Samsung Galaxy Ring Review: Health and Fitness Tracking on Your Finger video [CNET]

The Galaxy Ring is the ideal health, sleep and fitness tracker for people who don’t want to wear a smartwatch. I just wish it wasn’t so expensive.

The Galaxy ring is so light. I keep forgetting, I’m wearing it. I love that. It’s so comfortable so I can wear it 24 7, which is pretty much the idea. But can the Galaxy Ring do enough to tempt people who aren’t into smart orchards to track their health and sleep with a smart ring. Let’s find out. So the Galaxy Ring does three main things. It tracks your sleep, your activity and your heart rate and then it helps you interpret all of this data. It comes with three sensors, an accelerometer temperature sensor and bio active sensor to track heart rate. It also comes with this really pretty transparent case and I’m not one to get obsessed over material things, but this is such a nice case. I love that it’s got a light indicator. So you can see the battery level and it also has that nice welcome light when you open the case so much better than any other smart ring charging solution. I’ve tried some other basic things about the ring. It’s Android only to my iphone friends and you’ll need a Galaxy phones specifically if you want to use some of the A I powered features like the energy score, which I’ll explain in a minute. Speaking of scores, the first thing I do in the morning when I get up after wearing the Galaxy Ring to track my sleep is grab my phone and check my sleep score. Now you’ll also get things like a sleep stage breakdown as well as stats on your average heart rate overnight and things like your breathing rate and blood oxygen levels. I compared results from the Galaxy Ring against the eight sleep, which is a full body on bed sleep tracking system and the results were really similar. Both said I had a really similar amount of sleep in terms of my sleep stages. My average heart rate was also very close. The one thing the Galaxy Ring did overestimate a little bit was the amount of sleep that I got. You can also track snoring levels overnight as long as you place your phone on your nightstand within about 2 ft of your head and activate the setting because it does need a microphone to pick this up. And if you’re wondering about that FDA authorized sleep apnea feature that Samsung announced that is only on the Galaxy watch, not on the galaxy ring. Samsung has a range of sleep coaching tools to help you get a better night’s rest, including a sleep animal, which basically represents how you sleep as an animal. Kinda cute. Don’t really know how helpful that is though and it can also give you advice on ways to improve your sleep. Now, I’m pretty good at interpreting my sleep data and kind of knowing where I can tweak things. But I can see this being pretty useful if you’ve never tracked your sleep before and you wanna have some pretty basic ways to learn how to improve it. There are a few things the Galaxy Ring doesn’t have, for example, NFC. So you can’t do things like tap to pay. It doesn’t have a screen obviously. So you can’t get notifications. You have to pull out your phone and it doesn’t have a haptic or a vibration motor. So again, no buzzing or anything like that, you gotta check your phone for everything. This is the matte black Galaxy Ring, but it does come in two different finishes, either a gold or a silver and it comes in nine different sizes from five through 13. I definitely recommend you spend some time with the sizing kit and wear that size that you think you are on your finger for at least 24 hours because your finger in your hands can change size depending on the day, depending on the weather from working out. Even hormonal changes can affect that. So make sure it’s really, really comfortable before you decide what size you are. I’ve actually found the Galaxy Ring runs a little bit smaller than other smart rings and standard ring sizes. For example, I’m normally a size 10 on my index finger. But in the galaxy ring, I’m actually an 11. You can wear the Galaxy ring on anything you like. But Samsung does recommend you put it on your index finger for the most accurate tracking. This is water resistant so you can wear it all throughout your day when you shower, when you wash your hands, even to track things like swims and it does have a titanium finish on it, which should be scratch resistant. However, I’ve been wearing the matte black version for about a week now and it has developed a pretty small but somewhat obvious little scratch on the underside here. Guess where some of the coat is coming off. Stay tuned. I have a lot more durability questions that I’m gonna do in a longer term deep dive and I’ll link that in the description for you. The ring has automatic workout detection so you can head out for a walk or a run. Yes, only those two workout types and you’ll get automatic credit after the ring detects you’ve been moving for a certain amount of time. Now, I found it took about 1015 minutes of me going on a walk or a run for it to kick in. And the good news is you can go out without your phone if you want and it will still automatically detect those two workout types, but you just won’t be able to attach GPS data to it. Obviously, the ring also has high and low heart rate alerts. Although it doesn’t have irregular heart rhythm notification alerts or an ECG for those two features, you will need a galaxy watch. Now, I did measure the heart rate sensor on the galaxy ring against a chest strap and it matched up fairly closely within about two beats per minute. You can manually start to track a whole bunch of workouts from within the Samsung Health App. But only a few of those workout types such as walking, running and cycling will support live heart rate data readings from the Galaxy Ring as you’re working out. And according to Samsung, you should not use the Galaxy Ring while lifting weights, cos it might hurt your hand. I did a few dumbbell workouts and it was totally fine. But when it came to dead lifting after reading that help page, I decided to skip that. The energy score is actually super helpful. This takes into account things like your sleep, your overall activity levels and your heart rate readings. And it will give you an idea of whether you should push yourself a little bit harder that day. If you have that energy in that stamina or you could take it a little bit easier. The best thing about it though, it doesn’t require a subscription Aura Ring, but I’m really not sure how A I powered all of this stuff really is specifically that energy score and the wellness tips. Because it feels so similar to what the Aura ring does with its own readiness score. I think this is gonna be most helpful for people that are totally new to the world of health and fitness tracking. It might be able to give you some really actionable, helpful insights. But for someone who’s a little bit more experienced and has been tracking this for a while, I don’t think it’s that helpful. Samsung said the battery in the smaller 5 to 11 sizes should last up to six days. This is an 11 and I found that to be pretty accurate, it usually drops about 15 to 20% per day with a workout or two and sleep tracking the larger 12 to 13 sizes have a slightly bigger battery. So it up to seven days and this case holds enough battery for about 1.5 ring chargers. If you’re in a pinch and you don’t have USB C though, you can charge this on the back of a Samsung phone or wireless charger super clutch. And if you get down to 15% battery, the led s on the ring will flash. So at least you have some idea of if you’re running low on battery and you won’t miss out on tracking anything. I love how the Galaxy Ring opens up a world of interacting with a range of connected devices just by a simple pinching action. But right now, the only thing this gesture can do is take a photo remotely from your phone or stop an alarm. And those two things are only on one U I 6.1 0.1 which ships on the Z fold and Z flip six by default. Now, this is the S 24 ultra a flagship phone and it doesn’t have that one U I version yet, which is kind of annoying, but I’ve definitely tried it out on the Z flip six in the Samsung Galaxy Experience Store and can confirm that it works. As expected. I would have loved a few more gestures just like the Galaxy watches can do, they can play and pause music, dismiss alerts or answer and hang up phone calls using that same double pinch action. But it’s actually to find my features which are super helpful on the ring. My first day I kept taking off the ring to wash my hands and shower and things like that. And I accidentally dropped it in my makeup bag because it’s the black ring. I had a lot of trouble finding it. So I opened up the app. I went down to find my ring and then I tapped the blink light option and it was super easy to find. You can also find the ring’s last location on a map and get not applications. If you leave it behind. One of the other big questions you probably wanna know is how does it compare to aura and the other smart rings out there. Well, here’s a visual to show you some of the external differences between a few of the rings. I’ve got the aura ring, the ring and the amaze ft Helio ring. The Galaxy ring definitely feels more premium on the finger and it looks more like a traditional ring. Ok? Maybe not that black version that I’ve got, but the other colors definitely much more so. However, it is expensive. $400 is a lot of money I mentioned earlier that it doesn’t have a subscription like the Aura Ring. So if you keep this for at least two years, you’re saving around $44. But we don’t know if Samsung is gonna charge for those Galaxy A I features after 2025 nothing has been decided yet. So is the Galaxy Ring right for you? If you wanna track your activity and your sleep without the distractions and you’re on Android? Yes, I actually think it is. The sleep tracking is helpful and I really like that energy score even though you’ll need a Galaxy phone to see that specific score, just wish it wasn’t so expensive if you’ve got a galaxy watch and wondering if you should also get a Galaxy Ring. That answer isn’t so clear. I haven’t found many compelling reasons why you’d actually wear both unless you get a great deal on the ring trading in an old device or you just really, really, really hate wearing a watch to track your sleep. Thanks so much for watching and a huge thank you to Andy Town here in San Francisco for letting us fill in this beautiful shop and for the delicious coffee. Stay tuned and I’ll have the full review link for you in the description and I’ll catch you next time.