I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Ring for over two weeks now, and the Watch 7 for longer than that. But I really wanted to review these products together because in that time, the product I’ve really fallen in love with is Samsung Health.
It’s really good, reporting stress and energy levels and providing insightful ways for me to impact them. Launching the app brings you to a useful dashboard that lets you easily dive deeper into your metrics, and it looks great on a big screen like the one on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.
Related
Galaxy Z Fold 6 review: Other Folds are thinner with better cameras, but Samsung’s Fold is most polished
The Fold 6 feels like the final evolution of Samsung’s original 2019 foldable vision: the hardware is refined and polished, but still playing it safe
The only problem with reviewing the two products together is that I really only like the Galaxy Watch 7. It’s my new favorite smartwatch for Android phones, with its sleek design and the Samsung Health backend that I’ve grown to enjoy so much.
As for the Galaxy Ring, it started showing wear after just a week of usage, and it doesn’t do anything that the Watch doesn’t do. Wearing both at once extends the battery life of the Ring, and for a device that gets a week of battery life, that’s not particularly useful. It’s a nice health monitor for people that simply don’t want a smartwatch, but that’s it.
-
Samsung Galaxy Ring
Pros- Health tracking without a smartwatch
- Relatively comfortable
- Samsung Health is a great platform
Cons- Scratches easily
- Does less than a smartwatch
- It’s pricey
-
Samsung Galaxy Watch 7
Pros- Comfortable and stylish
- Relatively affordable
- Samsung Health is a great platform
Cons- Some features exclusive to Samsung phones
- Wear OS is still rough in some areas
Samsung Galaxy Ring and Watch 7 pricing and availability
The Samsung Galaxy Ring is available now for $399.99 in Titanium Silver, Titanium Gold, and Titanium Black. Ordering is a little tricky, since you’ll want to know your size. For that, Samsung has a sizing kit that it will send to you, which comes with an array of plastic rings. You pick the one you want and order that one. The sizing kit is free as long as you keep your commitment to buy a Galaxy Ring.
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 will run you $299.99 or $329.99 for the 40mm or 44mm models, respectively, with a $50 premium if you want 4G LTE connectivity. The smaller one comes in green and cream, while the larger one comes in green and silver. On a side note, I’d love to be in the room to see how these guys decide which colors are best for which sizes.
Samsung Galaxy Ring
It’s a tough sell
Out of everything announced at Unpacked, I was most excited for the Galaxy Ring. It’s a health sensor that’s not a watch, essentially, which makes it more comfortable to wear.
I wouldn’t spend my own money on this product. Firstly, it’s a complete subset of features that you’d get from the Galaxy Watch 7 or Galaxy Watch Ultra. It tracks things like your heart rate, sleep, walking, and running, but it’s not going beyond that. Again, think of it as a health monitor, not a fitness monitor.
Wear and tear
My biggest issue with it is that after just two weeks, this thing is banged up, and I don’t even know why. There are visible areas where you can see scratches; it looks like I’ve been wearing it for months, if not years. And this is after just two weeks.
It’s also not as comfortable as I imagined. Samsung recommended wearing it on my index finger, so that’s what I did, and I realized that I really don’t like wearing a ring on that finger. It feels a bit silly to say this, but that’s one of my more important fingers.
The reason for this is because you can use gestures to control things like taking a picture on your phone. If you don’t care about that, you can use any finger. But remember, your sizing decision is permanent.
I have to wonder what the upgrade cycle is on these. If this product is so banged up after just weeks, what does it look like after six months, a year, or two years?
Battery life
I was a size 12, so I got the larger battery found in the two largest sizes. Samsung promised seven days on size 12 and 13 and six days in everything smaller, which is fine. I just charged it when I took it off to do the dishes.
Ultimately, with products that are designed to last multiple days, it’s not a matter of exactly how much battery life you get. It really changes how you think about charging. It’s not a ritual anymore.
It does come with a charging case, which has a battery in it. So I suppose, if you can’t get to a power outlet for weeks on end, the case will get you an extra 1.5 charges.
Sleep tracking
There are really only two reasons you’d buy a Samsung Galaxy Ring. Aside from people that want health tracking without wearing a smartwatch, there’s sleep tracking. I hate wearing a smartwatch to bed, and I usually forego sleep tracking because of it.
But sleep tracking is really one of those things where it’s up to you if you find it useful. Like any sleep tracker, Samsung Health is going to tell you how much sleep you got, how much deep sleep, how much light sleep, and how many times you woke up. You’ll even be able to action some of this data thanks to insights in the Health app, which is wonderful.
You can also just Google best practices for good sleep though. For example, the earlier you stop using caffeine or nicotine before bed, the better you’ll sleep. You won’t wake up to go to the bathroom if you stop drinking water at an earlier time. Earplugs help too, as does general exercise. You don’t need sleep tracking with AI to tell you those things.
Of course, sleep can be more complex than that, and maybe you will have some real-world benefit from sleep tracking. Just ask yourself if you need it first. That’s all I’m saying. I’ve been reviewing wearables and using their sleep-tracking for years, and I’ve constantly found myself looking at the data and asking, “This is neat, now how does this help me?”
Samsung Galaxy Watch 7
The best smartwatch for most
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is my new favorite smartwatch, and I normally wear an Apple Watch user (obviously the Apple Watch is paired with an iPhone). Most of my testing was done with both the Galaxy Watch 7 and Ring paired with a Galaxy Z Fold 6 (which I also love), although right now, it’s paired with some newer devices that I’m reviewing.
The Galaxy Watch 7 is sleek, lightweight, and stylish.
It’s sleek, lightweight, and stylish, and it’s really just a pleasure to wear. Wear OS does hold it back in some areas with its crude notification UI (I really do miss Samsung’s Tizen days), but Samsung’s One UI on top of it does what it can.
It doesn’t have the physical rotating bezel that Samsung is known for, but you can still drag your finger around the bezel for the same effect.
Ultimately, I think smartwatches are about style more than anything, and that’s an extremely personal choice, but the Galaxy Watch 7 works for me. I used the Watch Ultra for a bit, and that one’s not. It’s big and bulky, so if you can benefit from that, go for it. I’ll take sleek and comfortable.
Battery life is fine. I charged it overnight, and it was rare for the device to be under 40% when I put it on the charger.
Samsung Health
Tracking what’s most important
Like any health-tracking service, Samsung Health gives you a whole bucket of data. What’s important is that it delivers this data in a way that’s digestible. When you open the app, it shows you a dashboard of top-level health indicators like stress, your energy score, and of course, movement tracking. By default, it also shows you cycle tracking, which you can remove if it doesn’t apply to you, food, and water.
Samsung Health gives you data in a digestible format, making it more actionable.
Being top-level items, you can tap on any one to drill into that particular metric. Typically, Samsung Health returns data that’s fairly actionable.
Any health-tracking service can deliver a pile of data. That’s easy. What matters is that the data is easily digestible and broken down, and that the service can provide insight into how you can improve your health. I really like how Samsung Health does those things.
Stress levels
As it turns out, I’m pretty stressed, according to Samsung Health. It’s no surprise to me, but it’s helpful to have that information right in my face.
The app has built-in breathing exercises, and then there’s also a “related content” section that offers stretches, exercises, and meditation. It’s really helpful. If you scroll through the screenshots above, you can see how I was able to action the stress data and lower it.
Sleep tracking
Sleep tracking data can help you find things that you didn’t realize are making you lose sleep, or even things that make you a lighter sleeper. It’s useful up until a point. Like I mentioned earlier, you’re going to learn some very basic things about best practices for sleep, and you’ll probably never look at this again.
I really like Samsung’s approach of adding scores to everything. You might not dive into sleep data regularly, especially if you feel fine during the day, but the act of seeing simple scores on a dashboard makes me more inclined to want to see more if that score is low.
Energy score
Your energy score combines a bunch of factors that contribute to your total energy. I think everyone wishes they were more energetic, so this simple metric helps you to do that.
The energy score is probably the best example of why I’ve really fallen in love with Samsung Health. It’s a simple 1-100 score that’s created from a broad range of indicators, such as various sleep metrics and how active you were the previous day. You can choose to dive deeper into that score however you want, or if it’s high enough, ignore it.
Your energy score combines rest and activity data to tell you how much energy you should have, and how you can improve.
It’s a pyramid of data that makes health tracking digestible so it’s not intimidating, therefore making it more actionable.
Samsung also isn’t requiring extra work from you, unlike Apple. I used to use Apple Fitness and Health pretty religiously. For sleep tracking on an Apple Watch, you have to set a bedtime. With the upcoming watchOS update, you’re going to be able to start rating workouts based on how intense it was for you. It’s the AI era. The device should be figuring it out for me.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Ring?
You should buy the Samsung Galaxy Ring if:
- You want health tracking but don’t want a smartwatch
- You’re really interested in sleep tracking
You should NOT buy the Samsung Galaxy Ring if:
- You’re very active
- You wear a smartwatch, especially if you’re comfortable wearing it to sleep
At $400, the Samsung Galaxy Ring is a tough sell. When I first started using it, I thought it would work well together with the Galaxy Watch 7. That’s why I wanted to review both devices together. But the more I used them, the more they felt redundant.
The only reason to get a ring as a health tracker is if you’re not going to wear a smartwatch, which does everything the Ring does and more. Even if you’re not wearing a watch some of the time, $400 is a lot of money.
Should you buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7?
You should buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 if:
- You want a stylish and comfortable smartwatch
- You don’t need the extended battery life of a larger watch like the Watch Ultra
- You use an Android phone
You should NOT buy the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 if:
- You use an iPhone
- You need a more rugged smartwatch
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 is a device that I’m comfortable recommending to pretty much anyone, assuming you have an Android phone. The form factor is just right for most use cases, and it’s just delightful.
If you really want a Samsung watch, you’ll also find yourself deciding between the Watch 7 and the Watch Ultra. These products pretty much do the same thing, but the Watch Ultra is bigger and bulkier, while being more rugged with a larger battery. As is the case with an Apple Watch, most people should get the standard model, and anyone that goes for the Ultra should know what they want it for.