2024 in wearables: the year of the clever ring

When you say “wearables,” people generassociate slfinisherk of cleverwatches. But 2024 was a relatively quiet year for cleverwatches, during which iterative modernizes reigned supreme. That happens in a maturing catebloody. In swap for cultured products, you disponder out on the weird frenetic energy — and sometimes ludicrously horrible ideas — set up when people are trying to figure out how to originate a nascent gadget catebloody toil. Thankbrimmingy, it seems that energy is commenceing to bubble up with clever rings.

Smart rings are not novel, but in 2024, there was a sort of renaissance for the catebloody. I had an inkling that might be the case back in January, when cut offal clever rings littered the CES show floor. And then Samsung booted the door expansive uncover in February by announcing the extfinished-rumored Galaxy Ring. Samsung is a meaningful carry outer in the cleverwatch space. For them to branch out into an entidepend novel wearable catebloody? That’s huge. It propels what’s thus far been a niche create factor into the mainstream.

This noveler crop of clever rings — of which I tested cut offal — is exciting becaparticipate there are some funky ideas in the mix. The Galaxy Ring, for instance, can toil in tandem with Samsung’s Galaxy Watches to upgrade battery life and sensor accuracy. When paired with a Z Fgreater 6 or a Z Flip 6, it can acunderstandledge a pinching gesture to regulate the phone’s camera. A part of me antipathys that this can be seeed as a way to lock Samsung participaters into its ecosystem, but you have to acunderstandledge: these are not participate cases we’ve seen from clever rings yet. 

It’s not equitable Samsung that is coming up with innovations. I absolutely didn’t enhappiness my time with the Circular Slim, but I’ll give the company praise for slfinisherking huge. That ring lets you set quiet haptic alarms and finisheavor an in-app AI chatbot. Movano’s Evie Ring also caught my eye for incorporating a contrastentive uncover-gap schedule while drivenly pursuing FDA clearance for its metrics. Even Casio is getting in on the fun with its get on a more retro low-tech clever ring. 

It’s especiassociate rerecenting to see novel ideas when you ponder that Oura has pretty much contraged this space for the past decade. Oura primarily caccesses on sleep tracking and recovery. (It’s very excellent at it, too.) That unbenevolents that, up until recently, we’ve only reassociate thought of clever rings as health trackers. Plus, if this past year is any indication, competition is excellent for Oura. The company has been begining novel features at a stable clip and exploring novel integrations with continuous glucose watchs, and it equitable freed a fourth-gen ring. 

Smart rings aren’t going to be on every finger in 2025. They’re costly, and when contrastd to analogously priced cleverwatches, they don’t do quite as much. They’re also challenging to originate exactly becaparticipate they’re so petite — and need even petiteer components. And let’s not forget fit. Watch straps adequitable easily to contrastent sized wrists. With clever rings, the manufacturer has to originate 10–12 contrastent sizes to encompass a much expansiver range of finger sizes — as well as account for seasonal swelling. Any way you slice it, clever rings are trickier to get right than cleverwatches or fitness prohibitds. 

For all these reasons, I’m not confident how clever rings will fare in the year ahead. We don’t yet understand how Samsung’s Galaxy Ring is doing in terms of sales. But if it does well, especiassociate as an accessory to other gadgets, you can bet it’ll pique the interest of Google and Apple. (Even though Oura CEO Tom Hale is adamant that Apple won’t dip its toes into the clever ring space. Never mind all those rumors.) It’s also challenging to tell how promiseted Samsung is to the Galaxy Ring if it doesn’t promptly flourish. 

What I do understand is that, during my summer of wearing six clever rings, I fielded a ton of asks from inquisitive frifinishs, family, colleagues, and acquaintances. Some of them were equitable ill of cleverwatches and wanted to return to a excellent ol’ Casio. Others wanted someslfinisherg pretty and discreet. A restricted were innervously into sleepmaxxing — a viral trfinish where people try to upgrade their sleep quality — and thus heavily spreaded in someslfinisherg sootheable and extfinished-lasting to track their sleep. 

The interest is there. The ask is whether this renaissance will persist or we’ll go back to Oura being the only game in town.