Would you wear a RM2,000 ring to bed? For the past 3 weeks, I’ve tested the Samsung Galaxy Ring everyday, side by side with the WHOOP Band, a fitness tracker trusted by elite athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk.
But while some of the results surprised me, others made me wonder if this ring is really worth it.
Charging Case
Starting with what might be the most underrated parts, which is the charging case. This looks like something Tony Stark would keep an arc reactor in. It’s compact, feels premium, and the ring snaps in magnetically. Plus, you also see a subtle ring light glow around the edge, and that is to show the battery status.
But what’s nice is that it uses USB-C, so there’s no weird magnetic cables that you lose in 3 days. Because we all know once a proprietary charger goes missing, it enters a parallel universe of lost socks and AirPods as well.
But the only drawback about it is the fact that this case will only be able to charge the ring about one and a half times, compared to something like the Ringconn smart ring case that can charge between 10 to 15 times. But more on the battery life later on.
Design
Design-wise, on the finger, it is actually extremely comfortable and also very light, compared to my first impressions because of how thick it was compared to a regular ring.
There’s an indicator outside of the ring, towards the palm area for accurate tracking. Something that always made me a bit more conscious about, to a point where I keep looking at the ring that my wife kept asking me why I keep looking at the ring.
In terms of color, I love the Titanium Silver finish because it is sleek and most importantly, hides scratches well as it doesn’t also scream smart ring from afar, compared to the Titanium Gold, which is a color that you could see in 1 kilometer away and it kind of looked like I was prepping for a Bollywood wedding.
But the Black Titanium was nice, but the wear and tear of that ring, especially on the scratches, are more visible compared to the silver finish.
And because the edges are very soft, I didn’t accidentally scratch my phone screen, which happened to my regular ring before this. Yep, been there, scratch that.
Battery
On the battery side of things, Samsung claims that this size 9, along with the sizes of 8, 10, and 11, will last up to 6 days on a single charge.
So did it hold up that long? Well, here’s my actual usage:
Starting from Day 1 at 100%.
When I was on Day 3, I was at 73% in the morning.
Day 4, I was at 45% in the morning.
And then Day 5, I was about 22% also at the same time.
Finally, on Day 6, I was at 11% where it held up until the end of the day.
And this is with me working out every single day and also wearing to sleep every day as well. So yes, the battery life on this was really great.
Tracking Features (vs WHOOP Band)
Which brings us to find out how good or bad does this track when it comes to sleeping or other metrics. So let’s compare it with my WHOOP Band after 3 weeks.
Sleep Tracking
Sleep tracking? Really impressive! There was one night I woke up at 2:46 a.m. and I didn’t sleep again until 4:40 a.m. and then this Galaxy Ring tracked it correctly, while WHOOP just called it a “nap”. Even the HRV or the Heart Rate Variability reading while asleep was very close to the WHOOP as well. So kudos to Samsung on that.
Calorie Tracking
As for tracking your calories burnt, not so great as the numbers were quite off compared to the WHOOP band. So if you’re really into calorie tracking, keep that in mind.
Step Counting
And this is probably because the step counts are also very questionable, because like most smart rings, this actually uses accelerometers. So if your hands are moving or swinging, it actually counts as steps.
Automatic Walking Detection
Then as for the automatic walking detection, this was so much better than the WHOOP band at detecting when I was walking, where it kicked in faster and even more accurately.
Workout Detection
But when it comes to other workout detection, like going on an elliptical or just playing pickleball, it doesn’t detect those workouts automatically compared to the WHOOP.
Oh, and speaking of pickleball, that particular sport doesn’t even exist on Samsung Health. Only Racquetball? I mean, who’s playing racquetball in Malaysia? Even then, the cardio zone data was also lacking.
But when it comes to a day-to-day comfort, since this is a device that you wear on your finger instead of wearing it like a watch for the WHOOP, things like washing your plates or just cleaning the home with a ring on had no issues at all, especially with the IP68 rating, was definitely a peace of mind.
As for weighted workout, push style workouts were very comfortable. But when it comes to pull movements though, it took some getting used to, but at least it didn’t slice up my hands or dig in like some other clunky rings do.
Software & App
Speaking of the Samsung Health earlier, if you’re familiar with it, then the software is how you would expect it to be. Not as extensive as the WHOOP, but that is to be expected since the WHOOP or even the Oura Ring app has a subscription tied to it.
But the biggest caveat is the fact that if you do not use it with a Samsung smartphone, you lose out the pinch gesture to take a photo or to dismiss an alarm, which to be honest, may not be a huge loss.
But where it was a huge loss for Samsung is the fact that this ring is not compatible with any iOS devices. So here is where it is honestly a huge missed opportunity because that is exactly what HUAWEI has been doing with their smartwatches recently, especially knowing the fact that there’s no Apple equivalent of the smart ring.
This would mean that more people would have gotten to this Galaxy Ring even though they don’t own an Android device, since people would rather go with a brand like Samsung who are better known compared to any other tech brands.
Improvement Ideas
While this is the first generation smart ring for Samsung, there’s definitely a lot to like with this Galaxy Ring from an overall hardware perspective. But here is where I hope they would improve on, especially from a software standpoint.
Firstly, notifications based on low energy score would be great. For example, the app can tell you to take it easy or when to wind down based on your energy score. Because in this day and age, putting an alarm to sleep is way better than setting an alarm to wake up.
It will also be great if there’s an option to add a workout just in case you have forgotten to do so since the automatic workout detection is not the best compared to even the Samsung Galaxy Watch series, which does a way better job.
And then adding additional gesture controls like switching music tracks or even answering phone calls would be great on this pinch gesture or any similar gesture.
And this might be a far-fetched one, but imagine NFC support for payments because imagine how you can enter your home or make payments with your ring like you’re in a spy movie!
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Let me know what you guys think of this Galaxy Ring!
Related: Samsung Galaxy Ring Hands-On
