REVIEW: Galaxy Ring makes health monitoring more convenient

O Galaxy Ring It is proposed as an alternative for those who do not like to sleep with smartwatches due to the marks on the wrist and even the discomfort on the arm. With a suggested price of R$3.499, the idea sounds interesting, since its great attributes are its long-lasting battery and comfort in everyday life. See if it is the ideal choice for you.

Design

With an official weight of three grams, I begin this analysis of Galaxy Ring defining it as minimalist. Launched in three colors (Titanium Black, Titanium Silver and Titanium Gold), it will barely be noticed by the people you interact with on a daily basis. See all the colors below:

Despite having sensors that make it blink occasionally, rarely will anyone notice that you are wearing a smart ring. Samsung sent us the black titanium version, but the others also resemble traditional rings, which is great and fulfills the proposal.

The company says that for a better measurement, you should wear it on your index finger, but I preferred to wear it on my ring finger. One detail that I really liked is that, even though it is a ring, the outer part is more concave and does not create the volume that rings of other shapes normally do.

In everyday life, in addition to being able to join your fingers together without any problems thanks to the design, you can also pick up objects without having to take off your Samsung smart ring. Comfort – during all parts of the day that I used it and even at bedtime – is the word I use to define it. Samsung Galaxy Ring.

Speaking specifically about the experience of sleeping with the smart ring, I am a person who is used to sleeping with a watch and I have my partner, Amazfit neo, two years ago. Wearing a ring while resting at night was more comfortable than I expected, with the device barely noticeable.

Durability is also here: in addition to being made of titanium, which in itself is extremely resistant, the Galaxy Ring It can be submerged up to 100 meters deep, thanks to the 10ATM and IP68 certifications, which guarantee resistance to fresh water and sea water, in addition to being dust resistant.

Finally, I need to comment on how thin the Galaxy Ring is: size 10, sent to the showmetech, is 2,6 millimeters thick. You can see that the Samsung made sure to make the most of the available size, as all the sensors could be placed in this minimum space.

Sizes (and measuring kit)

There are nine sizes for those who want to have the smart ring, ranging from 5 to 13. We received size 10 for testing and it fit my ring finger well, but on hotter days, it was necessary to change fingers due to swelling due to the heat.

As I said in the topic above, comfort is one of the key points of the device, but it is worth remembering that, like any other ring, you need to choose the ideal size.

At the launch event, everyone was able to test each of the models to find the ideal one for their everyday life. Wearing size 10 was very comfortable, so here's a tip: Do not purchase the Galaxy Ring without first knowing the ideal size for your index finger.

For those who have doubts about this, Samsung has a finger measurement kit available for purchase on their official website, priced at R$99. However, when you confirm the purchase of the ring, this amount is deducted from the final price. See the kit below:

The selection works like this: the buyer receives the nine sizes at home and chooses one to wear for 24 hours; and only then, when he feels that the ring has been comfortable for a whole day, in that size, can he order the final ring.

Your health monitoring experience depends on this fact, so be careful not to have any problems when purchasing yours. Samsung Galaxy Ring.

Sensors

The Samsung Galaxy Ring has three sensors:

• Accelerometer for motion tracking;
• Bioactivity optical sensor designed to monitor heart conditions such as heart rate, blood pressure and blood oxygenation;
• Skin temperature sensor.

Just like what happens with celebrities Galaxy Watch, all data is sent to the health platform Samsung health and can be viewed on your smartphone, on app for Android. To avoid errors in monitoring, the company recommends that the ring be positioned with its stripe facing the inside of the hand. Like this:

Monitoring

Taking advantage of what worked in the recent Galaxy Watch 7 e Galaxy Watch Ultra (that we have review), the smart ring of Samsung It can capture data such as heart rate, activities performed in a day and number of steps to indicate your health. It is worth remembering that it is not compatible with iOS. That said, let's go through each of them.

Energy score

Your energy score is most influenced by your sleep (the more sleep you get, the higher your energy score will be the next day). I noticed that on off days, when I woke up later, there would be a notification in Samsung Health mentioning that I had slept more, which gave me a boost in my energy score.

It's a good idea to use this monitoring tool as a quick way to see how your nights of rest and day-to-day activities have been. If you're feeling more tired but don't know why, you can open the app and check out Samsung's tips.

step count

There is one point I would like to mention: the step tracking is very discrepant when we compare the measurement of the ring with that of a smart watch. This is a general problem in the smart ring category – journalists from international websites such as Z e The Verge, pointed out the same difference.

I have a habit of working out in the evening and then I start walking more. Journalists abroad recorded a 40% difference in tests, so it's hard to know which one is more correct. See the difference between the steps captured by my Amazfit neo (left) and the smart ring Samsung (on the right):

The big problem with having only one step tracker is that you might think you’ve hit your daily goal before you actually have. It’s like your watch says you’ve taken 1500 steps, but you’ve actually only taken 500.

In the long run, this could negatively influence your results, so there is a need for this to be improved so that step measurement is close to what we see on other devices already used on a daily basis.

Heart rate monitoring

Heart rate monitoring is more accurate: performed hourly, it is possible to see changes on the smartphone screen and also indicate alert levels (maximum and minimum) to receive a notification on the cell phone whenever they are reached. The discrepancy between the data captured by my smartwatch and the ring was not that high; there was a slight difference of 2 beats per minute.

And it's worth remembering that you won't have access to blood pressure detection on the Galaxy Ring, even if you have a Galaxy smartphone. So if you're thinking about buying a device that also has this feature, the right way to go is to invest in a smartwatch.

Moving on to stress measurement, it was also very assertive. In moments when high stress was detected, a breathing exercise in the app Samsung health helped me get back to normal. It's a great tool for people diagnosed with anxiety, as the exercises really help us feel calmer.

Finally, people with a uterus can track their menstrual cycle in the same app and even receive predictions through skin temperature measurements.

sleep monitoring

We come to the big highlight of this model: when it started to entice users with the launch of the Galaxy Ring, Samsung made a point of emphasizing that the device is recommended so that you can sleep without any disturbances. I have the habit of sleeping a lot due to spending a lot of time looking at the computer and, interestingly, the same algorithm of the watches is available to those who buy the Galaxy Ring.

There's nothing new about the measurement method: Samsung requires you to sleep with the device and also try to maintain a consistent bedtime and wake-up time. I really like this, because in addition to getting data on how your nights of sleep went, you can also get tips for sleeping better after a week of analysis.

The animal-based sleep classification system is present here, which makes the interpretation clearer even for laymen. For the two weeks I used the Galaxy Ring, I got the Leo classification, which indicates good nights of sleep and rest.

It's interesting to see that this is completely connected not only with the amount of hours you sleep, but also with the number of sleep cycles you complete during the night. The Smart Ring from Samsung It can also identify your skin temperature, which can also indicate whether you slept well or not.

If you sleep with your phone near your bed, you can set it to detect possible snoring using the microphone. Other data, such as the amount of oxygen, breathing rate, and even the average heart rate while sleeping, are also detected by the Galaxy Ring.

Samsung has pulled off a pretty interesting move: taking the knowledge and structure of its health platform and supporting it with the Galaxy Ring, so you don't have to wear a watch to bed. As one person who has used the Galaxy Watch Ultra previously, having access to sleep data on such a small – and certainly more comfortable – device is interesting.

AGEs Index

Another feature present is the index AGEs, the acronym for Advanced Glycation End Products and which can be translated as Advanced Glycation End Products Index. In practice, the sensors indicate an idea of ​​your metabolic health “based on compounds that develop naturally in the body when protein and fat molecules are oxidized by sugar molecules”, second to Samsung.

And the same comment I made in the Galaxy Watch Ultra review also applies to the review of Galaxy Ring: the company still does not indicate what to do with this information and, for seven days that I used the smart ring, I had the same score.

It's worth taking a moment to consider this because the company itself says that this feature is under development, so let's see what the future holds. For now, it just seems like another piece of data without much use, although experts indicate that the lower your score, the healthier you are. We'll see how this plays out in a while.

And I need to comment on the use of Galaxy A.I.: When the ring is used in conjunction with a smartwatch, the artificial intelligence of the Samsung will use the data previously captured by both devices to avoid interruptions in health monitoring. If the smart ring does not detect a change in your heart rate, data from the watch will be used to supplement this in reports.

Physical activity record

As expected, it is important to note that Samsung's smart ring is somewhat limited. It can monitor Walking and Running automatically. You can also use the body temperature and heart rate sensors to indicate what you are doing in the Samsung Health app. The results are quite accurate for the supported exercises and the same data recorded by the Korean company's smartwatches can be seen here, but there are limitations.

I am a person who practices bodybuilding and I started the activity on the app. Samsung Health, where I was able to monitor the calorie burn in real time, but it is not possible to see the intensity zones, so know that this, in fact, was left to the brand's smartwatches. Only the calories burned were recorded, without further details.

It's important to remember that when choosing a smart ring instead of a smartwatch, you'll have to give up some features in favor of comfort and longer battery life. If you're someone who does a wide variety of activities and wants to have more accurate data about your workouts, then a smart watch or bracelet is definitely the best option.

Commands for the cell phone

As of this writing, pinch gestures, which can be used to take photos or turn off alarms on Galaxy smartphones, were exclusive to the Galaxy z fold 6 e Galaxy z flip 6. Samsung came to say, in an interview with The Verge, that this will be released”coming soon” for models in the Galaxy S24 line, but a date has not yet been announced.

Here, we tested the gestures with a Galaxy M15 and a Galaxy S24 FE, however, both did not work. Therefore, if you have one of the foldables launched this year by Samsung, you can have access to this convenience. If you don't, you will need to wait a little longer to use the cell phone commands through the Galaxy Ring.

A feature that works with all smartphones Galaxy is the resource Find, present in the Galaxy Wear, to make the sensors flash at the same time. Interesting to use if you drop the ring in a dark room, when going to the bathroom or eating.

battery and case

The size 10 we received has a battery of 18.5mAh, the same as sizes 8, 9 and 11. Sizes 5, 6 and 7 have a 17mAh battery, while sizes 12 and 13 have a 22.5mAh battery.

The company promises a maximum battery life of 7 days in situations where the smart ring is used with a Galaxy Watch. Here, I used it for a maximum of 6 days. For the battery to go from 0% to 100%, it was necessary to wait 1h30m.

In my day-to-day use, I only charged the device twice, once a week. Even with only 5% remaining, it still lasted for 4 hours before having to be placed in the charging case, powered by a USB-C connection, wireless charging, and charging with Wireless PowerShare (which allows smartphones to recharge the ring simply by touching it to the back).

There's no power source provided, but you can connect the case to your smartphone's power supply or to a computer. And here's one of the Galaxy Ring's highlights: for a health monitoring device, the battery lasts quite a while. Of course, the number of sensors and the lack of a screen will have a big impact on this, but considering that it works 24 hours a day, it's a lot.

The most interesting thing about the case is that, in addition to being transparent and very elegant, it also fits in your pants pocket. When it is not being used to charge the ring, it can be used as a good carrying case for the smart ring.

Price and availability

Big news in the health monitoring market, the Galaxy Ring was released in Brazil on September 19, 2024 and has a suggested price of R$ 3.499, exclusively on Samsung's official website or selected brand stores.

In Brazil, this is the only smart ring compatible with Android sold officially. But, internationally, the big competitor is Oura Ring 4, sold from US$ 349 (R$ 1.905,47 in direct conversion).

The company strongly recommends that all interested parties purchase the measurement kit for R$99 and wear it on their index finger for 24 hours. When confirming the purchase of the Galaxy Ring, this amount is deducted and the final price, in cash, is R$3.050.

Conclusion

I define the Galaxy Ring as an interesting bet: the Samsung It has combined its health monitoring expertise with other devices and has also solved the discomfort problem reported by people who do not like to wear smart watches or bracelets while sleeping. And in Brazil, it is the best smart ring for those who use Android smartphones, especially from Samsung, since its use will be a complement to the Galaxy Watch.

It is worth remembering that the Galaxy Ring is a great market test to see whether there is demand for smart rings or not. In a market dominated by Oura, time will tell if companies like Apple e Google will go the same way or if we are not yet at the time of having more smart ring options on the market.

Price is still its biggest heel Achilles: Having access to a premium health monitoring tool requires, during its first month of launch, an investment of more than R$3. In a “perfect” world, the ideal price, based on what it delivers, would be between R$1.800 and R$2.000, so if you are interested in making the purchase, but don’t want to pay that much, it’s worth waiting a little.

If you want to be part of the group of people who will have the Galaxy Ring on their fingers, you will have access to a great tool to know how you have been sleeping and even improve your nights of rest, in addition to monitoring simpler exercises. It is worth mentioning that it can also monitor heart rate and stress levels, and it weighs three grams.

A large company needed to take the step of launching a smart ring in different parts of the world; and Samsung did. Could the price be considered high for some people? Of course, absolutely; but it's worth following the Galaxy Ring closely to see where it ends up.

Technical specifications

Córdoba	Galaxy Ring
Brand	Samsung
Material	Titanium
Product Size	Width: 7,0 mm Thickness: 2,6 mm Weight: 2,3g (Size 5) ~ 3,0g (Size 13)
SKU	Size: 9 (Size 5 – Size 13) Color: Titanium Black, Titanium Silver, Titanium Gold
Battery	Ring: 18mAh (Size 5) – 23,5mAh (Size 13) Case: 361 mAh Usage: Up to 7 days (Full charge: 80 min)
Sensor	PPG: 2PD + 2LED(G) + 2VCSEL(R,IR)
MCU	Nordic MCU
Memory	8MB
Connectivity	BLE 5.4
Water resistance	10ATM, IP68
Price in Brazil	R$3.499

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