Samsung Galaxy Ring: release date, price and specifications

Wearables have been a growing market for several years, but until now the market has mainly consisted of smartwatches and fitness trackers. However, Samsung could change that with a new electronic companion that won’t live on our wrists, but rather on our fingers. This is everything we know so far about the Samsung Galaxy Ring.

When will the Samsung Galaxy Ring be released?

Although Samsung teased its new Galaxy Ring at the recent Unpacked event and then showed it off in more detail at MWC 2024, there’s no official word yet on when it will be released other than “later this year.” But we have seen several rumors that give us some clues.

For a while it looked like we might see the new device in June 2024, but this has been changed by a recent report from Korean tech site The Elec, which reports that mass production won’t begin until May, with an initial 400,000 copies.

This means it’s more likely that the Galaxy Ring could debut with the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and Galaxy Z Fold 6, which are expected to launch in July 2024. The report goes on to say that the Galaxy Ring could be available as early as August.

How much will the Samsung Galaxy Ring cost?

There is no information on this yet as Samsung has not announced a price range and there is no history to go on. That said, there are already several smart rings on the market, including the Oura Ring 3 that we reviewed. This currently sells for a base price of $299 (about £250), but goes up from there if you want other materials. It also requires a monthly subscription ($5.99 or about £4.70) to unlock its most useful features.

As a relatively new category, smart rings have yet to be well established, so we’d be surprised if Samsung comes in at a high price. Of course, the Korean company makes a number of eye-catching premium devices (with the necessary price tag), which means that we cannot rule anything out.

Right now, around $299 is the going rate, so let’s hope Samsung can use its massive influence in the industry to bring that down.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Chris Martin / Foundry

Chris Martin / Foundry

What functions are included in the Samsung Galaxy Ring?

The Galaxy Ring will be sold in nine different sizes and three colors: black, gold, and silver (although Samsung might give them nicer names).

This is similar to the Oura Ring 3 which is currently offered in eight sizes. Each Galaxy Ring contains a series of sensors that relay information to an app on your smartphone (it’s not yet clear whether this requires a Samsung Galaxy handset).

While nine sizes would correspond to the Galaxy Ring display at MWC, Dutch site Galaxy Club has come across model numbers for the ring, suggesting there will be eight.

They are: SM-Q500, SM-Q501, SM-Q502, SM-Q505, SM-Q506, SM-Q507, SM-Q508 and SM-Q509.

You may notice that ‘503’ and ‘504’ are missing, which is strange. There’s no explanation, but Galaxy Club says SM-Q500 is the smallest option, so the missing sizes are on the smaller end of the scale. It’s understandable that Samsung wants to keep the number of sizes to a minimum, since there are three colors.

The focus of the Ring is to be a health monitoring device. A recent press release from the company outlining its vision for an intelligent health platform stated: “As a new addition to our wearables portfolio, Galaxy Ring will give users a whole new way to simplify everyday wellness, empowering them with insights and more ways to understand themselves day and night.”

“With Galaxy Ring, users can embrace an unparalleled experience every step of their wellness journey, all in line with Samsung’s broader vision for a more connected, integrated and seamless digital wellness platform.”

Chris Martin / Foundry

Chris Martin / Foundry

Chris Martin / Foundry

With the mention of day and night, it’s reasonable to assume that sleep tracking will be one of the features supported by the Ring. In an article detailing time spent with a prototype of the Ring, Tech Radar said there would be several sleep analytics not normally found on a smartwatch, such as resting heart rate during sleep, breathing rate, nighttime movements , monitoring sleep apnea and sleep latency.

These will all be collected, along with other fitness and health stats, to give the wearer a vitality score, not unlike the readiness score already found on the Oura Ring 3. What’s different about the approach is that Samsung is using AI technology to flesh out these summaries, rather than the algorithm-based approach that most health trackers have used before.

Sensors should include a heart rate monitor, Sp02, skin temperature, and the various sleep tracking features mentioned above. An NFC chip for contactless payments would also not be a surprise.

From what we’ve seen so far, there will be no controls or buttons on the Galaxy Ring, with all interactions being done via the sensors on the bottom of the ring that touch the wearer’s skin, or via controls on the accompanying smartphone -app .

Samsung has already said that the Galaxy Ring’s battery life should last five to nine days on a single charge (depending on which size you get), which would also indicate that the tracking feature lacks detailed controls, so you the sensitivity or which sensors always remain on.

There’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the Samsung Galaxy Ring, but we don’t have to wait too long before we find out if Samsung is about to massively disrupt the wearables market.