I Swapped My Apple Watch for Samsung's Galaxy Ring: My Biggest Takeaways

I've been wearing smartwatches regularly for about a decade. So you can imagine I was a bit hesitant to sacrifice the $399 Apple Watch Series 9 I've been wearing on and off for the past year for Samsung's new $400 Galaxy Ring, a new wellness tracker worn around the finger that measures activity, sleep and other health metrics.

I'm also a regular Oura ring wearer, so I'm no stranger to smart rings. However, I usually wear both an Oura ring and an Apple Watch; I've never relied solely on a smart ring for all of my health, fitness and sleep tracking needs. Doing so taught me a lot about who smart rings are for (and who they aren't for), where they excel over smartwatches and where they fall short. Smart rings like the Galaxy Ring are subtle, comfortable and have long-lasting battery life, while smartwatches like the Apple Watch are much more comprehensive workout companions. 

Of course, the Apple Watch and Galaxy Ring are meant for two different audiences: the former is for iPhone owners, and the latter is for Android users, especially those with Samsung Galaxy phones. Still, many of my observations could apply to almost any smartwatch or smart ring. 

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What I like better about the Galaxy Ring

The Galaxy Ring (and Oura Ring, for that matter) offers three major benefits over the Apple Watch (and other smartwatches): long battery life, fewer distractions and it's more comfortable to wear. 

I can get around one to two days of battery life out the Apple Watch depending on how I'm using it, and the case is similar for other flagship smartwatches like the Google Pixel Watch 2 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 based on CNET's reviews (although some smartwatches, like the Garmin Venu 3 and OnePlus Watch 2 can last for multiple days). The Galaxy Ring, however, lasted for just about six days on a single charge, which makes it easy to wear 24/7 without the anxiety of it running out of battery. 

It also comes with a transparent, glowing charging case for powering up the ring on the go, just like a pair of wireless headphones. It's a clever idea that feels like a step towards never having to think about charging your health tracker at all, and I'm surprised more companies haven't adopted something like this for their own wearables. A portable Apple Watch charger that doesn't need to be plugged in would be a game changer. 

Since the Galaxy Ring lacks a screen and the ability to deliver notifications, it's also much less distracting than a smartwatch. I constantly find myself swiping through notifications and news headlines on my Apple Watch whenever I have an idle minute, like when I'm waiting for the elevator or the subway and don't want to take my phone out. Giving up my Apple Watch helped me break out of that habit. 

The Galaxy Ring is also a much more comfortable and comprehensive sleep tracker than the Apple Watch. At 2.3 to 3 grams depending on the size, it's just a fraction of the Apple Watch Series 9's weight, which at its lightest is 31.9 grams. As someone who has worn a smartwatch to bed -- and has fallen asleep with traditional rings on -- the Galaxy Ring feels lightweight and barely present overnight. 

Beyond comfort, the Galaxy Ring also provides more context around your sleeping patterns and how they contribute to your energy levels than the Apple Watch does. Samsung provides a Sleep Score in the Samsung Health app, which assesses the quality of your sleep based on factors such as sleep time, restfulness, physical and mental recovery and your sleep cycles. 

Energy Score, a newer metric, analyzes your previous day activity along with various sleep-related indicators to provide some insight into how active you should be today. It's not perfect; sometimes the Energy Score rating doesn't line up with how I feel, and it recently said my average active time was 0 minutes despite having worked out or at least gone for a walk four days this week. But I imagine these readings will improve over time, and I appreciate that Samsung is at least trying to make more sense of my health metrics. 

Samsung makes attempts to analyze and break down your sleeping habits in other ways too. Sometimes the Samsung Health app, for example, will offer a tidbit of advice highlighting how a change like getting more sleep is improving my sleep score. There's also a sleep coaching tool that assigns you an animal mascot based on your sleeping habits. Samsung says I'm a hedgehog, which means I get enough total sleep but spend too much time awake in bed and go to sleep at inconsistent times. 

The Apple Watch lacks a sleep score and energy score equivalent, but it does measure stages of sleep like most wearables do, including the Galaxy Ring. But with WatchOS 11, the Apple Watch will become more useful while you're sleeping. The new Vitals feature will measure health metrics overnight and let you know if they're out of range. Even though it may not directly relate to sleep, it's still using that time spent on your wrist overnight to gather useful insights. 

It's also important to note that the Oura ring offers a lot of these benefits too, such as a Readiness score communicating how rested you are along with a Sleep score and insights based on your recent activity.

What I like better about the Apple Watch

The Apple Watch is a much better workout companion, a common feature in the smartwatch sector. My biggest gripe about using the Galaxy Ring to monitor exercise is that heart-rate readings didn't always seem accurate during my treadmill and indoor cycling workouts. 

I compared the Galaxy Ring alongside a chest strap heart-rate monitor, which is considered to be much more accurate than wearables worn on the finger or wrist. There's always a gap between the readings you'll get through a chest strap versus the ones you'd get through a smartwatch. But usually that discrepancy is small enough to feel like your smartwatch is recording your workout accurately enough. 

The Galaxy Ring, however, was sometimes off by 20 to 30 beats per minute (or even more) compared to my chest strap, putting me in completely different heart-rate zones. This was particularly true during indoor cycling workouts, which is my go-to cardio workout. Take a look at the results below to see the difference between the average and max heart rate recorded by the Galaxy Ring and my Polar chest strap.

The Galaxy Ring's blood oxygen measurements also seemed inaccurate. According to the Galaxy Ring, my blood oxygen levels overnight regularly dipped into the 80s and at one point went as low as 77%. For context, a normal healthy reading typically falls between 95 and 100%. Readings from the Apple Watch Series 9 recorded earlier this year indicated my levels were between 97 and 100%. (Although remember that if you're buying a new Apple Watch Series 9 from Apple in the US, it will not come with blood oxygen sensing.) 

I've reached out to Samsung for more information about the heart rate and blood oxygen results and will update this story accordingly. These readings also aren't meant for medical diagnosis.

The other areas where the Apple Watch and other smartwatches excel have nothing to do with the Galaxy Ring falling short of expectations. It's just that smartwatches and smart rings are designed for different purposes. 

For example, it's understandably much harder to monitor workout metrics in real time using the Galaxy Ring since it doesn't have a screen to glance down at. Instead, I left the Samsung Health app open on my Galaxy Z Fold 6 as I cycled or ran on the treadmill. But once the screen timed out, I was out of luck since it's not possible to view health data on the always-on display. I wish Samsung had an alternative to Apple's Live Activities, which can show metrics on the iPhone's lock screen during a cycling workout.

Since the Galaxy Ring is a wellness and sleep tracker and lacks a screen, you also don't get nearly as much "smart" functionality as you would from a smartwatch. But there are a couple of interesting ways in which the Galaxy Ring works with your Samsung phone that I think the company could explore further. For example, double-tapping your fingers lets you control the camera or dismiss an alarm. 

I'd love to see Samsung expand that gesture in the future to help fill in some of the gaps it's missing compared to a smartwatch. For example, being able to dismiss timers or incoming calls, or maybe manage media playback, all seem like good use cases for this action. Even better, it would be great if you could customize that gesture to do any one or two of those things, kind of like an invisible button. 

But one of the biggest things I missed was using my Apple Watch as an alarm. Given the Galaxy Ring's long battery life, it would be perfect as a silent vibrating alarm. I hope Samsung considers adding this feature to a future version of the ring, even if it means a slightly thicker design. 

As a longtime smartwatch wearer, I can appreciate the areas in which the Galaxy Ring -- and to be fair, the Oura ring, too -- excel over wrist-worn devices. The longer battery life, comprehensive approach to sleep and wellness metrics and comfortable fit are all plusses. But I do think you ultimately get more from a smartwatch for a similar, and in some cases even cheaper, price. 

A smart ring like the Galaxy Ring is best suited for someone who primarily wants a sleep and activity tracker above all else and doesn't necessarily care about performance training, or monitoring a bunch of health metrics in real time during workouts. It can also be a better choice if you simply don't like wearing watches or don't want to feel as tethered to your phone.

I don't think a smart ring will ever replace my smartwatch. But relying on one for the past couple of weeks has shown me that they both have a lot to learn from each other.