Samsung Galaxy ring vs Oura ring: Which one should you buy?
We pit the two smart rings against each other see if Samsung’s can knock Oura off its perch
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Louise Thomas
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The wearables war is heating up. Later this month, Samsung will launch its first ever Galaxy ring as the tech giant looks to expand its range of health and fitness devices. The first major tech company to launch a smart ring, the question we’re all asking is: Will the Samsung Galaxy ring be good enough to challenge the market-dominating Oura ring?
Like the Oura ring, the durable, unobtrusive AI-powered Galaxy ring can track your sleep, walks and runs, and monitor your heart rate, skin temperature and menstrual cycles. It can then crunch all your metrics to give you an overall score about your energy levels and provide personalised health insights. But what’s the difference between the two?
While we’ve only had a short time with the Galaxy ring, we’ve had many a year with the Oura ring, and had enough hands-on time with the Samsung Galaxy ring to compare its price, design and features. Here’s everything you need to know.
Samsung Galaxy ring vs Oura ring: Price
There’s just one single price for the Samsung Galaxy ring. You’ll pay £399 for the ring, no matter what size or colour you choose. That’s expensive – essentially £100 more than the cheapest Oura ring.
The Oura ring ranges in price, depending on the style and finish. The cheapest Oura ring is the silver or black heritage rings, which cost £299. Even Oura’s newer horizon style ring is cheaper, starting at £349 for the black or silver heritage rings.
However, while you’ll pay more up-front for the Samsung Galaxy ring, all of its features are free to use. Oura charges a £5.99 monthly subscription for all the health and wellness insights. Without the monthly subscription, the wearable becomes a glorified dumb ring – you’ll only get your daily scores and that’s about it.
Not charging a subscription fee is pretty game-changing as most of Oura’s competitors charge monthly for their features, and the kind of insight you get inside the Samsung Health app is, from what we’ve seen, just as detailed as what you’d get from the Oura app with a subscription.
Samsung Galaxy ring vs Oura ring: Design and comfort
While tech companies can distinguish their smartphones from one another, it’s a little trickier to do that with a ring, which all – let’s face it – look pretty much the same. Both the Galaxy ring and the Oura ring are made from titanium and are a little wider and thicker than a regular ring. The Galaxy ring, however, is slightly less thick and weighs less than the Oura ring.
The Samsung Galaxy ring is 2.6mm thick and 7mm wide, while the Oura ring is between 2.5mm and 2.9mm thick (depending on the ring size) and 7.9mm wide. The Galaxy ring also weighs between 2.3g and 3g, while the Oura ring weighs between 4g and 6g.
In terms of the sizes, the Oura ring comes in eight different sizes (between 6 and 13), while the Samsung Galaxy ring comes in nine different sizes (between 5 and 13). We were a size 8 on the Oura ring, and between a size 8 and a size 9 on the Galaxy ring, so they’re very similarly sized.
Read more:These Samsung Galaxy ring features surprised me
Despite being heftier and thicker than the Galaxy ring, we found it light and comfortable to wear all day, but need a little more time with the Galaxy ring to see how comfortable it is on test. Weight and thickness alone, it should be more comfortable than the Oura ring.
You get a lot more customisability with the Oura ring. There are two different styles to choose from. The heritage style has a distinctive flat top, while the horizon ring is completely round. The heritage Oura ring comes in silver, black, stealth and gold, while the horizon comes in silver, black, stealth, gold, rose gold and brushed titanium. You only get one of three options for the Galaxy ring – silver, gold and black.
Both the Oura and Galaxy ring look really pretty, so it’s difficult to compare the two on design alone. It is nice that the Galaxy ring is less thick, however. Both the Oura ring and Galaxy ring are water resistant up to 100m, so you can shower, and go swimming with them.
While they look fairly similar and are made from the same durable material, the way they charge is different. The Galaxy ring utilises a wireless chargeable case, similar to an earbuds case, while the Oura ring uses a cradle. We really like the Galaxy ring case because it’s easier to transport than the cradle. While the cradle’s small, having a small box that you can chuck in your bag, rather than a cable isn’t as convenient.
What’s better is that the case can hold several charges, meaning you cold technically have a month of charges on the go. The Oura ring needs to be plugged in with the cradle every time it dies, so it’s not as easy to charge on the go. Battery life is the same for both, however – you get around a week of juice on a single charge for both rings.
Samsung Galaxy ring vs Oura ring: Features
Firstly, the Samsung Galaxy ring only works with Android devices and works best with a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, so if you’ve got an iPhone, you’ll want to go for the Oura ring. Features-wise, they’re pretty similar, though remember you’ll have to pay that subscription fee with the Oura ring.
Sensor-wise, both the Galaxy ring and Oura ring have an accelerometer, a photoplethysmography sensor (PPG), which tracks your blood circulation and oxygenation and a skin temperature sensor. The Oura has an additional IR sensor, which helps when your ring isn’t exactly aligned on your finger properly.
Both rings can track your heart rate, sleep, body temperature and activity, as well as cycle tracking and pregnancy insights. The Oura ring can also give you an indicator of your cardiovascular age. Oura also launched an AI Advisor, which can give you even more personalised insights into your health and wellbeing, competing with Samsung’s AI health insights.
Read more: Apple’s Vision Pro is at the very cutting edge of what is possible
Oura gives you daily readiness scores based on different metrics, which is something the Galaxy ring will do at launch. Samsung will you give users an Energy Score, a number between 0-100 that crunches all your metrics into one data point, plus wellness tips inside the Samsung Health app.
Activity tracking is a little more limited with the Galaxy ring. It can only track runs and walks, while the Oura ring can track 40 different workouts automatically. A Samsung representative told us that they see the Galaxy ring as a holistic device that works in tandem with its other wearables, such as the Galaxy Watch 7. Pairing these two together will give you a more accurate look at your fitness and sleep. They can both track how well you slept and sleep efficiency.
Broadly the same, you’ll get pretty much the same data on both rings, and Oura is launching new features all the time to keep up with Samsung’s horsepower and try to one-up it with new ones, including cardiovascular age.
One game-changing feature that is only available on the Galaxy ring is the implementation of a double pinch gesture. Users can make a double pinch gesture with their index finger and thumb to perform different actions, such as take a picture remotely or stop an alarm. It’s a very neat system that the Oura ring misses out on.
The verdict: Samsung Galaxy ring vs Oura ring
While we still have yet to fully test the Galaxy ring, right now, it looks very promising indeed. That’s all academic of course if you own an iPhone. You won’t be able to use the Galaxy ring if you’re in Apple’s ecosystem, making the Oura ring a no-brainer. But if you’ve got a Samsung Galaxy smartphone or an Android, the integrations, smart case, gesture support and the subscription-free model may give it an edge. We’ll update this article when we review the Galaxy ring in full.
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