When Samsung launches its next flagship products next month, it may turn out that the next big thing from Samsung is actually a wearable, the Galaxy Ring. It was teased back in January and we now know with some exactness when it will be released: in or around August. And the company suddenly unveiled what the Ring will do, too.
Samsung Galaxy Ring in gold finish.
Updated June 11 with report of extra feature, new details of weight.
The information comes from an unimpeachable source: Samsung itself, even though the company has not officially said anything about the release.
What’s more, there’s now been a new report which details a new feature that nobody had heard of before and intriguing information about the weight of the Ring. Let’s start with that.
The information comes from a Korean leaker, SuperRoader and was spotted by NotebookCheck. Here’s what they say: “The lightest model of the Galaxy Ring weighs about 1 gram. It includes a function that activates the smartphone’s camera shutter when you wear the ring and use your finger. The Galaxy Ring will be much cooler than you can imagine.”
Let’s take this apart. First of all, I completely agree that the Ring will be very cool indeed. I was the first journalist to try out the prototype ring, back in January and it looks and feels great. But I am skeptical about the weight. I tried on several sizes and although they were prototypes, none of them was significantly lighter than the Oura ring, which weighs between 4 and 6 grams. If any of the prototypes had weighed a quarter of that, I think I’d have noticed.
But I can see the other feature, triggering a camera shutter, might work, and it sounds pretty cool. Back to Samsung’s own details of what’s coming when.
Samsung has filed a suit against the Finnish company Oura, which makes the highly successful Oura Ring, a wearable which currently dominates the market for finger-borne devices.
And on page 3 of the suit, Samsung says, “Samsung has completed the design for the Galaxy Ring and expects to commence mass production by mid-June 2024. Samsung will be selling the Galaxy Ring in the United States in or around August of this year.”
Let’s dissect this. Samsung hasn’t otherwise revealed mass production dates, countries where the Galaxy Ring will go on sale and when it will be on sale. In other words, “in or around August” refers to an onsale date, not the date it’s unveiled.
Samsung is believed to be holding its next Unpacked event at some point in July, so this tallies with the new details. And it’s vague enough for me to hope that the onsale date could be as early as August 1, or even late July.
And there’s more. “Building on its extensive investment in health and fitness tracking technology, including the Galaxy Watch and the Samsung Health app, the Galaxy Ring monitors heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen, movement, and sleep to provide users valuable insights and offer guidance to improve their health and wellbeing.”
Samsung has not previously confirmed exactly what the Ring would do, so this is big news. Of course, we shouldn’t expect this list to be exhaustive: Samsung may keep something up its sleeve, but this list is extensive. It also mentions an Energy Score derived from these metrics.
As for the suit itself, The Verge describes it like this: “Samsung isn’t waiting around for Oura to file any patent claims over its forthcoming smart ring. Instead, it’s preemptively filed its own suitagainst Oura, seeking a ‘declaratory judgment’ that states the Galaxy Ring doesn’t infringe on five Oura patents. The suit alleges that Oura has a pattern of filing patent suits against competitors based on ‘features common to virtually all smart rings.’ In particular, the suit references sensors, electronics, batteries, and scores based on metrics gathered from sensors.”
The good news is that the choice of smart rings for consumers is about to get bigger.