The Samsung Galaxy Ring beats the Apple Watch hands down

ZDNET’s key findings

• He Samsung Galaxy Ring offers a smart ring that excels at overall wellness tracking, especially by providing useful insights into the data it collects to help you improve areas of your health that could use some attention.
• People interested in digital health tracking will appreciate the Galaxy Ring’s minimalism, comfort, long battery life, and lack of notifications compared to wearing a smartwatch.
• At $399, the Galaxy Ring is more expensive than some of its competitors, but it doesn’t require a $5.99 per month subscription like its biggest rival, Oura; and while Oura Rings Prices start at $299, though some of the nicer finishes cost more than comparable versions of the Galaxy Ring.

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Wearable technologies have taken advantage of 2024 as their moment to shine, with the surprising popularity of Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glassesthe long-awaited arrival of Apple Vision Proand now an emerging hit in the Samsung Galaxy Ring.

Also: We have entered the era of the smart ring. Here’s how it will revolutionize the wearables market

The smart ring market has been dominated by startups like Our and former pioneer Reason over the past decade, but Samsung is the first major tech company to launch a ring of its own, taking the smart ring to new heights.

I’ve been wearing a size 10 matte black Galaxy ring ($399) on my index finger for the past two weeks, after trying the matte black Oura Horizon Stealth ($449) during the last month and the Ring with motif for about six months in 2018. I’ve also been a perennial Apple Watch user since its launch in 2015 and a Fitbit user for several years before that.

Also: ZDNET’s recommendations for the best smart rings you can buy

I’ve been really surprised by how polished and useful the Galaxy Ring is. It doesn’t feel like a 1.0 product at all. Samsung has clearly learned from other rings and smartwatches and has come up with a device that’s beautifully designed, easy to use, and communicates health information in ways that are just as useful as any fitness tracker on the market.

In fact, I thought the Galaxy AI stamp on the Galaxy Ring was mostly marketing from Samsung, but when it comes to the overall “Energy” score the ring gives you, as well as the sleep and stress reports in the Samsung Health app, it provides far more actionable insights than I’ve gotten from the Apple Watch.

For example, one day I looked at my energy score of 78 in the app and it was “Good,” but on the low end of good, which was consistent with my perception of how I was feeling that morning. When I clicked on the energy score, I found several metrics that contributed to it. Most of them were sleep-related, but the lowest was “Previous Day’s Activity.” It noted that my “moderate to vigorous exercise time” was only six minutes and recommended that I increase that to 33 to 87 minutes. So I became more disciplined about steadily increasing my cardio, which had the desired effect of giving me an energy boost, albeit for the short period I tried the product.

I also found that the Galaxy Ring tracks stress accurately. It uses heart rate variability (HRV) from its optical biosignal sensor — a very fancy name for its heart sensor. When I see my stress level rising in the app, I can open a guided deep breathing session right within the app. In that “Breathe” section of the app, you can also set the number of breathing cycles and the time per cycle, allowing you to customize how long you want to do the exercises and how much you want to lower your heart rate to manage your stress level.

The Apple Watch can also track heart rate variability and features a helpful guided breathing exercise in its Mindfulness app. In fact, I’ve written about how these Apple Watch tools helped me discover and improve my toxic stress level.However, Apple has never built these features into its smartwatch software, doesn’t specifically mention stress, and doesn’t link its data to useful health insights or workout tips.

I was also impressed with the design and build quality of the Samsung Galaxy Ring. It’s a bit thinner and lighter than the Oura Ring and most other smart rings. Ultrahuman Air Ring It is the most comparable in size and weight.

The other unique design feature of the Galaxy Ring is that it’s slightly concave, which should help protect it against scratches and scrapes in the long run. The Galaxy Ring also comes with a unique case and charging solution. The case is clear, has a battery, and charges independently of the Ring so you can wirelessly recharge it on the go, compared to other Ring chargers that are all docks that need to be charged via a cable.

Also: This smart ring for fitness fanatics almost beats Oura. Here’s how

Like most other smart rings, the Galaxy Ring is both a complex piece of miniaturized technology in an incredibly small package, and at the same time a relatively simple device that features three sensors that have been around for a long time: an accelerometer, a skin temperature sensor, and a heart rate sensor. As mentioned above, Samsung’s heart sensor is called an Optical Biosignal sensor, and it’s one of the most advanced heart sensors on the market, as Samsung has been investing in health technology for years across its various smartwatches.

That also brings us to one of the biggest drawbacks of the Galaxy Ring: the fact that its activity sensor tends to overestimate steps by about 10%, in my tests. It got even more wrong in the first few days I tried the ring, overestimating steps by 20% compared to what the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the Oura Ring I wore at the same time to test it. The Galaxy Ring seemed to adjust over time and there were days where it was only 5% higher, but it was always above the step count of the Apple Watch and the Oura Ring. An activity tracker that overestimates your activity may make you feel better and more confident, but it could negatively impact your progress toward your overall health and fitness goals.

The other major drawback of the Galaxy Ring is that it is exclusive to Android and is primarily integrated with Samsung smartphones and smartwatches. Android users with non-Samsung phones will still benefit from the best features of the Galaxy Ring, but iOS users will have to look elsewhere. Fortunately, We have a couple of recommendations in that kingdom.

ZDNET’s buying advice

The software of the galaxy ring It’s smarter than my Apple Watch, and I never expected that to be one of my takeaways from this review. The AI-powered insights in the Samsung Health app provide more directly actionable insights from the Galaxy Ring than I’ve gotten from Apple. So if you want more actionable health and wellness insights than you get from the most popular smartwatch (and you have an Android phone), then the Galaxy Ring might be the product you’ve been waiting for. Plus, it doesn’t have a screen to distract you, and it only needs to be charged every four to seven days.

If you’re reading about a smart ring, chances are you’re interested because 1.) you prefer wearing a ring over a smartwatch, or 2.) you’d like to track your sleep (and smart rings tend to be better sleep trackers than smartwatches), or 3.) you’re a woman who’d like to use a smart ring for cycle tracking to optimize your health. The Galaxy Ring is a great option for the first two options, and ZDNET’s smart ring expert Nina Raemont He will continue his evaluation of the Galaxy Ring’s cycle tracking compared to other smart ring options.

If you are an iPhone user and want the benefits of a device similar to the Galaxy Ring, ZDNET recommends the Ultrahuman Air Ring or the Oura ringas both work well with Apple iOS.