Circular Ring Slim Review: Skinny Competition to Samsung & Oura

The Round Ring Slim is one other sensible ring that wishes to convey health and wellness monitoring to your finger and is at present the slimmest sensible ring you slip onto one among your digits.

The subscription-free ring additionally is available in cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Ring and the Oura Ring Gen 3 and guarantees to trace comparable metrics together with coronary heart charge, temperature, sleep and every day steps.

It’s additionally consists of an AI assistant to make suggestions based mostly in your knowledge that can assist you persist with more healthy habits. It’s a beautiful prospect because it is available in lower than the big-name sensible ring competitors, and does put in a very good monitoring efficiency with some issues that must be labored on.

Design & Construct

• Slimmest sensible ring obtainable
• IP68 water resistance score
• Small charging dongle

To massively confuse issues, Round has three sensible rings and two of these three sensible rings are slim variations. There’s the Round Ring Professional, which options interchangeable outer shells, then there’s the Round Ring Slim Gentle, which I’ve additionally examined, and primarily lacks the haptic vibrations you do get on the Round Ring Slim examined on this evaluation.

The mannequin has been round for a short while however the agency has upgraded it with out altering the identify – not even with a ‘2024’ moniker. Relaxation assured, this evaluation is of the brand-new model.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

The Round Ring Slim weighs simply 2g, so it’s satisfyingly gentle and measures 2.2mm thick, which makes it thinner than the Samsung Galaxy Ring (2.6mm) and the Oura Ring Gen 3 (2.5mm), which is pictured under alongside the Round Slim.

It is available in only one matte black look and in contrast to different titanium-based rings, Round has opted for a mixture of aluminium and carbon fiber with a non-metallic inside the place the sensors lie. It’s a little bit of a plain ring to have a look at and doesn’t scream fashionable in the identical method that Oura and Samsung’s ring clearly do however it should swimsuit in order for you one thing delicate.

It does, nonetheless, appear to have dealt with warding off scratches higher than the Round Ring Slim Gentle and fortunately additionally lacks the extra distinguished Round emblem that I discovered made the ring look a bit cheesy.

It is available in eight completely different ring sizes, starting from US 6-13, and you’ve got the choice to buy it with the sizing equipment or print out one of many 3D sizing kits alternatively. I’ve discovered that opting for a similar dimension because the Oura Ring ensured I obtained a really dependable match that didn’t budge and in addition didn’t really feel too tight to put on.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Together with the optical sensors baked inside, Round additionally builds in a vibration motor, which is used for the alarm characteristic, which you’ll arrange within the companion app. As soon as the alarm is ready, you’ll be able to double-tap on the emblem to show it off.

When it’s good to cost the ring, it comes with a really transportable charger you can clip onto your keys. The USB-C dongle design does make it just a little simpler to misplace than different sensible ring chargers and plugging it into one thing like a laptop computer could be fiddly as adjoining ports doubtless must be empty with a view to match the ring on.

However for those who like the concept of a small charger setup, that is by far the smallest obtainable on a wise ring proper now. Observe that the Samsung and RingConn include charging circumstances (like wi-fi earbuds) so you’ll be able to cost anyplace and a number of occasions over.

From a sturdiness viewpoint, the Ring Slim carries an IP68 score, which suggests it may be submerged in water as much as 5m for half-hour. So consider this one as one to maintain on for showers and washing your fingers. It’s not the strongest water resistance you’ll discover on a wise ring.

Health & Monitoring 

• Tracks steps, sleep, coronary heart charge and stress
• Kira+ sensible assistant
• Devoted sports activities monitoring mode

The Round Ring Slim packs in acquainted sensible ring sensors. There’s an infrared one together with one pink and one inexperienced LED sensor. These are used for coronary heart charge and blood oxygen monitoring as properly monitoring metrics like respiratory charge.

There’s additionally a pores and skin temperature sensor that can assist you monitor, properly, temperature variations. To cowl motion, there’s a 3-axis accelerometer to trace exercise equivalent to steps and allow sleep monitoring.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

All of that knowledge is synced to the Round companion smartphone app, which is accessible for each iPhone and Android and as talked about, doesn’t require a subscription to entry all the options and insights obtainable – not like some rivals equivalent to Oura.

The app is a bit on the busy facet and whereas the setup course of was fairly faultless (though Tech Advisor Evaluations Editor, Chris struggled to get his paired for some time), features like knowledge syncing can take some time.

There’s storage capability on the ring for as much as 20 days value of information, however in the end you’re going to need to interact with that app every day to get a way of what your knowledge is saying about your common well-being. Ready round for that knowledge to seem is a bore.

While you do get the info, there’s rather a lot happening right here. You’ve obtained Circles on the high of the app, to supply shortcuts to completely different monitoring knowledge for starters.

There’s a dashboard of your newest stats under that and now Round has added area for telling you when is an effective time for productiveness or taking stimulants like espresso. There’s additionally Kira+, an AI sensible assistant that gives suggestions and suggestions based mostly in your knowledge.

I can see from the principle dashboard when metrics like resting coronary heart charge has spiked or there’s been a giant variation in pores and skin temperature. The Circles can supply an indicator of when sleep or vitality ranges are good with easy scoring. The issue is that this all lives on the identical web page and never in a really user-friendly method.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

While you flip to it for every day exercise monitoring like counting steps, constantly monitoring coronary heart charge and sleep monitoring, there’s some good and dangerous.

Step counts felt quite a bit greater on most days in comparison with two different health trackers I wore alongside it. Steady and resting coronary heart charge readings had their good and dangerous days too, although at occasions reported fairly low coronary heart charge readings, which Oura does even have a behavior of doing at occasions. It carried out properly for sleep monitoring matching the Oura for sleep period, sleep coronary heart charge and providing comparable sleep stage breakdowns.

For insights, that’s largely led by your Power rating, which amongst metrics seems to be at your sleep to inform you what your vitality ranges are. It’s scored on share, with above 90% seen as optimum and under 80% seen as poor. So on a day of getting up early to run a race after which spending a good few hours within the pub watching soccer plus an affected evening’s sleep, I had a rating of under 80%. My Oura Ring was telling me the same story. 

There’s additionally the Kira+ AI insights, which provides you a protracted stream of copy detailing your knowledge after which providing ideas, however these are fairly staple items. You too can log actions every time you sync the app, so given I logged that I had some alcohol it explains how that can have affected my sleep high quality.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

It tells me issues like to make use of the in-app guided respiratory options or to do some meditation to maintain my stress ranges low. There’s nothing groundbreaking right here, it feels fairly common when it comes to its usefulness so branding it as AI would possibly set expectations too excessive.

There are some further options right here like the flexibility to take on-the-spot coronary heart charge, coronary heart charge variability and SpO2 readings. You possibly can arrange remedy reminders, obtain vitals alerts and there’s additionally a devoted sports activities monitoring mode, which helps you to lean in your cellphone’s GPS to trace outside actions.

Sadly, the monitoring isn’t good in any respect. Distance monitoring didn’t work and coronary heart charge monitoring was extremely unreliable, even for stationary exercises.

Battery Life & Charging

• As much as 5-day battery life
• Efficiency and Eco battery modes
• Fees totally in 45 minutes

The Round Ring Slim claims it will probably final for as much as 5 days in between expenses.

It additionally gives two battery modes with a Efficiency one providing you with the perfect and most correct monitoring accuracy and an Eco one the place coronary heart charge monitoring is tracked at a much less frequent charge and also you’ll miss out on sleep stats like sleep phases.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

I discovered that within the Efficiency mode, the Slim lasted two days. When you go for the Eco mode it pushes just a little nearer to that 5 days, however within the course of, you’re sacrificing the extent of accuracy and knowledge, which isn’t precisely faultless in that Efficiency mode anyway.

As talked about earlier, relating to charging, it’s a unique course of to charging different sensible rings. I feel the concept of the case that RingConn and now Samsung has opted for seems like the perfect answer.

As an alternative, Round has opted for one thing smaller that does totally cost the ring in below an hour however could be barely awkward charger to search out an ideal spot and whereas it’s a magnetic setup, it’s simply knocked misplaced.

Value & Availability

The Round Ring Slim is priced at £226/$281/€294 and you should buy it from the official Round retailer.

In comparison with different sensible rings, it’s significantly cheaper than the £399/$399 you’ll have to pay for a Samsung Galaxy Ring, whereas the Oura Ring Gen 3 prices £299. Nevertheless, that does require a £5.99/$5.99 month-to-month subscription on high.

The subscription-free RingConn Sensible Ring prices $279 (approx (£220), whereas the Ultrahuman Ring Air is priced at £329/$349. 

So, it’s not the most affordable sensible ring obtainable, however it’s definitely not one of many priciest both.

Do you have to purchase the Round Ring Slim?

After I have a look at all the different sensible rings which might be obtainable and I’ve examined and have a look at the place the Round Sensible Ring Slim sits amongst them, I don’t really feel prefer it beats the perfect within the type of the Oura Ring Gen 3 and it doesn’t higher the opposite subscription-free choices which might be obtainable just like the RingConn Sensible Ring and Ultrahuman Ring Air.

It lacks a extra memorable design (although some could find it irresistible) and whereas a few of its core monitoring abilities work properly, the package deal doesn’t fairly put it there with the perfect. The software program is simply too busy and it doesn’t supply a characteristic set that betters what else is accessible from different sensible rings.

It is likely to be the thinnest sensible ring, however it’s not the perfect one to place in your finger proper now.

Specs

• 2.2mm thickness
• 5-day battery life
• Works with Android and iOS (free subscription)
• IP68 waterproof
• Weighs 2g
• PPG sensor for coronary heart charge and SpO2 monitoring
• Temperature sensor
• 3D accelerometer movement sensor
• Bluetooth Sensible low vitality