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"science and technology innovation board daily" august 31st (editor song ziqiao) as the consumer electronics industry enters the new product release period, coupled with the "prototype" of smart glasses, smart wearable products have become popular this quarter.

among them, smart rings are showing signs of going viral. on august 23, apple announced a new patent for smart rings. driven by this, the smart ring sector, led by lifepulse medical, strengthened this week. lifepulse medical once closed up three times in four days, with a cumulative increase of nearly 70% in a single week (august 26-august 30).

the popularity of smart rings in the secondary market has soared, which reminds people of the wireless headset market in the past. consumers have raised questions:is this product really good?

there are already many products called "smart rings" on the market, and e-commerce platforms are full of "substitutes" that cost tens to hundreds of yuan, most of which are just simple communication modules + stainless steel rings. in order to answer the above questions, it is necessary to select the mainstream products on the market and do an analysis.samsung's first smart ring galaxy ring,as well asoura ring from oura health oy, the finnish company that pioneered the smart ringobviously more representative.

galaxy ring image source: samsung official website

oura ring image source: oura health oy official website

the disadvantages seem to outweigh the advantages

compared to oura ring's creator, oura health oy, the users of this ring are more famous, including football star cristiano ronaldo, britain's prince harry, nba star kevin durant, tour de france legendary athlete lance armstrong, google founder larry page, twitter founder jack dorsey, gu ailing, kim kardashian... many celebrities and public figures have been photographed wearing oura ring.

cristiano ronaldo

prince harry

gu ailing

smart rings are more portable than smart watchesand because the skin on the fingers has better light transmittance, the device fits better, and the blood flow information is richer, the smart ring's biometric information sampling efficiency is higher.

the galaxy ring is made of titanium, is 2.6mm thick, and weighs just 3g in its largest size; the oura ring is 2.5mm thick but heavier (between 4 and 6g, depending on size).

the small size and light weight also bring a new problem - easy to lose. in addition, although manufacturers try to make it as light and thin as possible, smart rings still have an unignorable foreign body feeling. the technological appearance may serve as a decoration, but it may also limit the user's dressing style.

putting aside the user experience issues,the current smart ring is more like an accessory that complements existing smart devices.。

both galaxy ring and oura ring must be used with a mobile phone, and galaxy ring is not compatible with iphone. all interactions related to galaxy ring must rely on galaxy phones. the "apple ring", which is still in the "patent exposure" stage, also positions itself as an "extension of the mobile phone" rather than an independent device. thunderbird innovations, nolo, inmotion technology and meizu are keen on using smart rings as auxiliary hardware for ar devices.

small audience core features are controversial

from the core selling point point of view,currently, almost all smart rings focus on sports health and support functions such as heart rate, stress, and sleep monitoring. this limits their main audience to athletes who need to monitor their physical functions (they need to pay attention to heart rate and blood oxygen status during training, etc.) and people who have health monitoring needs.

for example, both galaxy ring and oura ring have excellent sleep tracking functions, which will score each night's sleep based on sleep time, soundness, sleep cycles, physical recovery, and mental recovery. users can also use the sleep guidance function to get suggestions on how to improve sleep.

galaxy ring product flyer

oura ring's company information page, in terms of product features, the most emphasis is on "health"

wu hao, co-founder of ringconn of jiuzhi technology, once said that among their 40,000 users, 70% are american users aged 35-55. users in this age group are very concerned about their physical health. the motivation and demand for purchasing ringconn gen 2 is mainly for osa sleep apnea syndrome monitoring.

this kind of "hardcore health care" equipment requires close monitoring of physical conditions and has requirements for wearing time, and different consumers have different opinions on this.

too much detailed data can make some users feel anxious and "surveilled." lakers player kyle kuzma once said that this product is like a "monitoring device" (in fact, it can also be said that sports associations can use the backend system developed by oura health to understand the health status of their athletes).

kyle kuzma: "looks like a surveillance device?"

the product is in its infancy but not everyone will win

at present, smart rings are still in their infancy, and new entrants are emerging one after another. as for domestic manufacturers, in april this year, goertek co., ltd. applied for a patent called "smart ring; huami amazfit released a new smart product amazfit hello ring at ces 2024; recently, xinhai technology launched a new smart ring heart rate and blood oxygen measurement solution; goodix technology's market share of smart ring main control chips in 2024 will account for about 7%...

different companies producing the same product have different approaches.for smart rings, their software capabilities are often overlooked. some manufacturers may be good at controlling hardware costs but neglect to build a software moat.

oura health oy, also a leading manufacturer of smart rings, sells its third-generation basic product for us$299 (approximately rmb 2,126). it adopts a subscription-based charging model, requiring a monthly fee of us$7 to unlock the best features, and an annual fee of us$70-80.a large part of its confidence lies in its rich and detailed database of top athletes。

as early as 2020, oura ring reached an official cooperation with the nba. the nba purchased more than 2,000 oura ring rings and provided them to all players and staff participating in the rematch (regular season and playoffs interrupted due to the epidemic). this allowed oura ring to have almost all of the nba's top star players as users overnight.

the nba has a huge influence. in the same year, oura health oy established partnerships with the wnba (women's national basketball association), ufc (ultimate football championship), f1 racing championship red bull team, mlb (national professional baseball league) seattle mariners team, etc.

oura ring's software ecosystem is still being improved, which in the past few months has also added an ai assistant, improved cycle tracking, pregnancy insights, stress recovery data, cardiovascular age estimation, and more.

judging from the concave wear-resistant design, weight and volume, the hardware configuration of samsung galaxy ring is worse than oura ring. however, according to reviews by multiple bloggers, the data monitoring of samsung smart ring is not as accurate as oura ring, and it has fewer functions.

galaxy ring uses titanium metal frame and concave wear-resistant design

samsung galaxy ring was born to be regarded as the strongest competitor of oura ring. its price is also not cheap - the price of the domestic version is 3,099 yuan, but its backward software ecosystem and buyout business model make people worry whether galaxy ring can beat oura ring. after all, in addition to product functions, oura ring is already several years ahead of samsung in terms of strategy.leverage nba to enter high-end user groups and use celebrity marketing to increase brand exposure。

conclusion

will smart rings be the next trend-setting consumer electronics product?

behind the consumer-grade smart rings that are dominating the market with traffic and popularity, there are a number of medical-grade smart ring brands that are quietly sprouting in the professional medical market. this market has never lacked competitors.

on one hand, there is the potential explosive power of new products and data presentation—— samsung released its first smart ring galaxy ring on july 10, and added 600,000 orders to 1 million. if samsung can sell all 1 million galaxy rings, its sales will be close to the total sales of oura ring since it was launched in 2017; oura ring is said to be releasing its fourth-generation product; apple has laid out multiple patents in the field of smart rings; honor also said it is developing smart rings...

on the one hand, some early adopters gave ruthless feedback——"iq tax", "electronic waste", "useless technology toys", "wait a little longer". indeed, as a new category of smart wearable devices, the functions of smart rings include health monitoring, exercise monitoring, message reminders, identity recognition, etc., which basically overlap with smart bracelets and smart watches.

the fact is that manufacturers generally face questions about their business models, and the current product experience does not seem to convince more consumers to buy boldly.

as far as smart rings are concerned, the market is still waiting for a hit product to complete consumer education.