Galaxy Ring: A Roundtable Discussion on Ambient Sensors and Connected Care at the Consumers Electronics (Equipment Paper)

The benefits of a watch without feeling like you have to pay for everything are what they are trying to sell the Galaxy Ring for. Since there’s no screen interaction, the thinking is that the barrier is lower for users to adopt and wear a smart ring, yet still get the health tracking they want without needing to learn a new interface.

During the session which outlined the vision for its Wearable, Dr. pak said it was a step forward in building out a larger ecosystems of ambient sensor and connected care around the home. Rather than relying on a single device you have to wear comfortably and remember to charge, the notion behind ambient sensing is gathering data from multiple places to remove friction. You feel bad if you think that your ring, watch, and refrigerator remind you to eat a vegetable four days after you last ate it.

The Vitality Score will be a feature of Samsung’s Galaxy Watches too, coming first to the Watch 6 later this year — but will require a Galaxy S24-series phone to work. Ring owners will also be able to specify certain health goals and receive related updates and tips in the form of something called Booster Cards, which are also coming to the Galaxy Health app later this year.

The Galaxy Ring prototypes I was able to try out were presented in three colors: platinum silver, ceramic black, and gold. I was not allowed to take photos during that session, but gold looked right at home next to my wedding ring. The Galaxy Ring is lighter than it looks and doesn’t feel as dense as I thought it would. It has a slightly scupltured shape, and the colors were offered in sizes from 5 to 13 with sizes listed as S through X on the inside of the band.

Last month, Samsung made a surprise product announcement after it debuted its new Galaxy S24 smartphone series—the Galaxy Ring. But it had almost no other information about the smart ring other than its expected release later this year. Well, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company held a roundtable to share a few more details about its newest product category. We know what we know so far.

The company does not consider the Ring to be a replacement for its own smartwatch series. Hon pak says people will be able to wear a watch and a Ring at the same time, and get richer health data.

One example is that the performance of sleep stages improves when someone wears both at the same time to bed. There will be more things that improve if you have both devices.

Fertility tracking will be done. Last year, Natural Cycles and SAMSUNG collaborated to bring period tracking and prediction to the GALAXY WATCH and GALAXY R.