The best smart rings have gone from bulbous early formats that clearly show some sort of technology at work, to a sleeker, unobtrusive, classic-looking design language. Both the Oura Ring 4 and Samsung Galaxy Ring, the market leaders, have adopted a sort of brushed wedding band style, which doesn’t look out of place on the hand and hides all its advanced technology. They look good, while allowing you to wear an analog watch instead of your best smartwatch and still track all your key health metrics.
Not only does this mean you’re free to express your style as you like, instead of having a black screen on your wrist, but you’re also free from emails, health metrics and notifications being sent to your devices. You’re less connected, which in our busy world is always a good thing.
However, one device aims to change all that with a new smart ring which packs a smartwatch-style display. Rogbid has launched the SR08 Ultra smart ring on its online store, a ring which packs an integrated display showing you the time, your heart rate and step count at a glance. The screen appears to be flat against the surface of the ring, so I would imagine (unless the screen is turned inwards, facing your palm) there’s an element of risk of scratching or damaging the display.
Otherwise, the setup is pretty standard for a lot of smart rings that can be found online these days: blood oxygen and sleep tracking, step counter, five days of battery life, and weighs around 4g. Costing $189.99 (around £150 / AU$300) and currently on offer at just $89.99 (around £71 / AU$141) from the Rogbid website, the smart ring is on sale now.
Shutting off
The smart ring category is still in its infancy: while smartwatches have settled into a now-familiar form factor that isn’t often drastically innovated on with annual releases, smart rings aren’t yet there. I, for one, hope that future smart rings from market leaders don’t decide to ape Rogbid and start integrating displays into the ring.
I wear a smart ring for several reasons: one is comfort during sleep, but another is that it’s a great way to keep an eye on my metrics without wearing a smartwatch. I get to ‘passively’ track my activity, checking my app once or twice a day and not keeping one eye on my smartwatch all day. I get enough dystopic connection from my phone, thanks very much – I certainly don’t need push notifications from my Amazon or Uber Eats apps being fed to my smart ring.
A display also ruins that classic, understated look which makes smart rings such a great option for style-conscious fitness fans and biohackers. It could be any ring, not necessarily a smart ring: all the techy bits are hidden. A flashing, garish display telling you to move more undoes all that.
Smart rings are more than tiny watches: they’re a shift from one era of wearables into the next. Adding a display to make them more smartwatchy doesn’t feel high-tech; it feels regressive.