Smartwatches stole the spotlight from phones this fall, but there’s another wearable factor waiting right now: smart rings. Korean outlet Naver recently reported that Samsung has filed a patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office for its own smart ring, complete with ECG and smart home controls. And while it would be great if Samsung did open the doors next fall with a new wearable, the reality is that it will be a long, long time before this kind of futuristic smart ring is ready to debut.
It’s easy to see why smart rings are an attractive prospect. Compared to smartwatches, they are more discreet, the fingers are better for measuring heart rate, and the rings are much more comfortable to wear 24/7. For this reason, they would be ideal for health tracking. But they also present greater engineering and technical challenges than a smartwatch because they are so small.
Take the popular Oura ring, which I’d bet is the only smart consumer ring you’ve probably heard of. Oura recently released a perfectly round Horizon ring. It looks nice—I have one on my finger right now—but it’s not do something other than Gen 3. It’s easy to dismiss this update as a cosmetic change. I did when I first heard the news. But when I sat down with Oura CEO Tom Hale a few weeks ago, he explained that a perfect a round smart ring is an incredible engineering challenge. As it turns out, it’s hard to get a battery that’s both small enough to fit in a ring while being thin and flexible enough to maintain a curved shape. That’s why most smart rings that hit the market have a flat edge somewhere in the design.
This is where we are with consumer smart rings. Real hardware innovation is being able to make something completely round. Meanwhile, its software-based breakthroughs aren’t unique to the smart ring. These days, you can find everything Oura Ring tracks on a smartwatch. (Though to Oura’s credit, her recovery tracking approach is among the best.)
I wouldn’t be shocked if Samsung, Apple or even Google could make a smart ring with ECG capability. There is already one that does, called Prevention Circul Plus. I’m most skeptical of the “smarter” features like controlling your TV, delivering notifications, or interacting with your phone.
Earlier smart rings tried to do more. The Ringly was a trendy $200 ring that vibrated and lit up every time you got a notification, but it didn’t have a screen, so you had to remember which combination of buzzes and lights meant what. It also won’t work if you’re out of Bluetooth range. Meanwhile, the Motiv Ring started out as a simple fitness tracker, but then added biometric two-factor authentication. I never got it to work. The thing is, smart rings are “best” when they’re pretty simple.
Smart rings are “best” when they’re pretty simple
I’d say the Oura Ring is the one that’s stuck around for so long because it’s a purposeful gadget. It’s a recovery tracker and does nothing but collect health data from your finger. Oura has done a lot to contextualize this data. It was smart to work with other health and fitness apps as well as researchers to make its data valuable. But to put it bluntly, it’s a $300 data collector that now comes with a $6 monthly subscription. I quite like my Oura ring, but owning one is essentially paying a premium for a passive device that you’ll rarely interact with.
This is the paradox. With current technology, smart rings don’t work well outside of discreet, passive health tracking. This is great for clinical research, as non-invasive continuous data can potentially unlock many insights. In this case, there are some intriguing smart ring ideas being offered by startups. Ultrahuman is working on a smart ring to “hack” your metabolism; Movano is working to get FDA clearance for a ring to help monitor chronic diseases; and Happy Health just got a lot of funding for a mental health measurement ring.
A smartwatch can do everything a smart ring can do — and much, much more
But as neat as some of these ideas are, I’d argue that these use cases are more interesting to researchers than users. In these inflationary times, consumers want the best bang for their buck, and a smartwatch can do everything a smart ring can – and much, much more.
After all, patents are no guarantee that a company will launch a product. All this patent really tells us is that Samsung is tinkering with the idea of a smart ring and wants to deter its rivals if it can make a profitable product. Unless Samsung can figure out a killer reason why consumers would even want a ‘Galaxy Ring’ – and definitely control a TV is not this — my guess is that this is one patent that won’t see the light of day for a long time. If ever.