Its comfortably basic style hides nice utility. | Photos by Victoria Song / The Verge
“If the Galaxy Ring cost $250, I’d say Samsung was a diabolical genius company. But at $400, it’s asking a lot for what amounts to a secondary device for your smartwatch,” is how Victoria ultimately felt about the Samsung Galaxy Ring in her review. Well, it’s not exactly $250, but a deal on the health-tracking wearable that brings it down to $279.99 ($120 off) at Amazon is close enough.
You’ll find that price across all three of its colors (black, gold, and silver) in several sizes, some of which you’ll have to sign in and add to your cart in order to see. Available ring sizes range from 5 to 15, and while a blind purchase might be safe if you already know your ring size, we recommend using the $10 sizing kit to help you dial it in.
Sadly, that kit is temporarily out of stock at Amazon as of this writing, otherwise you’d be able to recoup the full cost as a credit usable toward the ring. The kit is in stock at Best Buy, however, which bundles a $10 gift card to offset the cost and also currently offers $120 off the Galaxy Ring with a My Best Buy Plus ($49.99 a year) and My Best Buy Total ($179.99 a year) membership.
The Galaxy Ring’s normal $400 price is $50 more expensive than the base Oura Ring 4, but unlike the latter, it doesn’t require a subscription, which makes this deal a bit sweeter. You’ll need a Galaxy smartphone for the best experience, though, as the IP68 water-resistant wearable offers rather basic but standard activity and sleep tracking features without it. It can measure your blood oxygen level, skin temperature, heart rate, and tracks your steps and workouts. But a phone with Galaxy AI can use the metrics to generate insights about your quality of sleep, workout results, and even an Energy Score that attempts to quantify your fatigue levels.
We found these features sufficiently accurate and in line with the competition, but the tips aren’t always the most helpful, and you can get better accuracy from a Galaxy Watch. Using the ring and watch in tandem would result in 30 percent longer battery life for the Galaxy Ring’s six to seven-hour runtime, we’ve found, as the ecosystem prefers the Watch’s readings where possible.
Other features require a Galaxy smartphone, too, such as pinch gestures for smartphone actions and the ability to trigger the ring’s lights with Samsung Find. That means you should probably go with another ring if you don’t use a Samsung phone.
