What we know so far

When it comes to wearable technology, it’s always been about watches and wristbands. However, Oura has been on a roll with rings. The company’s devices don’t come with distracting screens and, with the right fit, are practically guaranteed to produce accurate biometric readings. With more competitors jumping in, Samsung wants its own slice of the circle. Here’s what we know so far about the company’s own Galaxy Ring.

Samsung Galaxy Ring release date

Sometime in 2024

After a year’s worth of speculation trudging over patents, potential names, and how long it would take to nab health authority certifications, Samsung announced its intention to launch the Galaxy Ring during its Unpacked event for the Galaxy S24 smartphone series in January. The company hasn’t shared a go-to-market date yet (other than “later this year”), but we’re willing to bet the company will have more to say sometime in the summer during its upcoming Unpacked event for the next-gen Galaxy Z foldable smartphones.

Samsung Galaxy Ring design

Well, it’s a ring, isn’t it? Samsung’s teaser was extremely light on details. The exterior band has a shiny metal finish of some sort and is set to come in three colors — platinum silver, ceramic black, and gold. All three colorways incorporate a black interior fitting featuring an array of sensors that will collect your vital information, including heart rate, blood oxygenation, and other metrics presumably.

The ring will come in sizes 5 to 13 and be marked from S to XL, The Verge reports. Oddly, the battery size will also scale with the physicality of the ring, with a range of 14.5mAh to 21.5mAh. It’s not clear how many hours these cells will put out in a single charge. CNET reports the rings will weigh between 2.3g and 2.9g.

Samsung Galaxy Ring hardware and features

• Certified for sleep apnea detection via Samsung Health Monitor
• Other typical biometrics on smartwatches
• Touch interface for smart home controls?

The media got its first true on-the-record briefing about the Galaxy Ring at Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona and that’s when we heard about what the on-board equipment will be able to track:

• Heart rate
• Movement
• Breathing
• Sleep insights (derived from the above three patterns)

Other data may be gathered, such as period and fertility markers as enabled by existing integration with Natural Cycles.

In addition to all those features, Samsung was especially excited in February to announce that the FDA has given the Samsung Health Monitor app a first-in-the-industry De Novo certification (that is, for novel devices) specifically for its new sleep apnea detection feature. The feature is set to make its way to compatible Galaxy Watch and Galaxy phone devices, and it sure sounds like it’s coming to the Galaxy Ring as mentioned in a February press dispatch. For those who aren’t aware of how much their breathing is obstructed at night, but do know they’re waking up horribly with side effects lasting all day, this will likely be a game changer.

Beyond that, without an on-device graphical user interface, you can bet on either a device-dedicated app or some form of integration into the Galaxy Wearable app and Samsung Health to help keep track and analyze all those bits of data collected from the Ring. Our colleagues at Android Police say new visual data products are in the works, including My Vitality Score — apparently an evaluation index cobbled together from sleep, activity, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability data — and a Booster Card. And if you’re wondering if artificial intelligence will have any business here, you can, indeed, expect it on some level.

Samsung Galaxy Ring pricing and availability

Again, no one really knows either aspect about the Ring at this point. We presume it’ll be available in most markets where Samsung already ships its smartwatches. We do know it’s available for the media to see at Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona.