The Galaxy Ring Draws Strength From Your Galaxy Watch

Like most fitness tracking rings, Samsung’s Galaxy Ring has been positioned as a minimalist health wearable for people who don’t want the pings and buzzes of a wrist-worn smartwatch or fitness tracker. But that’s only part of its appeal. Its real appeal is that it’s a supplemental wearable if you already have a Galaxy Watch and a Galaxy phone.
When I received my tester, I immediately charged it and added it to Samsung’s Health app, where it joined my Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra. You can elect to send battery-intensive tasks to either the watch or the ring to save battery life on one or the other. I delegated heart-rate monitoring to the watch, and after two days, the ring’s battery life was still at 97 percent.
I can’t think of any other devices that work together that seamlessly for such an immediate, quantifiable improvement. I did compare the Ring’s measurements to an Apple Watch Ultra, which I will discuss later, but after a few days, I switched back to the Galaxy Watch. This is what the ring was made for, so this is the most appropriate testing scenario.
Even from the first unboxing, the Galaxy Ring compared favorably to the Oura Ring. It arrives in an awesome clear charging case with a USB-C connector that snaps shut with a cover. I love this cover. You would not believe how often I manage to knock the Oura Ring off its charger when it’s sitting on my desk. You can also check the battery level by putting the ring on the charger. An LED around the perimeter shows the ring’s battery level, unlike the Oura, whose light just shows if the battery is full or not.
The Ring is titanium and comes in three finishes; I tested the titanium silver. Samsung has a sizing guide consistent with other fitness tracker rings as I was bucketed into my usual size 8. Like most other rings of this type, it has an array of sensors on the inside; a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor with three LEDs to track changes in blood volume, an accelerometer, and a skin temperature sensor.
I can’t feel any of these sensors when wearing the ring. I don’t mind wearing the Oura Ring, but the Galaxy Ring is more than a gram lighter and is noticeably thinner and lightweight. As a bonus, you can go into your Health app on your Samsung phone and click Find My Ring and the LEDs will start flickering! You can’t see them in daylight, but at least the company has acknowledged that one of the major problems with smart rings is how often you lose the darn things. I keep taking mine off mindlessly to wash dishes, lift something heavy, or play the violin. It’s also rated at 10 ATM and IP68, and I have kept mine on while swimming and paddling with my kids.
The battery life depends on how many tasks you want to outsource to your watch. If I’m wearing my Galaxy Watch, the Galaxy Ring lasts over a week. Without it, it lasted a standard three to five days of continuous tracking.
The Galaxy Ring measures a fairly similar set of metrics to the Oura Ring. For example, it offers an Energy Score, which is similar to Oura’s Readiness Score in that it takes in several factors, like your sleep time and consistency and the previous day’s activity, and spits out an easy-to-understand number to show you how ready you are to tackle the day.
To do that, it tracks your sleep. You can click through the Samsung Health app to check your sleep stages, including how long you’ve been awake, your blood oxygen, and whether you’re snoring. It usually records more sleep time than my Apple Watch Ultra; I’m guessing it’s easier for the watch to tell that I’m reading in bed instead of sleeping when my arm is holding my Kindle up to my face.
It can also auto-detect workouts (you have to turn it on in Settings). This was a pleasant surprise, given that in advance of hands-on demos, the company notified us that it would not be able to. The lack of a gyroscope and GPS hurts it a bit. It recorded me as running a half-mile longer than my usual 3.5-mile run. Because the distance was off, my pace was off.
Heart rate measurements with the ring were noticeably lower, but I realized that it’s because I pause runs on my watch to cross streets, and I can’t pause them on the Galaxy Ring. Minute-by-minute on the charts, the heart rates tally. When I wear the ring with the Galaxy Watch Ultra and pause my runs, the average heart rate shoots back up again.
Most interestingly, the Ring was also able to auto-detect summer pool time, which not even the Apple Watch is always able to do. It also classified it as a workout, which was generous given that I only occasionally do lap swimming and spend most of my time in the pool just diving around in circles pretending to be a mermaid.
It has a cycle tracking feature with an algorithm powered by Natural Cycles, which derives its prediction power from skin temperature measurements. The Ring is also unique in that it distinguishes skin temperature recordings while you sleep, taking into account surrounding temperatures, versus the daily skin temperature recording it uses for period prediction. I’ve worn it for about two weeks and it has predicted my period, which until now only the Oura ring has been able to do.
I should also tell you here that if this feature interests you, I would suggest staying away from alcohol, which noticeably throws my skin temperature readings out of whack. The wellness tips—what the company has previously called Booster Cards—are also usually kind of dumb. “Body composition is about more than just weight.” OK, thanks, AI guy.
As with the Galaxy Watch, you can also use it with non-Samsung Android phones. However, features I would consider necessary, like the Energy Score, require Galaxy AI. That’s not available on other Android devices, meaning you won’t get these metrics. At the very least, unlike the Amazfit Helio, you don’t need a subscription plan to access AI-enabled features on the Galaxy phone.
One of the weirdest and best things you can do, if you have a Samsung smartphone, is use Double Pinch with your Galaxy Ring–wearing finger to dismiss your alarm on your phone, which I find strangely convenient. It’s almost beside the point to ask whether the Ring works as a stand-alone wearable. It’s like knocking points off the Apple Watch just because you need an iPhone to use it. Exclusivity is a feature, not a bug.
The Galaxy Ring and Galaxy Watch work together with a seamlessness that is almost, dare I say it, Apple-like in nature. If you have an Android that’s not a Samsung Galaxy phone, you should still get an Oura Ring because it’s cheaper and because you get the full feature set (with a subscription). However, if you have a Samsung Galaxy phone and a Galaxy Watch, this is a comfortable and attractive addition to your health and fitness ensemble. At the very least, it will catch the steps you missed when you charge your watch every morning.