't find the Galaxy Ring Manager in the app tray. It’s basically a plug-in that lets the Galaxy Wear app support the Galaxy Ring. Just think of Galaxy Wear as the app that lets you manage your Samsung wearables and earbuds. With it you can adjust sleep, activity, and heart rate settings, update the ring’s firmware, find your ring (by making the green and red LEDs flash repeatedly), and reset your ring.
The Galaxy Ring is supremely comfortable to wear. It’s so thin and light that you quickly forget you’re wearing it – just like most rings, really. But the Galaxy Ring won’t replace your smartwatch if you prefer more expansive tracking and features. Obviously, it’s too small to offer notifications or haptics, and workout detection is limited to walking and running. But if you just want to accurately track sleep, activity, and vitals, the Galaxy Ring is a solid smartwatch alternative.
As we mentioned earlier, the Galaxy Ring features a double pinch gesture that only works when it’s paired with a Samsung phone. It lets you take pictures (in the camera app), and dismiss alarms. We tested this with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold6, and it worked just fine. That being said, we spent a considerable amount of time using the Galaxy Ring with Google's Pixel 9 Pro XL, and – special gestures aside – we didn’t miss out on anything.
Samsung Galaxy Ring Final Review Verdict
Our feelings on the Galaxy Ring are mixed. While it packs an impressive amount of technology into a tiny package, it’s a relatively basic wearable that tracks only your sleep, activity, and vitals. At $399, it’s more expensive than many smartwatches, yet doesn't offer as much functionality. Then there’s the question of durability – our Galaxy Ring shows obvious cosmetic wear after just one month. Some color options (like silver) will likely hold up better over time, however.
If you currently use a smartwatch (or fitness band) for workouts, notifications, timers, calls, and more, the Galaxy Ring may not be for you, unless you're looking for something smaller and less obvious, that offers much longer battery life. If you want to track activity during the day, and/or sleep at night – without wearing a smartwatch – then the Galaxy Ring might be worth considering. Ultimately though, despite its relative refinement, it’s a premium first generation product, so waiting to see what Samsung brings to the table with v2.0 may be advisable. That said, if you're already entrenched in Samsung's ecosystem and are considering a wearable for straight forward sleep and activity tracking, the Galaxy Watch gets the job done.
