- During its Galaxy Unpacked presentation, Samsung showed a slide that suggested that future Samsung Health features that use the Galaxy Ring could come with a subscription.
- Current Galaxy Ring features don’t require a subscription of any kind to use, but some competing smart rings do.
- The text in Samsung’s slide doesn’t explicitly state that future Samsung Health features will require a subscription, but it does leave the possibility open.
While smart rings aren’t new by any means, the Galaxy Ring from Samsung is the first such product from a major consumer technology brand. After much anticipation, it finally launched a little under two weeks ago at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked event alongside new foldables, earbuds, and smartwatches. Samsung’s smart ring is particularly notable because, although it’s a bit pricier than its leading competitors at $399.99, it doesn’t require any subscription fees to use its features. That, however, might not always be the case, at least for future features.
The Samsung Galaxy Ring packs a handful of health sensors such as a heart rate monitor, sleep tracker, blood oxygen tracker, step counter, and more. These sensors power the Galaxy Ring’s various health and fitness tracking features, which include continuous sleep monitoring, heart rate monitoring, activity tracking, workout detection, cycle tracking, and more. Since the Galaxy Ring doesn’t have a display, all the health and fitness data it collects must be viewed through the Samsung Health app on the Android smartphone it’s paired to.