Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event on July 10 in Paris is just days away. We could see Samsung launching the Galaxy Ring, and I couldn’t be more excited.
I don’t like smartwatches and never considered trying a smart ring until Jan. 17, when an unexpected announcement from Samsung had a surprising effect on me. I was sitting in the SAP Center in San Jose, California, for the January Galaxy Unpacked event, during which the company unveiled the Galaxy S24 series. The keynote event went as expected until the end, when Samsung teased the Galaxy Ring. In a very un-Patrick moment, I thought, “I want this and I don’t know why.”
How could I not be curious after seeing this? The Galaxy Ring is packed with sensors and it records health data including your heart rate, movement and sleep. It doesn’t have a screen and it looks fairly discreet. After some introspection, I realized it could be the smart device I’ve been looking for.
I’ve always had a weird thing about wearing jewelry, like watches and rings. I spent a number of years working as a carpenter building sets for operas, displays for museums and even a zoo enclosure for monarch butterflies. There’s nothing as wonderful as having butterflies land on you while you’re trying to fix a leaky Aztec-inspired fiberglass waterfall and pool.
I’ve never been a ring person, but I enjoyed wearing watches until I scuffed one up while sanding a flat (part of a fake wall used on theater, film and TV sets). The experience was enough to make me wary of wearing watches. Then there’s smartwatches, which add an entire other level of complexity that I just don’t need, and they just don’t look as good or striking as a regular wristwatch.
The Galaxy Ring isn’t the first smart ring; there are also rings from Oura, Ultrahuman, Evie and others. But with its minimalist, distraction-free design, it could be the ideal complement to my phone, and I imagine that’s the case for many other folks. If Samsung wants the Galaxy Ring to be a hit beyond just early adopters, it needs to keep everything about the ring simple enough to court smartwatch haters like me. And if the company doesn’t, Samsung risks the Galaxy Ring becoming just another minor accessory that’s relegated to people who already own Samsung products.
