“Samsung” is preparing for its first smart ring, and experts are skeptical
Korean website Naver reported that Samsung has filed a patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office for its own smart ring, complete with a heart rate monitor and smart home control capability.
But the editor of the "Verge" website, which specializes in technology, doubted Samsung's ability to provide it to the consumer soon.
"It's easy to see why smart rings are so attractive," said the site's tech editor.
Compared to smartwatches, they are more discreet, the fingers are better for measuring heart rate, and the rings are more comfortable to wear 24/7” but “also pose greater engineering and technical challenges than smartwatches because they are so small.”
One example is the famous and elegant Oura ring, which offers nothing different from third-generation collectibles.
So the editor met Oura CEO Tom Hale a few weeks ago, where he asserted that “the perfectly round smart ring is an incredible engineering challenge.”
As it turns out, it's hard to get a battery at the same time small enough to fit into a ring while also being thin and flexible enough to take on a curved shape.
This is why most smart rings that hit the market have a flat edge somewhere in the design.
Meanwhile, its software-based breakthroughs are not unique to a smart ring.
It is easy for companies like Samsung, Apple and Google to make a smart ring capable of doing an ECG and send it to the companion phone, but it is the “smarter” features such as controlling your TV, sending notifications or interacting with your phone that must Very suspicious of it.
Previous Smart Rings tried to do more.
The Ringly was a trendy $200 ring that vibrated and flashed whenever you got a notification, but it didn't have a screen, so you had to memorize what a combination of buzzes and lights meant.
It also will not work if you are out of bluetooth range.
There are currently some interesting ideas about smart rings being rolled out by startups.
Ultrahuman works on a smart ring to "hack" your metabolism;
As Movano is working to obtain FDA clearance for a ring to help monitor chronic disease;
And Happy Health just got a lot of funding for a Mental Health Measurement Ring.
But while some of these ideas are accurate, it can be argued that these use cases are more interesting to researchers than to consumers.
In these inflationary times, consumers want the best value for their money, and a smartwatch can do everything a smart ring can - and so much more.
At the end of the day, patents are no guarantee that a company will release a particular product.
If Samsung can't figure out a killer reason why consumers want a Galaxy Ring — which wouldn't include controlling a TV, that's one patent that won't see the light of day for long.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news