We pit the two smart rings against each other see if Samsung’s can knock Oura off its perch

It’s almost been a year since Samsung launched its first smart ring – a sleek bit of kit designed to slot neatly into the Galaxy ecosystem. Launched in July, the Galaxy ring marked Samsung’s first real step into smart jewellery, going head-to-head with the long-standing celebrity-adored Oura ring.

Like Oura, it tracks sleep, heart rate, skin temperature, menstrual cycles and activity, crunching the numbers into a daily energy score through the Samsung Health app. But unlike Oura, there’s no monthly fee – everything’s included from the start.

Now that the Galaxy ring’s had time to bed in, we’ve had a proper chance to put it through its paces. After long-term testing with both rings, here’s how Samsung’s smart ring compares to the fourth-generation Oura ring.

We wore both the Galaxy ring and the Oura ring gen 4 for several weeks, switching between them (and sometimes wearing one on each hand) to see how they compared on sleep, heart rate, recovery and workouts. We kept our Galaxy Watch on hand to cross-check some of the data and see how well each ring held up against the more established wearable.

Comfort was a big one – we paid close attention to how they felt overnight and during workouts, and whether the sensors dug in at all. We also tested how long the battery actually lasted, how annoying (or not) the charging setup was, and how smooth the app experience felt day to day. Basically, I lived with both rings to figure out which one made more sense to wear 24/7, and whether the features actually helped or just looked good on paper.