RingConn Smart Ring Review: Health Metrics With Tracking Potential
- Comfortable to wear
- Long battery life
- Easy app to use
- Accurate metrics
- Inaccurate step counts
- Incomplete exercise tracking
Smart Watches have two things going against them. They struggle with battery life and they can be uncomfortable to wear all the time. When it comes to tracking your health metrics, both of those can be pretty big obstacles. Those issues make it hard to get a complete picture of your overall health because there are gaps in the data. Fitness bands solve the battery life problem, but they don't always have all the sensors that a smartwatch will have.
Smart rings could potentially fix both of those issues. This is a fast-growing category that already has quite a few players and looks to welcome another big one later this year. Smart rings get good battery life, all the same metrics that a smartwatch has, and are a lot more comfortable to wear all the time.
Our most recent foray into this space (with Circular Ring) did not go well. Now, we're taking a look at a different competitor who (thankfully) has a much more compelling package. But does it solve all the problems? I've been wearing a RingConn Smart Ring review sample provided by RingConn for just over three weeks, and this is my full review.
Classic look
The RingConn smart ring looks like a thick wedding band, and it feels like it too. Available in sizes from 6 up to 14 (no half sizes though), you will be able to find a comfortable fit. If you don't know your ring size, RingConn can send you a kit to find it; I visited my local jewelry shop and found out my ring size easily enough; your mileage may vary.
The titanium band comes in Moonlit Silver, Midnight Black, or Pale Gold. It has multiple sensors on the inside as well as two tiny nubs that help you orient the ring properly. The sensors detect your heart rate, blood oxygen level, and your skin temperature. The ring is IP68 waterproof.
As for battery life, RingConn advertises seven days of battery life which is about spot on with my testing. The RingConn smart ring comes with a charging case with an internal battery. Pop the ring in the case and you'll get a full charge in just over an hour. When the charging case runs low, you can charge it with a standard USB-C cable.
Using the app
The app for the RingConn smart ring is pretty simple and intuitive to use. It works on both iOS and Android, which is a nice plus above its smartwatch counterparts. There are four tabs in the app: your summary, sleep, activity, and stress. You'll probably spend most of your time in the summary tab, but if you tap on any of the sections, you'll switch to the relevant tab. You can select different days to look at with the dates along the top. The dates are displayed one week at a time but you can open a larger calendar.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the app, you can tap on Trends to see where your stats are heading for the past seven days. The app will even break your stats down into weekly and yearly reports once you have enough data.
Part of the summary is your overall "Wellness" balance score which is a sort of estimate of how well you're feeling overall. This four-point scale includes your vital signs, sleep, activity level, and stress level which all contribute to your wellness balance. The scores I received were "good" and "improvable" which seemed a tad optimistic.
The nice part is on this screen, your daily wellness balance is overlaid with your past seven-day average, so you can get an idea of where you need to improve on a day-to-day basis.
Accurate stats and Health
While wearing the RingConn smart ring, I also wore my Apple Watch Ultra 2 at the same time to get an idea of how the metrics compared. For the most part, the statistics from both devices were pretty consistent with each other. That includes heart rate range (within 5%), sleep duration (within 10%), calories burned (within 12%), and pulse oxygen (within 5%). The only metric that saw a pretty big variation was steps which were consistently within 15% of each other with outliers as much as 26%. That's unfortunate because if you were to ask 100 random people what they wear a smartwatch for, it's probably step counts.
So that's good news for those looking to migrate from a smartwatch to a smart ring. You can still get all the same metrics in a much more compact package. The RingConn even measures stress which the Apple Watch does not, so overall it's an improvement. Additionally, you can sync your health metrics to either Apple Health or Google Fit, which is a nice bonus.
Some potential downsides
One major thing that's missing from this ring is haptics. The Circular ring slim included a vibrating motor, so you could tell when the ring was properly connected to the charger, and you could even set alarms. Trust me, your ring vibrating is very hard to miss and will assuredly wake you up. Of course, this was a bit of a problem with Circular since the tap to turn off the alarm didn't always work, so it's fair to say that RingConn gets a boon for avoiding that pitfall.
The RingConn ring charger that comes with the ring is not sold separately at the moment, so if you lose it, your only option is to shell out another $39.90 for a Charging Dock which is not nearly as portable. This seems like an odd omission for the device, though given the size of the charging case, it's far more likely you'll lose the ring. It's good that the dock is available, but some might appreciate the additional freedom the charging case provides.
What are Health Metrics without Exercise Tracking?
One major omission from the software is the ability to track workouts. At the moment, only outdoor running is available. Outdoor walking, indoor running, and outdoor cycling are all listed as "coming soon." Additionally, all (including outdoor running) are listed as being in beta. That's not ideal, for sure.
As important as everyday health metrics are, exercise tracking is of equal importance to many people, so not having this at launch is a real miss. Without exercise tracking, you would have to have a secondary device that can track your workout, which defeats the purpose of the smart ring. So if you're looking to completely replace your smartwatch, and exercise tracking is important, the RingConn Smart Ring will not do the job for you at the moment, which is definitely a bummer.
It's also noteworthy that the selection of exercise tracking that is coming is also pretty weak. Most fitness bands and smartwatches are capable of recording dozens of different kinds of workouts.
In this case, all the data is there — Presumably, it's just a matter of crossing the finish line with the software.
RingConn Price, Availability, and Final Verdict
Compared to the Circular Ring, the RingConn smart ring is head and shoulders above, but that was a really low bar. The RingConn Smart Ring is just $279 and doesn't require a subscription to use. That puts it in a very competitive space when compared to smartwatches. It does not make it very competitive when compared to fitness bands, which could put this smart ring (and all smart rings for that matter) at a disadvantage.
What the RingConn Smart Ring has going for it is a ton of metrics, a good deal of accuracy, and a well-organized app that's easy to use. If you just want to count your steps, there are more affordable options, especially Nothing's CMF Watch Pro which is about one-quarter of the price.
All the same, if you're in the market for a comfortable, long-lasting device to capture your health metrics, the RingConn Smart Ring is not a bad deal. Most of its shortcomings are software-based, which means there could be improvements coming down the pipe. All the same, if we're going to judge the device based on what's available today, then this is a good but not-quite-perfect pick — but it has potential.
You can buy the RingConn Smart Ring now for approximately $279 in Moonlit Silver, Midnight Black, or Pale Gold.