Samsung Galaxy Ring review: not the smart ring I was hoping for

Well, it finally happened. After months of teasing and anticipation, Samsung finally released its first smart ring — the Samsung Galaxy Ring. Smart rings aren’t new in 2024, but the release of the Galaxy Ring still feels important. It means that Samsung is now the largest company with a smart ring in its portfolio, and because of that, there’s a good chance the Galaxy Ring will be many people’s first foray into the smart ring world.

It’s all very exciting, but before you rush off and buy a Galaxy Ring for yourself, we need to answer an important question: Is it any good? I’ve been wearing the Galaxy Ring for a couple of weeks to find out. Here’s what you should know.

Samsung Galaxy Ring: design

Design is a tricky thing to get right for a smart ring. A good smart ring should be sleek, stylish, and comfortable. Given the small nature of smart rings, nailing all of those things is much easier said than done. Remarkably, Samsung appears to have had no trouble here.

The Galaxy Ring is made of titanium and is available in three finishes: black, silver, and gold. I’ve been wearing the black one in a size 9 (you have a choice between ring sizes 5 through 13), and I think it looks fantastic. It’s a darker shade of black compared to my Oura Ring in its Stealth color, and combined with the matte finish, it makes the Galaxy Ring look incredibly stealthy; I simply love it.

The Galaxy Ring is unbelievably comfortable.

More importantly, the Galaxy Ring is unbelievably comfortable. As someone who’s worn an Oura Ring off and on for a while, it was a bit shocking to discover how much thinner and lighter the Galaxy Ring feels compared to it. The Galaxy Ring measures an impressive 2.6mm thick and weighs just 3 grams, even at the largest size (13). The Oura Ring is about the same thickness (2.5mm), though it weighs between 4 and 6 grams, depending on the size you choose.

On paper, that doesn’t sound like much of a difference. However, wearing both the Galaxy Ring and Oura Ring side-by-side, the Galaxy Ring is noticeably lighter. And despite having the same thickness, it feels thinner, too. Part of this is due to the concave design, which gives the Galaxy Ring slightly raised edges with an intended middle. It’s subtle, but it’s a nice visual touch, and it should help prevent scratches throughout daily wear.

I really don’t have anything to complain about here. The Galaxy Ring is as good as it gets for smart ring hardware, and the fact that it’s Samsung’s first-generation ring makes it all the more impressive.

Samsung Galaxy Ring: sleep and activity tracking

OK, we’re off to a pretty good start! Samsung clearly got the hardware right; what about the Galaxy Ring’s sleep and activity tracking? Here’s where things get messy.

We’ll start with sleep tracking. The Galaxy Ring tracks a lot of data while you sleep, including your sleep stages, blood oxygen (SpO2), skin temperature, heart rate, and respiratory rate. Additionally, the Galaxy Ring also gives you a sleep score each night (on a 1-100 scale) based on your sleep time, restfulness, sleep cycles, physical recovery, and mental recovery. After your first few nights sleeping with the Galaxy Ring, you can also use the sleep coaching feature, which associates your sleep with a certain animal (I’m a lion, if you were wondering) with tips on how to further improve your sleep each night.

If that sounds like a lot, that’s because it is! It could be easy to get overwhelmed with everything here, but I think Samsung does a great job of presenting this data in the Samsung Health app. If all you care about is your sleep score, you can quickly glance at that and move on with your day. But if you want more insightful data, it’s all there for you, with helpful explanations for everything.

As for the accuracy of the sleep tracking, it’s been (mostly) excellent. I wore the Galaxy Ring and Apple Watch Ultra 2 simultaneously to track my sleep for a few nights, and the Galaxy Ring consistently returned more accurate results. The Galaxy Ring did a much better job of recording accurate sleep and awake times, along with detecting a couple of instances where I woke up briefly in the middle of the night (which the Apple Watch didn’t catch). Further, your sleep quality and previous activity are used to generate an Energy Score at the start of each day — giving you a glanceable insight into how ready your body is to take on the day ahead.

The one thing I’ve been disappointed with is the Galaxy Ring’s blood oxygen accuracy. It often says my blood oxygen dips into the mid-to-low 80% range, and one night, it even said it was down to 75%. If those numbers were real, I would probably be in a hospital right now instead of writing this review. Comparatively, the lowest blood oxygen level my Apple Watch detected during the same period was 95%.

SpO2 levels don’t play into your sleep score, so they haven’t really impacted my sleep tracking in that regard. However, if you personally need to keep a close eye on your blood oxygen, I wouldn’t trust the Galaxy Ring one bit.

Next, we have activity tracking. Similar to Samsung smartwatches, your daily activity is recorded into three targets: motion, time, and calories. You can customize each of these, and I have my goals set to track my steps, active time, and activity calories. It’s a simple and easy-to-understand system that I think works very well. It’s very similar to how activity tracking works on the Apple Watch, and while it may not be the most original idea, it is effective.

The Samsung Health app allows you to manually track dozens of different workout types. (Open the app, select the workout type you want, and then tap the Start button.) Automatic workout detection is also present, though it’s limited to walking and running.

Automatic walking/running detection works as advertised. The Galaxy Ring consistently auto-tracked runs and walks throughout my time wearing it — including afternoon walks I take with my dog that the Apple Watch doesn’t detect. Which is great! But the accuracy of its workout tracking is, unfortunately, pretty bad.

On a 2-mile run, for example, the Galaxy Ring only thought that I ran 1.8 miles. It also gave me a much lower average heart rate of 127bpm, compared to 164bpm per my Apple Watch. It did an even worse job on a longer 4-mile run, recording just 3.20 miles and an average heart rate of 137bpm (versus the 181bpm on my Apple Watch). The Ring’s distance tracking fares a lot better if you bring your paired phone with it (which makes sense given the Galaxy Ring’s lack of GPS), but even then, it still returns other funky data — like saying I gained 250 feet of elevation on a weekend walk, wherein my Apple Watch (much more accurately) detected just 50 feet.

This all leaves me feeling pretty bad about the Galaxy Ring’s activity tracking. If all you want is something very casual — and you aren’t concerned about wonky exercise numbers — the Galaxy Ring fits the bill. But for a smart ring that costs $400, even without a subscription, it really should be doing more. I don’t need my smart ring to be the most robust activity/exercise tracker, but I do need to be able to trust the data it’s collecting. Right now, I just can’t do that with the Galaxy Ring.

Samsung Galaxy Ring: special features

Beyond the usual smart ring features, the Galaxy Ring rewards you with a couple of extra goodies if you use the Ring within the broader Samsung ecosystem.

If you have a Samsung Galaxy Watch and a Samsung Galaxy Ring, wearing them simultaneously has some nice benefits. If you wear both throughout the day, the Samsung Health app will automatically determine which device is collecting more accurate data at any given time and, in doing so, disable certain sensors on the Galaxy Ring to save its battery life. All of this happens in the background, and Samsung says it can extend the Ring’s battery life by up to 30%.

Furthermore, there’s something compelling about having a smartwatch and a smart ring that both feed health data into the same app. Theoretically, you could wear a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 or Galaxy Watch Ultra during the day and only use the Galaxy Ring to track your sleep (or when your watch needs to recharge) — giving you 24/7 data in Samsung Health, and without having to wear a watch to bed. I don’t know how many people would be willing to spend $400 on a Galaxy Ring and use it exclusively as a sleep tracker, but it is an option.

Additionally, if the Galaxy Ring is paired to a Samsung phone, you can pinch your thumb and the finger with your ring (ideally your index or middle finger) together to perform the Double Pinch gesture. You can use this to dismiss an alarm on your phone or to take a picture or video with your phone’s camera. It’s a fun idea, and the gesture works well, too.

Lastly, if you can’t find your Galaxy Ring, you can see its location in the Samsung Find app. From here, you can also force the Ring’s lights to blink rapidly, potentially helping you find it if it’s stuck in a couch cushion or hiding somewhere on the floor.

Samsung Galaxy Ring: battery life and charging

Battery life is one of Samsung’s most impressive claims for the Galaxy Ring. According to the company, ring sizes 12-13 should get up to seven days of use, while all of the smaller sizes can last for up to six. Battery life hasn’t lived up to those claims in my testing, though I still think it’s very good.

Throughout my two weeks of wearing the Galaxy Ring, I consistently used it for over four days before its battery reached 10%. For example, I put the Galaxy Ring on my finger at 9 a.m. on July 27 and had 12% battery remaining a little after 4 p.m. on July 31. That includes using the ring to track my sleep every night and to record 10 workouts. Samsung is overselling the battery life a bit, but I’d be lying if I said I was disappointed by the Galaxy Ring’s endurance.

Then there’s the charging case. Unlike the Oura Ring, which comes with a charging stand that needs to be plugged in, the Galaxy Ring comes with a portable charge case. The case is wonderfully compact (about the same size as most wireless earbud charge cases), meaning you can throw it in a bag or pocket with no issue.

When you place the Galaxy Ring in the case, an LED light around it shows the current charge status. In my testing, charging the Galaxy Ring from about 12% to 100% took just under an hour. Furthermore, after using the case to fully recharge the Galaxy Ring twice, the case still had 16% battery remaining. It’s a really incredible system, and I hope Oura copies it with the inevitable Oura Ring Gen 4.

Samsung Galaxy Ring: price and subscription

The Samsung Galaxy Ring is available now from Samsung’s website and retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. It comes in three colors — silver, gold, and black — and in ring sizes 5-13. No matter which color or size you choose, the Samsung Galaxy Ring costs $400.

Although that $400 upfront price is more expensive than many competing smart rings, it’s also important to note that the Galaxy Ring does not require any monthly subscription. For context, the Oura Ring starts at $300, but it also requires a $6/month subscription to access its best features. After two years, the Galaxy Ring would still have cost you the same $400, while your total cost for the Oura Ring would be up to $444.

Samsung Galaxy Ring: verdict

As I sit here and write the final words to my Galaxy Ring review, I’m awfully conflicted. For its first attempt at a smart ring, it’s impressive how much Samsung got right with the Galaxy Ring. The hardware is outstanding, striking a lovely balance of style and comfort with incredible fit and finish. I’m also happy with its battery life, the charging case is lovely, and the sleep tracking insights are really fantastic.

Unfortunately, while those aspects of the Galaxy Ring are genuinely impressive, so much else about the ring feels so mediocre. I love how good it is at sleep tracking, but the activity/fitness tracking experience is far too basic and inaccurate for a wearable at this price. Not having a subscription fee is nice, but it doesn’t really matter if half of the reason I want to use the Galaxy Ring feels so shortchanged.

The Galaxy Ring’s competitors don’t make things any easier. Yes, the Oura Ring has a monthly subscription, but it also offers a much more complete suite of features. Within the last few months, Oura has added an AI assistant, improved cycle tracking, pregnancy insights, stress resilience data, cardiovascular age estimates, and more. It’s not the most robust activity tracker (though its data is more accurate), but it absolutely excels at providing an understanding of your body’s overall health — a lot more so than the Galaxy Ring.

Plus, if you really can’t stomach another subscription in your life, the RingConn Smart Ring is a darn good alternative, too. Like the Galaxy Ring, it too has inaccurate blood oxygen readings and limited activity tracking, but it also has a great design, detailed sleep tracking, and even longer battery life. Plus, it costs just $279 with no subscription. It also works with Android phones and iPhones, whereas the Galaxy Ring doesn’t work with the iPhone at all.

Add all of that together, and I don’t think the Galaxy Ring is the smart ring most people should buy. That title still belongs to the Oura Ring, while the RingConn remains a great affordable option. The Galaxy Ring can be a unique proposition for people who want an extension of their Galaxy Watch, but beyond that, it’s a difficult recommendation.

Even with that being the case, I’m glad the Galaxy Ring exists. I’m really eager to see what a Galaxy Ring 2 looks like, and I hope Samsung’s presence in the smart ring arena puts pressure on companies like Apple and Google to follow suit. The Samsung Galaxy Ring is an important gadget with a potentially bright future. It’s just not one you should buy right now.