We tested six smart rings and there is a clear winner

Smart rings are having a moment. After years of being a niche gadget, everyday people are starting to see its appeal. They are thinner, more accurate and more wearable compared to a decade ago – and for some people they are a smarter choice than smartwatches.

Smartwatches may dominate the wearable landscape, but they don’t work for everyone. They can be extensive. Charging daily is difficult. Additionally, they don’t always work for people with wrist tattoos or for those who participate in more niche sports. (Ever tried to put a Garmin under a boxing glove? That’s no fun.) Conversely, smart rings are discreet and often have several days of battery life, and your finger can be a more accurate place to collect heart rate data.

But which smart ring is the best? To find out, I called six smart rings currently on the market: the Oura Ring, Ultrahuman Ring Air, Circular Slim, Samsung Galaxy Ring, RingConn, and Evie Ring. I’ve been sleeping with them for the past few months. Showered with them. Practiced with them. I compared a bunch of health data until my eyes bled. For a while I wore all six at once, like a mafia don with two pairs of brass knuckles. I now have six ring tans. All this so that I can definitively tell you which is the one smart ring to rule them all.

Folks, it’s not the Circular Slim.

On paper, the $294 Circular Slim is promising. It’s running on almost none of it. The big problem was accuracy. While the stats were generally fine, at times my step count was so off that it made me laugh. I’m talking about 5,000 steps off compared to my other wearables. And then I had the patience to review my stats, because syncing is a chore. On average it took two to three minutes, which often caused me to leave the app in anger. It would be one thing if this was a one-off. It wasn’t. Most people want smart rings for health tracking. If you’re not accurate and syncing is a chore, what’s the point?

It’s a shame, because this is the only smart ring with ambitions to be something other than a fitness tracker. It has a vibration motor for silent alarm. When Circular was still a Kickstarter, that engine also had to warn you about notifications. That feature has been ‘coming soon’ for years – something users aren’t too happy about. Right now the haptics are limited to silent alarms, but even that doesn’t really help. You have to tap the ring above the logo twice to turn off the alarm. That logo is virtually impossible to see in the dark. Most mornings I’m so dizzy that I slap my hand several times to turn it off. There’s also an ambitious AI chatbot that spits out daily recommendations. The problem is that it takes 14 days to calibrate, and like other AI-powered fitness features, it wasn’t very useful. But the real kicker is that the charger is an easily misplaced USB stick. It would be one thing if the battery had a long life, but no. I got two to three days with all features enabled. I also don’t think a nearly $300 ring should feel like it’s made of cheap, 3D printed plastic. Easily my least favorite ring of the bunch.

Disabled: circular ring

The next ring on the chopping block is the $269 Evie Ring. It pains me to write this because it is the prettiest and most comfortable of the six. Most smart rings are usually indistinguishable from one another, but the Evie Ring has a smart open design, meaning it doesn’t matter if your fingers swell or gain a few pounds. You can always remove it easily.

If design and comfort were the only factors, this ring would win. But it isn’t. The Evie Ring’s main problem is that it is the ultimate first-generation product with first-generation problems. Everything works decently, unlike the Circular Ring, but there’s a distinct lack of polish. Syncing and firmware updates can take a while, and Movano hasn’t yet found the best way to present and contextualize your data, although it takes a valiant effort. The Ring just relaunched to address some of this feedback, but it’s still catching up. Hopefully future versions will iron out the kinks.

The $279 RingConn isn’t bad. It simply isn’t noticeable. It has the best battery life of the pack. I reliably got six to nine days on a single charge And It comes with a neat little charging case. It’s just so… mediocre. This is the smart ring I’d recommend to people if they just wanted basic, mostly decent health monitoring, without the bells and whistles. Syncing can sometimes take a while, but not nearly as long as the Circular Slim or Evie Ring. Honestly, what bothered me most about the RingConn was its slightly boxy shape. It can feel a little strange on the finger, but unless you’re hypersensitive to that sort of thing, you’ll hardly notice it after a few days.

The RingConn’s flaws do not discredit it. But this is a battle royale. You can’t win just by being fine if other options are good, no great.

For what it’s worth, the $400 Samsung Galaxy Ring is the hardware. This is the thinnest ring of the bunch and the most comfortable after the Evie Ring, and the futuristic charging case adds to the chic look. The reason why the title isn’t adopted is because this ring is essentially for the Samsung diehards – at the expense of everyone else.

An example: you’ll get the best battery life if you use it with a Samsung Galaxy Watch. The cool double squeeze gesture to control the camera or ignore notifications? Yes, you need a new Z Flip 6 or Z Fold 6. (It appears to be making its way to the S24, but isn’t available at the time of writing.) It’s essentially a nice accessory for your Galaxy Watch.

The $349 Ultrahuman Ring Air came this close to taking it all. It’s sleek and lightweight, and I received compliments while wearing it. The battery life isn’t the best, but at three to four days it’s decent for this category. Where it excels is in fitness tracking and training, meaning it’s especially suitable for athletes.

Compared to the Oura Ring, which has a streamlined focus on general well-being, this ring focuses on optimization. Let’s say you’re trying to adopt healthier sleep habits. The companion app gives you a list of drinks with their average caffeine content and tells you when to drink, if your goal is to fall asleep at a certain time. I try to wake up earlier so I can sneak a run before the sun starts baking the planet. When I wake up, the ring shows a ‘Phase Advance’ timer. If I exercise during that time, my natural circadian rhythm is more likely to change sooner. There are a number of ‘upgrade’ widgets called Power Plugs that allow you to further customize your experience by focusing on other goals such as sun exposure for vitamin D, cycle tracking, circadian alignment, etc. Some Power Plugs are free. Others, like the upcoming AFib detection, will cost an additional $4.90 monthly, which I don’t like.

The accuracy is otherwise on par with my other devices, but the way my data is interpreted gives me pause. For example, I’m flattered that this ring thinks my VO2 Max (a metric used to measure your aerobic fitness) is 44 ml/kg/min (apparently that’s superior) and that my resting heart rate is Elite. Based on my years of testing other devices, this is overly generous. Granted, every company uses a different algorithm, but I generally fall into the slightly above average – emphasis on slightly – range.

While I really like the Ultrahuman Ring Air, that’s partly because I’m that dork who loves working out. This is all a bit much if you’re a more general user.

Disabled: Ultrahuman Ring Air

Most smart rings I tested did one or two things better than the $299 Oura ring. But overall, Oura’s experience in this area keeps it ahead of the competition. If accuracy and health tracking are important to you, Oura is doing a lot of work validating the algorithm, collaborating with researchers, and publishing a huge amount of documentation about its features. A number of years of hard work have gone into it, and it is reflected in the end product. The app is polished, syncing and updates are never an issue, and it’s available everywhere. The best thing about this new league is that it has also lit a fire under Oura’s butt to release more features and updates in the past few months than we have in a while. The main complaints I have are the $6 monthly subscription, and the charging dock isn’t my favorite. (Please, please, let the next version have a charging case.)

Smart rings as a whole will not dethrone smartwatches anytime soon. They are too expensive when a smartwatch can do much more for the same price. But if you’re going to buy a smart ring, you need to buy the best – and that’s the Oura ring. I’ve given five other rings every opportunity to dethrone it. Maybe it will happen someday. But until then, the Oura ring is king.