Samsung Galaxy Ring: Release date, features, price and more

We expect Samsung to fully reveal the Galaxy Ring at its Unpacked event on July 10, but many of the smart ring’s health-tracking features have already leaked online.

Tech site Android Authority discovered code in the latest version of the Samsung Health app related to the Galaxy Ring’s features, including stress tracking, heart rate monitoring, period tracking, and skin temperature measurement.

First unveiled by Samsung at the tech giant’s annual Unpacked event in January, the Galaxy Ring will be the first smart ring Samsung has ever produced. The company has filed a preemptive action against market-leading Oura Ring in an attempt to get a declaratory judgment that could prevent Oura from filing a patent claim against Samsung when it releases the Galaxy Ring – something Oura has previously done against competitors like Circular and Ultrahuman.

Samsung’s filing included a mention of a Galaxy ring release date. The unobtrusive smart ring – which promises to monitor your health data and provide metrics-based insights throughout the day and night – is set to join the ever-growing wearables market when it launches this August.

The Independent was one of the first outlets to see a prototype of the Galaxy Ring in early February, with our tech critic David Phelan getting a hands-on look at the smart ring. While we don’t have a firm release date for the Galaxy ring, a court filing has given us a release month, and new leaks suggest that it could cost the same as the Oura ring, including a subscription. Read on for all the latest news and rumours, from price, specs and features to design and release date.

Read more: We review the best smartwatches

Samsung Galaxy Ring release date: When could the smart ring launch?

Thanks to Samsung’s preemptive court filing against Oura, we now know that the Samsung Galaxy Ring will launch in August of this year. The lawsuit also confirmed that the Galaxy Ring was fully completed in mid-May and that it went into mass production in mid-June.

In May, the upcoming wearable appeared as an option in the One UI battery widget on phones, suggesting that Samsung has laid the groundwork to release the Galaxy Ring soon.

Until the court filing, all we knew about the Galaxy Ring’s release date was that it would launch in the second half of the year. Samsung’s head of B2B wearables Daniel Seung revealed in a (now deleted) LinkedIn post that a new health and wellness wearable will be released in the second half of 2024.

The Galaxy Ring is almost guaranteed to be fully revealed at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked event next week. Samsung holds two Galaxy Unpacked events every year — one in January, where it focuses on its S line of smartphones, and one in July, where it usually focuses on its foldable phones, smartwatches, and tablets. The Galaxy Ring fits beautifully into this summer’s Unpacked event.

Samsung Galaxy Ring Price: How much could a smart ring cost?

When the Galaxy Ring was unveiled in January, little was said about the price tag, but we expect it to be an expensive piece of kit because you have to fit a lot of sensors into a small band. According to the latest news, it could be.

Tech tipster Yogesh Brar on X (formerly Twitter) said the Samsung Galaxy Ring will cost Rs 35,000 in India and between $300 and $350 (£235 and £275) in the US. That’s about the same price as the Oura ring.

He also said Android Authority that he believed the Samsung Galaxy Ring could come with a monthly subscription of less than $10 in the US, according to his sources. This matches the rumor from CNBC below.

This is consistent with our own speculation. Now the gold standard model, the Oura Ring starts at £200 and can go up to £540, while the Ultrahuman Ring costs £349 and the more affordable Circle Ring costs £199. It would make sense if the Galaxy ring cost around the same price.

According to CNBC, Samsung is considering a subscription service for the Galaxy Health app. While this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have to pay a subscription fee for the Galaxy Ring, it’s a real possibility. Oura uses subscriptions for its smart ring. In addition to the cost of the ring itself, you also have to pay a monthly fee of £5.99 to access all of its most useful premium features.

Samsung Galaxy Ring Features and Specifications

Android Authority’s analysis of the Samsung Health app appears to reveal many of the Galaxy Ring’s health-tracking features. These include heart rate, sleep, snoring and period tracking, as well as skin temperature sensors. These are all features we’ve come to expect from Samsung’s first wearable ring.

We first received reports that Samsung was working on a smart ring as early as 2022 when an article from a Korean publication Probably suggested that the tech giant has started development of the wearable device with several companies.

in message Probably he said the ring will include an ECG and PPG sensor — both included in the Oura ring — and will allow the ring to monitor the wearer’s temperature and heart rate. In an interview with CNBCHon Pak, head of digital health at Samsung, said the ring will be able to track your heart rate, breathing rate, movement during sleep and the time it takes a person to fall asleep once in bed. These are all the features currently available on the Oura ring.

As with most smart rings, the focus is more on sleep than fitness. Pak said Wired that the Galaxy ring won’t be able to automatically detect exercise on startup, which is something the Oura ring can do (although we found it a bit random). However, it will be able to track and predict fertility.

The real game-changing feature will be payments. McLear RingPay is the only smart ring that can make contactless payments on NFC terminals, but there are fees and limits and only make payments – don’t track sleep or anything else. “We have a whole… team looking into this. But I think it’s clear that if I look at a few different use cases for the Ring outside of just health, sure,” Pak said CNBC when inquiring about contactless payments.

At the end of May, the Galaxy Ring passed FCC certification, and the FCC filing gave us details on the ring’s battery life. According to submission, the battery life of the ring will vary depending on the ring size you choose. The smallest Galaxy ring will have a 17mAh battery, while the largest ring will boast a 22.5mAh battery, although in practice this shouldn’t make too much of a difference. But it is said to last up to nine days on a single charge.

He then revealed the two main features of the Galaxy Ring in a Samsung blog post published in late February. The first is a feature called My Vitality Score, which sums up your physical well-being, mental well-being and sleep into a number and tells you how ready your body is for the day ahead. It’s basically the same as the readiness score on the Oura Ring, Fitbit, or the body battery feature on a Garmin smartwatch.

A May court filing against Ouro included a screenshot of the Samsung Health app, which shows what appears to be an energy score that is decided based on a number of different metrics, from sleep and heart rate to activity and heart rate variability.

The other main feature is something called boost cards, which provide health information to keep you energized throughout the day. This is something that is usually tucked behind a paywall on other smart wearables.

Samsung also said CNBC that it is working on an artificial intelligence digital coach to help users keep track of their health and fitness. “There will be a digital assistant coach in the future because we think it’s absolutely needed,” Pak told the publication. “Imagine that big language model that’s acting as my digital assistant, looking at the context of my medical records, my physiological data, my engagement with my mobile device, my wearables during all of that… it starts to bring better insights and personalization. opportunities.”

It will also reportedly work as a standalone device, but you’ll potentially get better data when paired with the Galaxy Watch 6.

Then, in his blog post, he also suggested that the Galaxy ring could be involved in monitoring sleep apnea symptoms. Samsung Health can track changes in blood oxygen levels, sleep patterns, and heart rate while you sleep.

Samsung Galaxy Ring Design

When it comes to design, The Independent’s the tech critic was one of the first to get hands-on with a prototype device in early February. “The prototypes I wasn’t allowed to photograph came in a dozen sizes and four different colors, including shiny gold and matte black. The rings had a concave outer edge that was strangely appealing to the touch,” he said. “It was light and comfortable, so wearing it at night, for example, was much more appealing than a smartwatch.”

Since the preview of the Galaxy ring at MWC in Barcelona in late February, more details about the ring have come to light. According to Samsung, there are three color options – black, gold and silver – and nine different sizes to choose from (5 to 13). It comes with a size kit just like other smart rings on the market.

ZDNet’s Kerry Wan provided more detailed notes on the design of the Galaxy ring, saying that the outer ring had an internal indentation that made it easier to wear even if your fingers spread (which they often do during the day). It also fits the Oura ring differently, with some having to adjust at Samsung’s briefing.

The company didn’t reveal any information about what the Galaxy Ring is made of, but it did say Wired that it meant durability. Most of the best smart rings are made of titanium or ceramic, which makes them less prone to scratches, although the slightly cheaper circular ring is made of aluminum and carbon fiber and is less durable than others we tested.

We’ll be watching for more Galaxy Ring news in the coming months. At the moment, if you’re looking to ditch your fitness tracker for a smart ring, we’ve rated the Oura ring as our favorite, and it’s recently released new features as the Galaxy ring launches.

Launching in 2021, the third-generation Oura Ring is the most capable yet, with blood oxygen monitoring, training tracking, daily heart rate monitoring and periodic cycle prediction. “If you’re looking for a sleep tracker, an activity tracker, or just want to know as much as possible about your body, the third-generation Oura Ring ticks a lot of your boxes in one small package,” our writer said in their review. “With different colored rings, it’s probably more stylish than a Fitbit or a Garmin.”

Buy now

Voucher codes

For deals on activity trackers and other tech products, try our discount code pages:

For more inspiration, read ours overview of the best fitness trackers