Circular Ring Slim Review: Skinny Competition to Samsung & Oura

Value When Reviewed

$281

Finest Costs At the moment: Round Ring Slim

The Round Ring Slim is one other good ring that wishes to deliver health and wellness monitoring to your finger and is at present the slimmest good ring you slip onto one in every of 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 related metrics together with coronary heart fee, temperature, sleep and every day steps.

It’s additionally contains an AI assistant to make suggestions primarily based in your information that can assist you follow more healthy habits. It’s a gorgeous prospect because it is available in lower than the big-name good ring competitors, and does put in a great monitoring efficiency with some issues that should be labored on.

Design & Construct

• Slimmest good ring accessible
• IP68 water resistance score
• Small charging dongle

To massively confuse issues, Round has three good rings and two of these three good 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 evaluate.

The mannequin has been round for a short time however the agency has upgraded it with out altering the title – not even with a ‘2024’ moniker. Relaxation assured, this evaluate 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 would go well with in order for you one thing delicate.

It does, nevertheless, appear to have dealt with warding off scratches higher than the Round Ring Slim Gentle and fortunately additionally lacks the extra outstanding 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 likewise 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 function, which you’ll be able to arrange within the companion app. As soon as the alarm is ready, you possibly can double-tap on the emblem to show it off.

When it’s essential cost the ring, it comes with a really moveable charger which you can clip onto your keys. The USB-C dongle design does make it a bit of simpler to misplace than different good ring chargers and plugging it into one thing like a laptop computer might be fiddly as adjoining ports possible should be empty with a view to match the ring on.

However in the event you like the concept of a small charger setup, that is by far the smallest accessible on a sensible ring proper now. Word that the Samsung and RingConn include charging instances (like wi-fi earbuds) so you possibly can cost wherever and a number of instances over.

From a sturdiness standpoint, the Ring Slim carries an IP68 score, which implies 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 arms. It’s not the strongest water resistance you’ll discover on a sensible ring.

Health & Monitoring 

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

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

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 similar to steps and allow sleep monitoring.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

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

The app is a bit on the busy aspect 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 information syncing can take some time.

There’s storage capability on the ring for as much as 20 days price of knowledge, however finally you’re going to need to have interaction with that app each day to get a way of what your information is saying about your normal well-being. Ready round for that information to seem is a bore.

Whenever you do get the info, there’s so much happening right here. You’ve obtained Circles on the prime of the app, to supply shortcuts to completely different monitoring information 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 good assistant that gives suggestions and suggestions primarily based in your information.

I can see from the principle dashboard when metrics like resting coronary heart fee has spiked or there’s been an enormous 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

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

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

For insights, that’s largely led by your Power rating, which amongst metrics seems to be at your sleep to let you know 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 night time’s sleep, I had a rating of under 80%. My Oura Ring was telling me an analogous story. 

There’s additionally the Kira+ AI insights, which supplies you an extended stream of copy detailing your information after which providing recommendations, however these are fairly staple items. You can even log actions every time you sync the app, so given I logged that I had some alcohol it explains how that may 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 respiration options or to do some meditation to maintain my stress ranges low. There’s nothing groundbreaking right here, it feels fairly normal by way of its usefulness so branding it as AI would possibly set expectations too excessive.

There are some further options right here like the power to take on-the-spot coronary heart fee, coronary heart fee variability and SpO2 readings. You’ll be able to 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 fee monitoring was extremely unreliable, even for stationary exercises.

Battery Life & Charging

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

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

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

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

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

As talked about earlier, in relation to charging, it’s a special course of to charging different good rings. I believe the concept of the case that RingConn and now Samsung has opted for looks like the perfect resolution.

As a substitute, Round has opted for one thing smaller that does totally cost the ring in beneath an hour however might be barely awkward charger to seek out a fantastic 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 good 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 prime.

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 good ring accessible, nevertheless it’s definitely not one of many priciest both.

Do you have to purchase the Round Ring Slim?

After I take a look at the entire different good rings which are accessible and I’ve examined and take 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 are accessible 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 expertise work properly, the package deal doesn’t fairly put it there with the perfect. The software program is just too busy and it doesn’t supply a function set that betters what else is offered from different good rings.

It may be the thinnest good ring, nevertheless 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 fee and SpO2 monitoring
• Temperature sensor
• 3D accelerometer movement sensor
• Bluetooth Sensible low vitality