I’m A Fitness Editor Who Tested The Samsung Galaxy Ring For A Month. Here’s How It Compares To The Oura Ring

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Purchase of the Galaxy Ring includes a free sizing kit, which is sent out before the product itself. The sizes, indicated by plastic rings, are numbered 5 to 13. Simply find the best fit—the ring should be snug but not too tight, ideally on your non-dominant index finger—then enter your size on the “My Order” page within 14 days.

I opted to size my ring for my right index finger, so I could continue wearing my Oura Ring on my left and compare the two.

Set Up And Design

The Samsung Galaxy Ring comes in a dinky box that holds the ring itself, loaded onto the charging case, a charging cable and instruction manual.

On first impressions it looks sleek and surprisingly slimline for a smart ring—it’s certainly less chunky than the Oura—and has a faint concave style, with slightly raised edges. There’s also small raised mark to indicate which way round to wear the ring; you line the ridge up with the center of the base of your finger, which ensures the sensors are in the right place for the most accurate readings.

The clear charging case in particular has chic futuristic looks, and I’m a big fan of the loop of glowing LED light around the perimeter, which indicates the ring’s battery level.

Setting up the Samsung Galaxy Ring is fairly straightforward—you simply download the Samsung Health app and connect the ring via Bluetooth. You’re then prompted to set daily step, active time and active calorie burn targets, and can preset favorite exercises (from a huge list), so they’re top of the pile when you go to record an activity.

You’re asked to input your typical activity level—ranging from sedentary to very active—to help the AI algorithm calculate your daily energy score. You can also set time and day parameters around tracking inactive time—so you can switch it off for evenings and weekends, for example, which is a nice touch. When it is monitoring, you get alerted after 50 minutes of inactivity.

Plus you can adjust which automatic readings you want tracked, such as high and low alerts for heart rate; blood oxygen, snore detection and skin temperature during sleep; and activity detection (as well as location recording) for walking and running.

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Comfort

All-day comfort is generally a large advantage smart rings have over wrist-based fitness trackers, as it’s easy to forget you’re wearing them and there’s no hand washing-induced silicone strap chafe to worry about.

It’s possible I didn’t have quite the right fit, but on wearing the Galaxy Ring I did feel those raised edges digging in slightly when my hands were anything other than prone—curled around a barbell or Pilates reformer footbar, for example. I also have a feeling wearing it on my (dominant) right hand made things a little tricker for me. That said, it didn’t take long for me to get used to the feeling of the ring (no doubt thanks to how slim it is) and as other reviewers have attested, it’s certainly among the more comfortable smart rings out there.

Charging and battery life

The battery life on the Samsung Galaxy Ring is impressive. I found the brand claims—that it lasts up to seven days (six with typical use)—accurate, and because it can charge wirelessly from the case alone, you can top it up on the go if you do find yourself low on charge—a brilliant feature.

It takes about 90 minutes for the ring to charge to full from empty, but I found that charging it for 10 to 20 minutes each day while I showered kept it topped up nicely.

As mentioned, the charging case uses LED lighting to indicate battery level, and this is shown when you open the case or just press the button on top—if your ring is in the case, it shows the ring’s battery level; if it’s empty, it shows the case’s battery level.

Features

The Samsung Galaxy Ring is, frankly, loaded with features to the point that I can’t run through every single one in granular detail here. Below I’ve pulled out the most prominent and those you use more frequently when wearing the ring, and have delved into health and fitness tracking in the next section.

Energy score

Each morning, the Galaxy Ring presents you with your energy score (often referred to as a readiness score on other devices)—essentially your battery level that day. This is pulled from your sleep, recent activity levels and heart rate and analyzed by Samsung’s Galaxy AI to offer recommendations based on your current physical state.

Suggestions for me tended to be based around keeping up activity levels and maintaining good sleep duration to support my overall wellbeing. I found the energy score usually reflected how I was feeling that day fairly accurately, and it clocked when I’d had a little too much to drink one night. Although, when I was unwell for a few days the ring didn’t seem to pick anything up (or allow me to record it), where my Oura did.

One clear omission I did notice here was the automatic adjustment of your active calorie burn target based on your energy score. The Oura Ring does adjust each day, depending on your scores, whereas the Galaxy Ring maintained the same target I’d set when initially setting up the ring—which meant I felt a tad guilty on off days for not hitting that goal. I also didn’t get any adjustments for recovery, even after particularly high activity levels.

Gestures

Another clever feature you can set up on the Galaxy Ring is ‘Gestures’—you can choose whether pinching your ring finger and thumb together takes a photo or dismisses your alarm (dangerous).

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My Page

In the Samsung Health app there’s a section called ‘My page,’ which displays badges and achievements—such as your first workout in a particular discipline, a great sleep score, or high step count—and offers up weekly summaries of your health metrics.

I really appreciated being presented a simple overview as well as the ability to delve further into my trends. I would imagine that over time (the month I wore the ring didn’t really allow for this) you’d be able to spot any particularly beneficial or otherwise habits and make steps to maintain or alter them—which is what’s it’s all about, isn’t it?

Extra Data Input

I can’t say I took advantage of these features, but there is the ability to enter your own data, such as food and water intake (akin to My Fitness Pal), blood pressure and blood glucose levels.

Health And Fitness Tracking

The Samsung Galaxy Ring offers comprehensive health and wellness tracking, including in-depth reporting on activity, sleep, stress and your menstrual cycle.

Activity Tracking

Through the Samsung Health app you can quickly see your daily progress towards your fitness goals, as well as dig deeper into exactly what is contributing to your overall step count, active time and active calories burned.

I’m a big fan of the heart-shaped graphic, which means you can just glance and the screen and get an overview of your day. I also really like that you can record your heart rate for a wide range of exercises—with the Oura, this is only available for running and cycling (both indoor and out)—making it simpler than logging the workout afterwards. Post-exercise you can see exactly which heart rate zones you spent time in, and for how long.

The Galaxy Ring can also automatically detect activity like walking and running, but note that you have to enable this on the Galaxy Wearable app. This feature didn’t seem as accurate as my Oura ring; the step count being wildly off to be begin with, but it got better the longer I wore the ring. It also never detected me climbing stairs, despite my refusal to use the lifts at the office.

Sleep tracking and coaching

If you wear your ring at night (recommended), you’re privy to a wealth of sleep insights, including your sleep stages, sleep score and blood oxygen levels changes. You can even access sleep coaching and check how much you snore. You can also see a weekly sleep analysis in your weekly summary.

Your sleep stages are shown on two graphs, which outline how much time you spend awake, in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, light sleep and deep sleep; and your sleep pattern and movements as you move between each stage. This was always exactly aligned with my the reports from my Oura, which leads me to believe both are very accurate.

Your sleep score is made up of your overall sleep time and number of sleep cycles you went through, plus your physical recovery, restfulness and mental recovery scores, which are worked out from your biometric data. It’s marked out of 100 and from what I could ascertain, anything over 80 is considered pretty good. Most of the time I seem to hover in the 90s, which seems accurate for me (I know, I’m lucky).

To enable sleep coaching you first have to fill out a short survey, which asks questions about how much you wake up to go to the bathroom, whether you feel you have trouble sleeping, when you have days off work and whether you drink alcohol or caffeine. You’re then presented with your sleep animal (rather than chronotype). There are eight in total, including nervous penguin, sensitive hedgehog and exhausted shark—ouch.

I’m dubbed an “unconcerned lion,” which seems to mean my sleep is pretty bang-on and I don’t really require much coaching. As a result, my tips are fairly standard: make sure I’m actually sleepy when I go to bed (no late meals or napping), wind down before bed (avoiding stress and alleviating any anxiety with relaxation methods like meditation) and keeping a consistent sleep/wake cycle. I’m given a checklist of basic suggestions, but it feels nice to tick them off nonetheless.

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Honestly I can’t say I really benefitted from the sleep coaching, but with generally good sleep health I wouldn’t say I’m the ideal candidate for it anyway. I know that I do prefer the sleep analysis on the Oura, which actually taught me something I didn’t know (I’m a late morning type). And while the Oura doesn’t have signposted coaching, it does offer sleep tips and suggestions when you need them, and works out your sleep chronotype through tracking and automatic analysis, so you don’t have to fill out any surveys.

Menstrual Cycle Tracking

The Galaxy Ring can predict your period using your skin temperature. This is a feature you can choose to switch on, or leave off if you prefer.

The tracking (powered by Natural Cycles) is said to be more accurate if you wear the ring at night, which I did, and that way you get a complete picture of your menstrual cycle, including your predicted period start date, fertile window, ovulation day and next period date. As you continue to use the ring and log your periods, the tracking becomes more accurate.

It’s worth noting that this feature is not intended for contraceptive use or pregnancy planning, and Samsung recommends that you don’t use this data for medical purposes either.

While I only had a month to test this feature out, my cycle was already accurately mapped on my Oura, and the dates aligned very closely when comparing between the two devices.

Stress Level Tracking

Another feature the Galaxy Ring boasts is stress level tracking. Tap through to this section on the app and you’ll find your stress peaks mapped on a graph, along with your average stress level illustrated on a colorful sliding scale.

It was certainly interesting to see that my average stress level is fairly low, but for me, the peaks of high stress tended to align with any cardio I was doing—including walking—which isn’t an error per se, as cardio does technically put your body under stress, but isn’t exactly useful if I want to differentiate between the causes of stress.

There also wasn’t much in the way of tips on managing stress, but you can access breathing exercises in the Samsung Health app.

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Having worn both Samsung Galaxy Ring and the 3rd gen Oura Ring, I can say with certainty that they’re both excellent products and there isn’t a huge variation between the two. However, there are some notable differences that are worth considering if you’re struggling to decide which to buy.

The Samsung Galaxy Ring (left) and Oura Ring (right)

Where the Samsung Galaxy Ring wins:

• Wireless charging case – There’s still no charging case with Oura, even with the new 4th gen version.
• No subscription model – You have to pay monthly or annually for the Oura, but with the Samsung Galaxy Ring it’s one payment and you’re done.
• Battery life – While tied in terms of brand claims, I personally found the Samsung battery lasted longer than the 3rd gen Oura, but it’s worth noting that 4th gen Oura has a longer one than both (up to eight days).
• Style – It’s slimmer and sleeker than the Oura.
• Live workout HR recording – You can record more activities live—yoga, for example—rather than logging them after the fact, as with the Oura.

Where the Oura Ring wins:

• Activity detection – I found this much more accurate with the Oura — the Galaxy Ring would often miss fairly long walks.
• Comfort – For me, the Oura won in the comfort stakes. Others have contested this and said the Galaxy Ring is more so, so it’s safe to say both score highly on the comfort front.
• Recovery and illness tracking/functions – I thought it was a huge omission that you can’t log illness with the Galaxy Ring. On the Oura you can switch on ‘rest mode,’ which hides all your targets, and the brand has just introduced its symptom radar, which can detect early signs of strain on the body and suggest rest and recovery where appropriate.
• Intuition – The Galaxy Ring’s inability to automatically adjust daily targets when faced with a particularly low or high energy score seems odd, and is something Oura does as standard as part of its recovery offering.
• App interface – I personally found the Oura UX much more user-friendly, smoother and easier to navigate (but it’s worth noting this could be my Apple bias).

The Samsung Galaxy Ring (left) and Oura Ring (right)

On a macro level, the Samsung Galaxy Ring does everything you’d want a smart ring to do. The health and fitness tracking and insights are comprehensive and in-depth, with a world of data presented in easy-to-understand graphs and tables at your fingertips, as well as access to suggestions on how to improve your wellbeing.

Despite some granular niggles (such as the lack of illness logging or adjusted energy scores), it’s brilliant all-round wellness wearable that, thanks to its sleek design, can go pretty much unnoticed—the dream. And, again, that charging case is excellent.

As with any fitness tracker, you can essentially make of the Galaxy Ring what you want. You can enter more data for more well-rounded reports, or just let it chug away in the background and glance at the app every so often for an overall picture of your health.

It’s particularly useful for viewing trends and setting goals, so would be invaluable if you’re training for an event.

If you’re already plugged into the Samsung ecosystem it’s a no-brainer—particularly if you have a Galaxy watch, as wearing the two together helps preserve battery on the ring. Also that clever ‘Gesture’ feature? It only works on newer Samsung phones. While these are benefits for Samsung diehards, it’s also caused the Galaxy Ring to be criticized as more of an accessory for the watch than a fitness tracker in its own right.

While I don’t agree with this, the Android-only compatibility will certainly be a turn-off for many—myself included—and the Galaxy Ring has not swayed me to part with my Oura just yet.

Samsung Galaxy Ring

Samsung Galaxy Ring FAQs

Is the Samsung Galaxy Ring compatible with iPhone?

Sadly no, the Samsung Galaxy Ring is not compatible with Apple devices. But it will connect to all Android phones running Android 11 or above. Just make sure you have the latest version of the Samsung Health app.

Which finger do you wear the Samsung Galaxy Ring on?

Samsung recommends wearing the Galaxy Ring on your index finger — both for the most accurate readings and better gesture control. If that doesn’t float your boat, you can opt for the middle or ring finger.

Does the Samsung Galaxy Ring track steps?

Yes, the Samsung Galaxy Ring counts your steps. You can set a daily step target and your progress is displayed both numerically and via a heart-shaped dial.

Is the Samsung Galaxy Ring water-resistant?

Yes, the Samsung Galaxy Ring has a water-resistance rating of 100 metres, according to the ISO22810 standard (the international standard that sets requirements for water-resistant watches). You can wear it in the shower and swimming in both pools and the ocean, but it’s not recommended to wear it diving — and remember to rinse it off after sea swimming.

How long is the Samsung Galaxy Ring battery life?

The official battery life of the Samsung Galaxy Ring is seven days, but with typical usage is estimated around six days. We found this to be accurate, but really you’re better off charging it a little bit each day—say, while you’re in the shower—to keep it topped up.

Does the Samsung Galaxy Ring require a subscription?

No! The Samsung Galaxy Ring uses a subscription-free model, meaning after a one-time purchase all the features are free to use. This is a step up on the Oura ring, which charges a monthly subscription for full access to your health and wellness insights.

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Hattie Parish is the Health and Fitness Ecommerce Editor for Women’s Health, Men’s Health and Runner’s World, covering the best gym wear, latest fitness tech and wellness launches worth investing in, plus the best deals during Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day. As well as clocking up the miles in myriad running socks, pummelling her muscles with massage guns, testing out fitness mirrors and donning dry robes every other weekend, Hattie consults leading experts in the health and fitness industry to help readers make informed decisions when shopping online. Brought up by two medics, Hattie worked in health clinics before completing a BA in English at King’s College London. She qualified as a journalist in 2015 and has since written for titles such as Healthy magazine, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar and Red, as well as worked commercially with health and wellness clients such as Holland & Barrett, Lloyds Pharmacy and Superdrug. Hattie is passionate about arming readers with honest, unbiased product reviews and has a particular interest in the role of technology in our wellbeing, as well as gender-based inequalities in healthcare. When she’s not putting gym wear through its paces on the Pilates reformer or kitting out her home gym (garage) with the latest equipment, she’s attempting to make progress on her teetering pile of bedside books, cycling round South East London or sampling wellness retreats for the Women’s Health travel pages.