- Samsung has launched the Galaxy Ring in the Unpacked event.
- It's built from Titanium, comes in 9 sizes (5-13), and has lots of health sensors and features.
- The Galaxy Ring costs $399 and doesn't come with a subscription as rumored earlier.
Samsung has finally launched the most awaited wearable of the year, the Galaxy Ring. While smart rings are not exactly a new form factor, what makes the Galaxy Ring launch exciting is that Samsung is the first big manufacturer to step into the smart ring business. If you’re looking to buy the Galaxy Ring or want to know more about what it offers, here’s everything you need to know.
Galaxy Ring: Build and Design
The design of the Galaxy Ring is minimal with a clean outer body with a flat side that serves as an indicator and helps wear the Ring in the correct orientation. The inner band has all sorts of sensors ranging from ECG, and SpO2, to Heart Rate and Sleep detection sensors.
The Ring comes in nine sizes ranging from 5-13, 5 being the smallest and 13 being the largest. Overall, there’s nothing visually different on the Galaxy Ring compared to most other rings in the market. The smallest Ring SKU weighs around 2.3 grams whereas the largest weighs around 3 grams.
Galaxy Ring also supports gestures for easy control. For example, you can double pinch to find the last location of your Ring, or take photos and dismiss alarms on the connected Galaxy smartphone.
Samsung is offering three color options for the Galaxy Ring – Titanium Black, Titanium Silver, and Titanium Gold.
Galaxy Ring: Health Sensors
There are a myriad of sensors on the Galaxy Ring, including heart rate, SpO2, ECG, BIA, skin temperature, pedometer, accelerometer, gyroscope, and PPG. The data from them is then used to determine various metrics such as Sleep Apnea, Irregular Heart Rhythm, breathing irregularities, menstrual Cycle detection in Women, Snoring detection, movement detection during sleep, and so on.
Samsung is also leveraging AI to detect sleep and various other patterns for a more comprehensive and personalized health-tracking experience.
Battery
The battery on the Galaxy Ring ranges from 17 mAh in the smallest size to 22.5 mAh in the largest. Samsung claims the Galaxy Ring can last for up to 7 days on a single charge and the company will also provide a quick charging kit with it. However, Samsung has not revealed the charging speed of the Ring at the event.
Samsung also bundles a case for free inside the box which can be used to store the Ring when you’re not using it or use it as a dock to charge the Ring.
Galaxy Ring: Software
If it wasn’t obvious already, Galaxy Ring will require a smartphone to function, and that includes the Samsung Health and Galaxy Wearable applications. Samsung Health shows your health metrics while the Galaxy Wearable app allows you to turn on/off features of your Galaxy Ring.
The Samsung Health app provides all the metrics you need in one place on its home page such as Steps, Sleep, Calories burned, exercise, Blood Oxygen, etc. Samsung has also added AI cards that show you at a glance different personalized metrics to keep you updated. Unlike the Oura Ring, the Galaxy Ring doesn’t have a subscription which is nice.
The Galaxy Ring currently only works with Samsung and other Android smartphones and there’s no information about whether it will be supported on iOS in the future.
Galaxy Ring: Price and Availability
The Galaxy Ring costs $399. As for the availability, the Galaxy Ring is up for pre-orders on the official Samsung website and will start shipping soon. As of now, Galaxy Ring isn’t available in India and Samsung has not shared the details for when it will be available.
