While Samsung’s Galaxy Ring is still months away from an official launch, its announcement is proof that the smart ring is the next frontier of the health wearable space. The problem with smartwatches like the Apple or Galaxy Watch, you see, is that they aren’t for everyone. Not all people wear watches, and for the ones who do, there’s a large subset of people who prefer analog timepieces rather than gadgets with screens and sensors. Rings, on the other hand, have a distinct advantage – they’re smaller, sleeker, lighter, and unlike watches, you can wear multiple, combining your wedding ring or any ring-based jewelry with a health-tracking wearable ring. The smart ring market is at the precipice of expansion, and months from now you’ll see hundreds of brands jumping on the bandwagon… but if you’re looking for one now, the Vera Ring is a compelling pick. Designed to be incredibly sleek, breathtakingly light, and completely waterproof, the Vera Ring does everything a health tracker can do and more. It monitors your heart rate 24/7, tracking your heart health, respiratory health, stress levels, sleep quality, and even combines multiple metrics like body temperature, heart rate variability, and stress levels to tell you how good your overall immunity is.
The creators of the Vera Ring make a compelling argument – in the regular world, you’re bombarded with metrics and data everywhere. Businesses thrive on data, programs require data to run, AI systems are entirely beholden to their databases – but there’s hardly any good real-time data-measuring for your body. Unless you’re wearing a smartwatch 24/7, you have no way of being able to get a broad yet focused overview of your health. That’s where a smart ring comes in. The Vera Ring looks and feels exactly like your everyday ring, but sits on your finger and tracks your body metrics all day all week. With a battery that lasts for 7 full days on a charge, the Vera captures a weekly holistic portrait of your health, presenting all that information to you in a way that’s easy to digest. You can see if your heart’s healthy, if you’re running normal body temperature, if you’re sleeping well or sleeping enough, if you’re stressed or relaxed, and even track menstrual cycles. More so, the Vera app also recommends tweaks to your lifestyle to help you improve your health, and catches health issues before they become serious or irreversible.
The beauty of the Vera Ring lies in its design. 2.5mm thick and 7.5mm wide, the Vera is an icon of minimalism, with a metal finish on the outside, and a medical-grade resin inner that holds all the components in place. The tiny ring weighs anywhere from 5.2 grams (0.18 ounces) to 8.5 grams (0.29 ounces) depending on size, and is hermetically sealed, making it completely waterproof so you could wear it everywhere, even in the shower or the pool. The only time you really need to take it off is when it’s low on charge, and the ring comes with its own holder/charger that lets you dock it and charge it in mere minutes.
Slip the ring on and it begins tracking all your vitals, sending complex data to the Vera app where everything is simplified into easy-to-digest bits. The ring has a 6-axis accelerometer, a skin temperature sensor, and multiple PPG sensors that measure blood volume variations to detect heart rate, blood oxygen, and multiple other metrics pertaining to your health while you’re awake or asleep. Data in real-time gets sent to the Vera app, where an intuitive dashboard gives you scores based on different domains like your heart health, sleep health, stress levels, and even your overall immunity, calculated as a culmination of multiple factors. The app lets you monitor your scores over days and weeks, and does so not just for your ring, but for your entire family, allowing you to check up on your elderly parents, see if your kids are getting enough physical activity or sleep, or if you or your partner are feeling stressed. For women, the Vera also helps effectively track menstrual cycles, giving them a holistic snapshot of their body through the week and the month.
What really seals the deal is that the Vera Ring focuses on the essentials, doing the job of a health-tracking watch but without a distracting screen. You aren’t inundated with notifications, or with a constant need to keep looking at how many steps you’ve taken (I’m guilty of wanting to complete my Apple Watch activity ring every single day) – the ring silently and diligently tracks your vitals 24×7, connecting to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0 to present you with information only when you access the Vera smartphone app.
The Vera Ring comes in 6 different finishes (3 matte metal and 3 ‘precious’ chrome metal finishes) and multiple sizes to fit a variety of fingers. Each ring is also accompanied by a battery stand that can charge the ring and can even hold enough power to juice your Vera Ring 30 times over. The Vera Ring starts at a discounted $249, ships globally with a 1-year warranty, and backers get a lifetime subscription to all the Vera app’s features.
Now that smartwatches have more or less become more acceptable in society, it seems that the wearable tech market is setting its eyes on less conspicuous and less distracting designs for monitoring one’s health and fitness. And just like smartwatches in their early years, smart rings just aren’t resounding yet with people, though that could only be a matter of time. There hasn’t been much variety yet in this nascent market, which isn’t surprising given the physical limitations of a ring. Wearable tech brand Amazfit, however, believes it has something unique to offer, at least to athletes and very active people who are just as concerned with their mental health and recovery as they are with their steps and heart rate.
The niche that smartwatches have found themselves in seems to revolve around fitness and health, with features like activity tracking, health monitors, and the like. While those are indeed important metrics, they only represent a part of one’s overall well-being. Mental health is just as important, and giving your body and mind time to rest and recover is critical as well. Those are the points that the Amazfit Helio Ring is trying to emphasize in order to differentiate it from the likes of the Oura Ring, currently the leading name in this very young and small market.
In a nutshell, the Amazfit Helio Ring takes the same data collected by sensors inside the ring but interprets them in a slightly different way. Of course, it still records your steps, tracks your blood oxygen levels, and even monitors your sleep, but it frames that information in light of stress levels, your mental health, and most importantly, how well you’re taking steps to recover from those. Amazfit will propose actionable steps to guide you toward recovery, which unsurprisingly include getting enough sleep and meditation.
As for the device itself, the Amazfit Helios Ring is a bit of an outlier in that it doesn’t try to masquerade as a piece of jewelry. The dotted pattern on its surface is a dead giveaway that it is anything but luxurious, giving it a more rugged appearance that its target audience won’t mind anyway. In fact, it is intentionally designed for this group of people, using “skin-friendly” titanium alloy and ensuring water resistance of up to 10ATM, for those times when you need to take a swim.
The Amazfit Helios Ring can be used on its own, with or without an Amazfit smartwatch. Of course, you will need to pair with the mobile app, but you will also need to subscribe to the Zepp Aura rest and wellness service to really use the data it gives. A purchase of the ring will include a three-month free trial, but there are no pricing details available yet.
Smartwatches are soon going to become the Blackberries of the wearable world. Only people who really need ‘watches’ will opt for them… while the rest of us will wear smaller, more inconspicuous finger-based smart wearables like the Ring One. Designed to monitor your vitals, track your fitness routines, measure your sleep, even detect period cycles in women, and enable NFC payments with a simple tap, the Ring One is a slick wearable that sits on your finger. It might be missing a screen, but it makes up for it by still doing a stellar job of keeping a tab on your vitals in real-time, tracking micro-fluctuations in your heart-rate and temperature, and even measuring all 4 stages of your sleep. It’s 80% smaller than a smartwatch, but does 99% of the things a smartwatch does… except for telling you the time, of course.
Designers: Janeef Mayari, Sai Prasanth KLN & Dhoorjati Varma
Engineered to be small enough to fit on your finger, the Ring One disguises itself as a piece of jewelry… but hides some impressive tech underneath the surface. It trades the smartwatch’s crown for a rotating dial, allowing you to toggle between the Ring One’s many different modes, from heart tracking to fitness/workout tracking, sleep tracking, making NFC payments, and even letting you remotely unlock your car. The underside of the ring has a research-grade optical PPG sensor, a temperature sensor, gyroscopes, and accelerometers that help it track movement and how your body responds to it. The Ring One is capable of tracking your health 24/7, with a battery that still manages to pull off a week’s worth of use before it needs charging. All this sits within a ring that’s made from grade-2 Titanium and medical-grade epoxy, making the entire device hypoallergenic and 10x lighter than your average smartwatch.
Wake up each morning to detailed sleep insights.
Keep an eye on your heart and your overall health.
Given the discernible lack of a screen, the Ring One relies on a smartphone app to display its data. This works well for people who don’t want extra screens on their wrist, giving you a wearable that allows you to focus without distracting you with metrics and all sorts of data-points. When you want to perform a deep-dive into your health, the Ring One’s app has historical as well as real-time data for you, ranging across a variety of categories, from a breakdown of your heart activity including heart rate, HRV, SpO2, blood pressure, and skin temperature, to a comprehensive analysis of your sleep across wakeful, REM, core, and deep sleep stages.
Maximize your fitness gains with advanced exercise metrics.
Turn the ‘bezel’ or Turn Wheel on the Ring One and it instantly goes into workout tracking mode, letting you get a comprehensive breakdown of your exercise routine by measuring your heart rate, steps taken, calories burnt, and overall strain index. It even goes as far as recommending how much you should strain yourself on a given day as per your sleep score, ensuring your body is well-rested enough for a rigorous workout. For women wearers, the Ring One serves as an effective period tracking device, letting you know well in advance of your cycle status.
Enjoy secure and convenient payments.
Quite like any wearable, the Ring One prides itself in versatility too. Rotate the Turn Wheel further and it turns into an NFC-enabled payment device that lets you tap to pay at terminals and other POS systems. The Ring One app lets you store all your favorite cards, and lets you directly tap-to-pay with them through the ring itself.
Use Ring One as your car key.
Once you’ve made the payment, rotate the ring to ‘lock’ it so it doesn’t tap anywhere else by accident – similar to simply putting your card back in your wallet. The NFC feature extends to car keys too, supported by the Digital Key 2.0 specification. Feed the details into the app and you can use your Ring One to unlock your Tesla, Hyundai, and other compliant cars.
An iconic charging case.
Despite its ridiculously small size, the Ring One boasts an impressive 7-day battery life even when kept running all day long. Its data gets beamed to the smartphone app in real-time, letting you see your stats at any given point of the day as well as from your history. A proprietary dock lets you charge your Ring One when not in use or when its battery gets depleted. Place the ring in it and it wirelessly begins juicing your wearable’s battery. The dock has a light to let you know your Ring One’s charging status, and even has a built-in tweeter that lets you ‘ring’ your Ring One from your phone just in case you can’t find the dock with the Ring One on it.
The slick Ring One comes in a variety of finishes, from a nude steel to an anodized black, gold, and even a rose-gold finish with a choice between a black or a white band running around the center. The Ring One starts at a discounted $172 for any of the titanium-based variants, but if you’re looking to really bling up your wearable, Ring One’s makers will craft a solid 18-carat gold Ring One wearable for you for $599 just in case you want to treat yourself to a bit of jewelry, or want to surprise your partner with an eternal symbol of love and overall health and wellness!
Smart wearables and activity trackers are en vogue these days, but with few exceptions, most of them seem to be hyper-focused on the “activity” part of our fitness. Sure, being active and burning calories is always a good thing, especially considering the sedentary lifestyles that most people adopt, but these aren’t the only factors that will keep you living healthy and enjoying life longer. Sleep and recovery, stress and relaxation, and even the coffee you drink all contribute to your overall health, and the Ultrahuman Ring AIR provides a window into those metrics with a stylish wearable that’s so lightweight and comfortable that you might even forget you’re wearing one.
Activity trackers, which evolved from single-purpose pedometers, are nothing new. They come in different forms, from smart bands to smartwatches to the new breed of smart rings, but they have many common characteristics. They’re designed to detect your activity and your body’s vitals as they’re related to those activities, sometimes with some sleep tracking on the side. The latter, unfortunately, doesn’t get as much attention as sweating it out during the day, which further feeds the misunderstanding that sleep is something you can cut down if you need more hours in a day. The Ultrahuman Ring AIR, however, takes a very different approach, one that places sleep above all to provide a more holistic view of your current health so that you can take the necessary steps to improve it.
Sleep Index – Derived to help you understand the various sleep stages such as Deep sleep, REM sleep, Light sleep and being Awake.
Circadian Phase Alignment – A way to sync with your body’s natural rhythm. Analyse temperature minima, align your lifestyle and optimise your sleep-wake cycle for improved cognitive function, energy levels, and hormone balance.
Recovery Score – Derived from a blend of key metrics, including Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Heart Rate, and Skin Temperature, this score provides insights into various signals your body sends throughout the day, enabling a deeper comprehension of its needs.
Movement Index – The score is based on metabolic equivalent (METs) and depends on how much you move throughout the day rather than just your workout for a specific duration during the day.
Stimulant Window Recommender – Designed to optimize your stimulant consumption for enhanced productivity and sleep management.
The Ultrahuman Ring AIR gives due importance to your sleep index, which gives insight not just into your sleep length but also to sleep efficiency, restfulness, consistency, and other markers that indicate the quality of your rest. It also gives you a Recovery Score, using body signals like heart rate variability (HRV) and skin temperature to detect your levels of stress. Of course, it doesn’t just tell you that you’re stressed but also offers concrete ways to calm down, harnessing a huge library of premium content from athletes and experts available on the Ultrahuman app. Ultrahuman even has a “Stimulant Window Recommender” that tells you the best time to drink your favorite coffee blend to have the best effect on your productivity. It also features a revolutionary Circadian Phase Alignment that helps you sync with your natural body rhythm, optimizing your sleep-wake cycle for improved cognitive functions and more balanced health. There’s also Phase Advance that nudges you to move and enjoy healthy sunlight to help shift your sleep schedule earlier. There are even more features coming, including respiratory rate and that oh-so-desirable blood pressure measurement.
Water Resistance – Provides reliable water resistance up to ~330 feet.
Of course, none of this valuable information would matter if your smart ring didn’t make it to the end of the day or didn’t make it out of the swimming pool. Thankfully, the Ultrahuman Ring AIR is not only elegant but also long-lasting, both inside and out. It has an advertised battery life of 6 days, ensuring that you get the most out of all the metrics that it can collect 24 hours a day. The tungsten carbide that coats the titanium outer shell provides a double layer of durability, while its water resistance enables you to wear it for a swim or a shallow dive to a depth of 330 meters. Despite all this toughness, the smooth, hypoallergenic inner shell and lightweight construction make it a joy to wear all throughout the day, especially when you’re sleeping at night.
Being more aware of one’s health is a great thing, but it’s easy to overlook or even take for granted how sleep and recovery play a critical role in our well-being. With the Ultrahuman Ring AIR and the Ultrahuman app’s extensive wealth of knowledge and content, you can get a more holistic grasp of your body’s state and take well-informed steps to make sure that you’re living your healthiest so that you can live life to the fullest.
Stylish minimalist design with a lightweight construction and multiple size options
Incredibly long battery life (even more with the case)
Can be worn while swimming, taking a bath, or washing dishes
No subscription fee required for full data access
CONS:
Prone to scratches
Syncing requires the mobile app to be running
RATINGS:
AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY
EDITOR'S QUOTE:
With an elegant and comfortable design and a battery that lasts for almost a week, the RingConn focuses on the essential parts of your health without getting in the way of your life.
The past years have seen an increased interest in personal fitness and health, both physical and mental, which has finally given smartwatches a reason to exist in the market for good. These wrist-worn smart devices have become miniature health clinics that take note of your body’s condition and state and offer some interpretation of this data. But despite smartwatches becoming a bit more stylish than their ancestors, not everyone is comfortable wearing one or is willing to give up a favored timepiece just to keep tabs on their health. The need for discretion and comfort has given rise to a new breed of fitness wearable, one that can be worn discreetly on one’s finger. RingConn is the latest to dip its finger into this niche and nascent market, so we decided to put it on to see if it’s just another “also ran” or if it has the potential to truly change the smart wearable landscape.
Right off the bat, you’ll notice and probably appreciate how simple the RingConn is; a breath of fresh air compared to the sophisticated smartwatches that brands recommend we wear to track our health regularly. It’s the perfect compromise for someone who does want to monitor their activities and sleep without being physically and mentally burdened by the complications of a smartwatch. The ring is a simple circle, though not a perfect round shape because of a subtly flat bottom. Fortunately, you won’t exactly notice that unless you examine the ring closely, and its minimalist design is enough to give the illusion of being anything but a gadget.
Simple doesn’t mean bland, however, and the RingConn definitely brings a touch of class to its appearance. Made from titanium on the outside, the ring is both durable and lightweight, so it doesn’t actually feel that substantial when worn on any finger. It comes in three stylish color options, with Moonlit Silver and Pale Gold gold offering a more luxurious character not unlike fine jewelry. Midnight Black, on the other hand, is more subdued and discreet, a better fit for those who don’t want to call too much attention to the ring.
The ring, however, is rather thick, and that makes it really noticeable even on larger fingers. That’s especially true if placed beside regular rings, especially wedding bands. It isn’t exactly an eyesore, but it does have some significant implications. For example, that does mean that it’s more likely to come in contact with some surface or object compared to thin rings, which introduces risks of scratching. The RingConn’s durability unfortunately only applies to its structural integrity, not to its shiny surface. These two factors together mean that the ring is more likely to get scuffs and scratches during the course of a few days, and the black model is apparently more prone to this than the other two colors. It’s not a complete deal-breaker, but it should give wearers fewer reasons to panic once the scratches start to show in just a few days or weeks.
The charging case mirrors the ring’s minimalist bent, made from matte aluminum that gives the accessory an elegant appearance and a solid build. Each case is made for a specific ring size, so the ring fits perfectly around the charging dock and won’t jump around when the case is placed inside your bag or pocket. Although it can easily slip into your pocket, it’s not as compact as, say, an AirPods charging case. RingConn could have probably made it a bit smaller by sacrificing some battery capacity and it wouldn’t have negatively affected the ring’s performance too much.
Ergonomics
One of the problems with smartwatches is that even the lightest of them tend to be heavier than traditional watches because of the electronics and batteries they have to bear. Even those already used to wearing timepieces on their wrists might still find that too uncomfortable, which makes them even more wary of parting with their favorite, lightweight watch. With its incredibly light body and small footprint, the RingConn doesn’t have that problem and stays out of your way, at least most of the time.
The ring doesn’t bear down on your finger, but it’s not completely unnoticeable either. Its larger-than-normal size easily makes its presence known, but its thickness is what really calls your attention to it from time to time. You will hear it tap on surfaces when you place your hand down, and you will feel it when you grip something tightly. It’s not a painful nor an uncomfortable experience, but it becomes a constant reminder that you’re wearing something unconventional on your finger.
Unlike smartwatches that have an almost “one size fits all” design, rings have to fit a finger to avoid it falling off or, conversely, affecting blood circulation. This is especially true for these smart rings that need to be in contact with a specific side of your finger for their sensors to work properly, which means they can’t be too loose either. Fortunately, RingConn is available in no less than nine sizes and will ship you a sizing kit to test which size is the perfect fit for you. The good news is that the ring can be placed on any hand and any finger, though it’s recommended to place it on your non-dominant hand so that movements won’t throw the activity tracker off.
That said, you need to be mindful that the sensors are always at the bottom side of your finger, and there is unfortunately no external marking to help you know which side is which at a very quick glance. The ring has a tendency to roll on your finger in the course of your use, so you have to check once in a while to see that it’s still in the proper position. The top of the ring is designed with a convex surface, compared to the flatter bottom side, so that would clue you in on which side is which. There are flashing red and green lights on the side of the sensors, but you won’t easily see them unless it’s dark.
Although the RingConn can be worn 24/7, thanks to its durability and water resistance, you should also take it off once in a while to let the skin underneath breathe. This is especially important since the plastic surface of the ring’s underside can trap moisture between it and your skin, which could lead to skin problems if left unchecked. Although it’s not necessary to charge the ring daily, as we’ll see later, there might be moments when you can take it off and place it on its charging case, like when you’re taking a shower, to give your finger’s skin a break.
Performance
A smart ring’s purpose is to offer fitness tracking and health monitoring features in a more discreet and stylish form. Given the need to be small, however, it’s understandable that there would be some sacrifices to be made compared, eschewing features that might be a staple on smartwatches. That said, the RingConn delivers the most critical information you need to keep a finger on your health, without the cruft that smartwatches also bring in the name of adding more features.
As far as sensors go, the RingConn has a heart rate sensor, a blood oxygen sensor, a skin temperature sensor, and a 3D accelerometer. These might sound basic, but these four alone can already draw a very comprehensive picture of your health every day, including your activity and steps, your heart rate variability or HRV, your stress levels, and your sleep quality. The RingConn can gather data 24/7, as long as you’re wearing it, and provide you the information that you need to make sense of all those numbers. As for the data it does provide, the RingConn yields pretty accurate readings, though there’s some margin of error for activity tracking due to how we move our fingers more often than our wrists. The wearable shines the most when tracking sleep, because it is on a more convenient body part for the sensors to function and because it’s more comfortable to wear to bed than a watch.
All this information is available in the RingConn mobile app, which is a treasure trove of knowledge about your current state as well as advice on how to improve your health. Although the app is full of numbers and graphs, it also has summaries and detailed explanations that provide more actionable knowledge you can adopt. The best part of it is that all of that knowledge isn’t gated behind a subscription fee. The price that you pay for the RingConn is the only cost you’ll have, and all the data can be accessed freely forever.
There are a few things about the mobile app you’ll need to keep in mind when using the RingConn. In order for the smart ring to sync its data, the app must be running, at least in the background. Unfortunately, some manufacturers have aggressive memory and battery management systems that would kill the RingConn app unless you explicitly tell it not to. The RingConn does have enough space for 7 days’ worth of health data, but by then it will struggle to sync with the app, so you might want to open the app regularly just to make sure the data it has is fresh. A recent June update also finally added low battery push notifications so you won’t have to worry about running empty when you least expect it.
Fortunately, you don’t actually have to charge the RingConn that much. Your mileage may vary depending on how active you are, but the ring’s battery lasted an average of six days before it needs to be topped up. Charging the ring takes a little over 90 minutes, at least if you’re going from empty to full. If you take the ring off a few minutes each day and put it on the charger, your uptime will be even longer. The charging is advertised to charge the RingConn up to 15 times, which means it could take three months before you actually run out of juice completely. The charger takes a bit slower to fill up, around 2 hours give or take.
Sustainability
The RingConn’s use of titanium for the ring’s body and aluminum for the charging case scores the brand some points in this area, but not by much. The box, though simple, isn’t exactly compact, and yet it doesn’t ship with a charging brick either. There’s no mention of the use of recycled plastics, which is a bit of a missed opportunity considering the ring needs very little in the first place. Then again, RingConn most likely focused first on using a non-allergenic inner molding for the wearer’s comfort and safety.
The ring is at least built to last, thanks to its durable titanium composition as well as its IP68 dust and water resistance rating. This means that the RingConn is safe to use under the shower, while washing dishes, or even taking a swim. It should be noted, however, that the IP68 rating does still have some limitations, particularly with the kind of water the device will be subjected to. RingConn warns against using the product in humid and steamy environments like baths, and abrasive salt water is a big no-no as well.
Value
The RingConn definitely sounds like a dream come true: a non-obtrusive and stylish accessory that lets you track important health markers while letting you still wear your favorite wristwatch. While it definitely delivers that, it should also be clear that it isn’t a smartwatch replacement, at least not entirely. The RingConn will be missing out on a few features given size constraints, though some of those might not be too much of a concern for most people. It doesn’t have sensors for ECG/EKG for warning against irregular heart rhythms or arrhythmia, for example. Nor does it have any form of GPS that would let you leave your phone at home while you go for a run.
Most importantly, it doesn’t have any sort of haptic feedback to call your attention to notifications on your phone. Nor does it have any sort of light indicator, let alone a screen. This, however, might actually be a selling point because it doesn’t bring all of the distractions that a smartwatch brings to your life, allowing you to just focus on keeping an eye on your body and nothing else.
The $279 price tag might seem a little steep at first, but it’s a one-time cost that doesn’t have any hidden subscription fees attached. That amount gets you an elegant though slightly large ring that can do most of what smartwatches can, but without the unnecessary complications and distractions, days of battery life, and unfettered access to your data. In that regard, the RingConn is practically a steal.
Verdict
It sadly took a pandemic to make people painfully aware of the unfavorable state of their health, giving rise to plenty of new products and programs that try to cash in on the rising fitness trend. These novel designs sometimes tend to be more complicated than they need to be, trying to sell you the kitchen sink when all you need is a spoon. Smartwatches have become more advanced, more capable, and thankfully more aesthetic, but they have also started to become more intrusive and more complicated than ever.
The RingConn Smart Ring makes a clean break from that trend and presents a minimalist design that provides the important essentials in health tracking. It’s comfortable, lightweight, and discreet, allowing you to wear it almost 24/7 to get the best health data all the time. It doesn’t get in the way of your mobility or your style, and, most importantly, it doesn’t hold your own data hostage behind a subscription. It lets you be aware of your health in a simple and elegant way that reflects the RingConn’s own simple and elegant design.
It’s pretty amazing how far technology has come. The watches we strap on our wrists have enough sensors to not only measure our heartbeat but sometimes even detect irregular heart rhythms. Some of these are even available in something as small as a ring that you wear on your finger. To say that we are flooded with health-related data through wearables isn’t really an exaggeration, but the problem is that most people don’t really know what to do with this data beyond realizing the need to lose weight or move around more. Being able to make sense of this data is ultimately more important than just having access to it, which is why this fashionable smart ring marries hardware and software to give wearers a nudge in the right direction in living healthily.
Almost all smartwatches and fitness trackers these days show data such as the wearer’s heart rate, steps taken, sleep duration, blood oxygen level, and many more. Some of these can already indicate when there’s something wrong with your body, but taken in isolation, they can’t really give you a deeper and more holistic view of your health. The Ultrahuman Ring, in contrast, not only measures some of those same metabolic biomarkers, such as heart rate variability, temperature, and sleep. It also interprets them into something that’s easier to understand and, more importantly, easier to act on.
Movement Index – The movement index has been formulated to help you understand your overall energy expenditure. The score is based on metabolic equivalent (METs) and depends on how much you move throughout the day rather than just your workout for a specific duration during the day.
Sleep Index – The sleep index is formulated to help you understand the different sleep stages such as Deep sleep, REM sleep, Light sleep and being Awake.
Recovery Score – Get an understanding of your body’s current state with the recovery score; this acts as an index for your body. It is based on a combination of biometrics such as HRV, Heart Rate, and Body Temperature throughout the day to help you understand various body signals better.
Movement index, for example, gives you a score based on your overall movement for the day, and not just during workouts at specific times. The Sleep Index takes into account not only sleep duration but also the different stages of sleep to determine if you need more Deep Sleep phases. Your Recovery Score, on the other hand, takes into account several biomarkers that indicate stress levels and suggests actions to get back into a state of equilibrium.
Heart Rate Tracking, Sleep Tracking and Movement Tracking.
Better yet, the Ultrahuman Ring delivers this critical health information through a metabolism tracker that won’t get in the way of your style. In fact, it can even make you look more fashionable with its elegant color options, including Cyber Grey, Bionic Gold, Aster Black, and Space Silver. The outer Titanium shell is coated with Tungsten carbide for ultimate durability, while the smooth interior shell uses medical-grade hypoallergenic epoxy resin for maximum comfort. The ring is also water resistant up to seven feet, so swimming or unexpected rain showers won’t be a problem.
Knowing how many steps you’ve taken or how fast your heart is beating isn’t really enough. Understanding the bigger picture is critical in knowing the correct actions to take to improve your health and save your life. Through a combination of smart software and beautiful hardware, the Ultrahuman Ring offers this deeper truth in the state of your body, and it looks stylish to boot! Say goodbye to bulky smartwatches and say hello to deeper health insights with this fashionable smart ring for only £225 for our Yanko Design readers.
Keeping track of our body’s health and state of fitness has become somewhat of an obsession for some people. A decade ago, this wouldn’t have even been possible, but the dawn of wearables like smartwatches has made it almost too easy to keep tabs on different aspects of your health. Unfortunately, these tech accessories aren’t always designed like fashion accessories, and their style often comes second to their functions. Even worse, not everyone who is interested in monitoring their health is equally keen on wrapping a smartwatch around their wrist and saying goodbye to their favorite timepiece. Enter the new generation of smart rings like Circular, enabling the same or even better health tracking without cramping your style.
While smartwatches have the advantage of giving you quick and easy access to the information you need at a glance, including the time, they aren’t always the most discreet pieces of technology if you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re wearing one. While there are now smartwatches that do masquerade as luxury watches, most people probably have a favorite piece they don’t want to give up. A ring that keeps track of the same metrics might be a more subtle accessory to wear, and the Circular wellness ring delivers the best of both worlds without taking away too much from the smartwatch experience.
Circular offers the standard lineup of activity tracking and health monitoring and adds a little more on top. A smart alarm, for example, wakes you up in the most effective way at the best time, depending on your habits and sleep cycles. It also analyzes your bio-signals to keep track of your sleep quality and to offer recommendations on how to improve it. Since you don’t have to take it off at night, you can be assured that your data is continuous and uninterrupted.
Going beyond just physical well-being, Circular is adding guided breathing exercises utilizing subtle vibrations of the ring to also improve your mood and mental health. An upcoming update to its mobile app will improve the overall user experience and add team monitoring to help coaches and employers keep an eye out for athletes’ and employees’ health. With Circular, you can get a more holistic view of your health and take back control, allowing you to make smarter choices in life.
The Oura Ring on its own is already a fantastic product. But what happens when the team behind it partners with a luxury fashion house like Gucci? Well, you get a luxurious smart ring that will be much-coveted.
This is the first collaboration between the fashion brand and the Finnish health technology company. Getting fit and healthy can be stylish now with all the fun and beautiful wearable pieces available on the market. Of course, trendy smartwatches can help, but intelligent rings like the Oura Ring are more convenient.
Of course, the Oura Ring’s features are limited, but you can never go wrong with a stylish product. The Gucci x Oura Ring celebrates self-discovery and individuality. Oura’s technology combined with Gucci’s flair for style results in an “exquisitely crafted” ring.
People won’t think you’re wearing a health tracker because the Gucci x Oura Ring looks just like a simple accessory. It works with an accompanying app which means you can enjoy the research-grade technology, insights, and personalized guidance Oura is known for. It offers the same comfort and biometric accuracy but now with the distinct Gucci style.
Oura believes that what one wears also impacts how a person feels. The Oura technology is already established, but it has become a more attractive wearable device with Gucci’s style. This is fashion and function together. Oura’s Chief Operations Officer Michael Chapp said, “Oura has always held a firm belief that wearables can be both innovative and stylish.” Indeed, the Gucci X Oura Ring is one valuable and fashionable accessory.
The luxury fashion version of the Oura Ring boasts Gucci’s iconic G monogram with a sleek, braided trim set in 18K gold. Oura’s versatile design gets an elegant twist from the Italian fashion house. The Gucci X Oura Ring can track and analyze data and provide insights when it comes to technical features. It offers activity tracking, heart rate monitoring, sleep analysis, and temperature checking, among others.
The Gucci x Oura Ring can be purchased from select Gucci stores worldwide and at Gucci.com. Expect to witness a flawless blend of function and fashion with the precise health metrics it can track and the exquisite design that is profoundly Gucci. This collaboration may seem unusual at first, but Gucci actually has origins in sports and leisure. Oura is known for its health platform and products, so the unlikely team-up is perfect. Access to personal health insights is a must these days if you want to be really fit and healthy so this Gucci X Oura Ring is definitely an ideal choice.
Computing on a ring is a concept that has been explored over the years but unfortunately, there has been nothing concrete to state. In an effort to give Apple fans a new reason to be curious, a designer has explored the possibility of an Apple Watch-style ring that one can wear on a finger.
If you’re someone who has felt the Apple Watch you wear is bulky and inconvenient for some reason, or if you wished there was something smaller and more convenient to wear, then Apple may someday grant your wish. The Cupertino giant has forayed into the smart ring arena and has a patent to its name. A patent doesn’t necessarily ensure the innovative product will be commercially available, and that’s been the case with the Apple smart ring.
The act of giving more weightage to other devices – Apple Watch in particular – over the ring, doesn’t imply that Apple has taken a back seat with the idea. The designer’s conception – Apple Ring and Apple Ring Pro – are the adaptation of Apple’s long-time vision of a smart ring and the Apple Watch as a ring. The Ring, in particular, is just about the same smart ring concept that Apple patented in 2015 while the Ring Pro is a nice recreation of the Apple Watch for a ring.
The Ring band has a touchscreen running around it while the Ring Pro has a chiseled form factor and a display that matches the Apple Watch. The rings are both designed in solid metal for durability and owing to their free-flowing design should be pretty comfortable to wear. The Ring Pro may be on the bulkier side given its layout, but the sleek Ring should be a good device to check vital stats while workout or making or receiving calls on the go. Presumably, when something like these rings lands, the Ring Pro-style device would make a smart ring, while the Ring would suit the fitness band tasks.
Although it’s built targeting sports and fitness enthusiasts in mind (because you can’t really look at your phone in the middle of training), the ArcX is perfect for anyone who wants a hands-free smartphone experience.
If you’re in your 40s, you remember a time when you had to physically walk to the television to change the channel. There was a massive rotary knob on the side of the screen and you would need to manually turn it to flip to another channel. Obviously, the infrared remote control came soon after, and made life much easier. You could change channels, increase/decrease volume, and even switch your TV on or off from your couch or the other end of the room. The television suddenly had a new, hands-free (ish) experience… and it seems like the smartphone is getting there too.
There are a whole bunch of scenarios where you really can’t physically take your phone out to use it. Maybe you’re jogging, trekking, in the middle of a workout, or maybe you’re skateboarding, cycling, or doing something that requires attention… or just something as simple as the fact that you don’t really have your phone near you (perhaps it’s on a table 6 feet away). These are niche situations, yet they occur often enough on a daily/weekly basis, warranting the need for a product. A product like the ArcX, a finger-worn remote control that lets you easily perform quick tasks on your phone without needing to take your phone out of your pocket or even have it in your hand.
The finger-worn remote weighs 8 grams (0.3oz) and has a single joystick-style interface that lets you play/pause music, skip tracks, answer/reject calls, trigger your camera shutter, start/stop your phone’s stopwatch, and even trigger an SOS emergency call if you’re in trouble. Although the ArcX is purpose-built for sports, it has a bunch of applications in daily commuting, photography, workplace productivity, music-playback, and just general safety.
The ArcX is a micro-joystick built into a waterproof and shockproof ring-shaped housing. Wear it on your finger, and it’s within reach of your thumb, giving you an experience you should find very familiar if you’ve used Blackberry smartphones in the past. The joystick provides an incredibly tactile and intuitive experience, and you can control it without needing to look at a screen, allowing you to go about your work un-distracted and unencumbered by displays and pixels galore. In fact, it’s sort of everything your smartphone isn’t. It’s rugged and durable, it comfortably sits on your finger and won’t fall or slip off, it’s IP67 waterproof, and it works independently of the visual sense (you don’t need to look at it).
This makes the ArcX absolutely ideal for when you’re working out, training, cycling/biking, surfing, and even when you’ve got sweaty hands or gloves on (because there’s no capacitive touchscreen to worry about). The ArcX sports an internal battery that gives you 5-days of usage (or 20 days of standby), comes with 4 ring sizes designed with a stretchable fit, and even has its own USB-C charger for juicing it up.
The ring connects to your phone via Bluetooth Low Energy (or BLE for short), working instantly out of the box with near-zero latency allowing you to access its core features (music control, call-answer/reject, selfie-trigger, and stopwatch). For a more custom/unique experience, the ArcX even comes with an app that lets you choose how its controls function – you could basically use it as a remote for anything, from a presentation running on your laptop to Netflix on your iPad, to your VR headset, your drone, even your electric car (basically anything your car’s phone-app could do), or to travel full circle, you could even control your television with it!
