Best smart rings 2023: Top fitness tracking and payment rings

Smart rings are booming, and it looks like they're here to stay. While some new wearable categories spring up, make a big noise and then fade away, the future of smart rings looks bright.

The Oura Ring 3 has impressed most of all, as has the new Ultrahuman Ring Air. And the exciting forthcoming Movano Evie will increase the competition.

And we've also seen patents and trademarks land for a Samsung Galaxy Ring and Apple smart ring. And there are rumblings that Samsung may actually release its ring in 2024. It's one of the most exciting areas of wearables right now.

If you're ready to size up for a smart ring, we've picked out the best to pick up right now from our reviews – and highlighted new smart rings that are on the way.

What is a smart ring and what do they do?

Smart rings are small and discreet wearables, ideal for people who want to get the benefits of a wearable, without wearing a bulky smartwatch or fitness tracker.

The most popular use for smart rings is fitness tracking, and the likes of Oura, Ultrahuman and Movano collect most of the same metrics as fitness trackers, including heart rate, steps, sleep, and even workouts. 

Because of the thin skin around the finger, it's a great place to take heart rate readings. So we're generally seeing more reliable accuracy from smart rings than smartwatches. And they are becoming powerful health devices.

Another popular use for smart rings is contactless payments, just like smartphones and smartwatches.

Oura Ring 3

Price: $299 + $5.99 a month | Oura Store

Wareable

• Works with Android and iOS
• Heart rate, SpO2, respiration, and body temperature tracking
• Tracks steps and sleep
• Track heart rate during exercise
• 4-7 days battery life

The Oura Gen 3 earned an excellent 4-star score in our review, and we awarded it our Wearable of the Year to boot. It's not just the best smart ring on the market, but a top fitness tracker in its own right.

It's also launched a new Oura Ring 3 Horizon design – and even done a collaboration with Gucci.

As well as keeping tabs on wellness and activity, the Oura Gen 3 focuses on readiness and recovery – just like the Whoop 4.0 and Fitbit's Daily Readiness score. It's focused on analyzing your exertions and your rest and checking the two are in balance.

It adds the ability to continuously monitor heart rate, and track blood oxygen, and promises improvements to sleep tracking. We've found the accuracy of continuous heart rate monitoring and sleep tracking to be very good overall and it's one of the best-performing sleep trackers we've tested.

Oura has finally turned on the SpO2 sensor, which will now track blood oxygen saturation and breathing regularity during sleep, which can point to sleep apnea issues.

And it's added the ability to track heart rate during workouts, although our testing has shown that it's no match for dedicated sports watches in terms of accuracy at higher loads.

Oura has built a very slick companion app and it's opened up to third-party apps to share data including Strava.

Unfortunately, Oura has moved to a subscription model, which costs $5.99 a month, on top of the $299 for the ring. So it's not cheap to jump on board.

If you're looking for the best smart ring out there, this is still the one to beat. But the high price tag, ongoing subscription, and focus on wellness over fitness mean it won't suit every wearable shopper.

Read our full Oura Gen 3 review.

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Ultrahuman Ring Air

Price: $349 / £280 / €325 | Ultrahuman

Wareable

• Tracks heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen, sleep
• 2.4g
• Comes in black, or really dark black

The Ultrahuman Ring Air is the company's second-generation smart ring. It's lighter and smaller than its predecessor, at just 2.4g, making it more comfortable to wear.

It's still an extremely chunky ring, and we've not found it hugely comfortable or attractive to wear. If you're used to wearing big rings – and they suit your hands – then this can be a very good option.

Sleep is the main focus, and there's a sleep index that takes into account a wide range of data and metrics. We found that sleep tracking was largely reliable, with accuracy that took up well to Oura and Whoop. 

It also puts a focus on recovery – and helping manage circadian rhythms, including managing stimulants and prompting healthy wind-down times. These aren't hugely advanced in terms of tracking, but interesting additions that sit well alongside the deep insights.

There's also a recovery score, which also tracks metrics such as resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and body temperature. These are compared to established baseline scores, and there's a traffic light system to show if these are outside of your personal norms.

The Ultrahuman app also has a glucose element, and pais to a CGM for analysis of blood sugar.

It costs $349 / £280 / €325 without on-going subscriptions, so is a good alternative to Oura in terms of cost. 

Read our full review of the Ultrahuman Ring Air.

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Ringconn

Price: $279 | Ringconn

Ringconn

• Tracks heart rate, temperature, sleep and blood oxygen
• IP68 rated
• Gold, silver, black options

An Indiegogo success story, the Ringconn is another smart ring that's challenging Oura with no ongoing subscription fees. 

All the staples are here, including heart rate tracking and sleep monitoring – and there's stress monitoring and temperature detection too. Those latter features are all about the implementation, which has been pretty bland on rival devices. So we'll be studying those aspects in our upcoming review.

The Ringconn itself is made from titanium and weighs around 4g, so it's heavier than the Ultrahuman Ring Air – but still light.

It also has a squared-off design, which catches the eye, and it's IP68-rated, so it's good to swim with. 

At $279 it's a competitive price – and there's no subscription to pay.

Prevention Circul+

Price: $299 | Walmart

Wareable

Credit: Wareable

• Works with Android and iOS
• Tracks ECG and blood pressure
• Tracks steps and sleep
• No subscription service is required

We've seen ECG sensors on smartwatches and fitness trackers, but now Bodimetrics in partnership with Prevention has put that tech into a smart ring too.

It's not just ECG that this clever ring can track either. It can take blood pressure measurements while capturing that ECG measurement and once you've calibrated it with a cuff-style monitor first.

It promises heart rate tracking accuracy plus or minus 2bpm against medical grade monitoring and a +/- 3% accuracy for SpO2 monitoring it's capable of as well.

When we matched up data with a blood pressure monitor, pulse oximeter, and other ECG wearables, we found the data accuracy was good overall, though lacked any sort of actionable insights to put that tracked data to use.

Inactivity tracking data mode, it's all very basic. You can capture step counts but that's really about it. There's more going on with sleep monitoring letting you capture sleep duration, and sleep stages including REM time along with heart rate, baseline skin temperature, and SpO2 levels including an oxygen desaturation index. The data again felt very reliable on the whole.

That data can be stored freely in the app and cloud and can also be shared with doctors and health professionals, which is good to see here.

What's not so good to see is that the design of the ring makes it quite uncomfortable to wear for exercise and sleep. While it's light, the spring-loaded design that keeps it in place makes it awkward to wear in most scenarios.

There's also just 16 hours of battery life, which does mean weighing up when you monitor your stats. Its rather awkward and unique design means it's one you might want to only wear to monitor your stats overnight as well.

You can find out how we got on with this health tracking ring in our Prevention Circul+ review.

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Circular Smart Ring 

Price: $300/£224 | Circular

Circular

• Will work with Android and iOS
• Tracks heart rate, skin temperature, blood oxygen
• Tracks activity and sleep
• Changeable outer shells
• 10-day built-in data storage
• 4 days battery life

The Circular Ring has been catching some heat from Oura over the alleged infringement of its patents, and it's been beset by delays, with the shipping estimate now set for May 2023.

The hypoallergenic plastic ring squeezes in an accelerometer and heart rate monitor, for 24/7 health tracking. 

It promises to track energy levels and supposedly helps you monitor wellness and your immune system. It also goes deep, with metrics on VO2 Max, resting heart rate, and recovery.

It also covers tracking heart rate during exercise and resting heart rate during the day and night. There's rich sleep tracking too, including the ability to measure blood oxygen levels and your circadian rhythm.

To go beyond simply tracking, it's also included a smart assistant called Kira that will try to help you act on bad habits to address them.

The Bluetooth-enabled ring will work with Android and iOS devices with the promise of four days of battery life and the ability to change up the look with additional outer shells.

Whether that Oura wrangling will stop the Circular in its tracks, we're not so sure, but, if it does land, it'll be a clear rival for our current top smart ring pick.

McLear RingPay

Price when reviewed: £89.99 (Around $124) | McLear

McLear

• Works with Android and iOS
• Makes contactless payments only
• Comes in black and white looks
• No charging required

One feature the Oura 3 doesn't offer is payments. If you want to pay from your finger, the McLear has you covered.

Designed by the same team behind the crowdfunded NFC Ring, this smart ring offers the same contactless payment tech packed into contactless cards and other payment-enabled devices.

The iOS and Android-friendly wearable creates a secure isolated bank account that sits between any of your cards (Visa and Mastercard at the moment), and once you're all set up will let you make contactless payments using a closed-fist gesture.

The companion app lets you keep track of where you spend, and your average spending and activates an automatic top-up to make sure you have money at your fingertips.

It now also lets you make charitable donations each time you purchase with it, and RingPay+ subscribers can unlock discounts and additional rewards.

The McLear smart ring comes in either black or white and is available in ring sizes 4.5-16. It's currently only available in the UK.

Incoming smart rings 

Movano Evie Ring 

Price: $269 | Movano

Movano

• Tracks heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, temperature, and blood oxygen
• Monitors sleep
• Available in gold, silver, and rose gold options

The Movano Evie Ring is a female-focused smart ring – so it's one of the rare wearables that's designed with women's health in mind.

Movano has applied for FDA approval for its heart rate tech, so it means business about accuracy. Most devices caveat that they aren't used for medical purposes, but Movano is going for the gold standard for heart rate and SpO2.

It will go on sale for $269 and won't require a subscription fee, which makes it a cheaper proposition than Oura. You can order it now, and it will ship in January.

It packs a bold design, and thin build, which should make it more wearable. And the Evie Ring will also be released in three colors: gold, silver, and rose gold.

And it doesn't hold back on features, either. The Movano Evie will measure heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), sleep, respiration rate, temperature, and blood oxygen. 

It will also track mood and menstrual cycle symptoms (via user inputs), and aims to track a holistic overview of health and activity via Daily Summary window. 

The Evie Ring will also attempt to make sense of trends in your data with AI analysis.

Read our full guide to the Evie Ring, including the price, shipping date, and full features.

Circular Ring Air

$275 / £225 | Circular

Movano

Smart ring startup Circular has returned with what it claims is the industry's thinnest and lightest offering yet - the $275 / £225 Circular Ring Slim.

The trimmed-down ring is the progression of the company's Circular Ring Pro released last year.

It tips the scales at just 2g and measuring 2.2mm thick. To put these specs into context, industry leader Oura's Generation 3 Horizon model measures in at 2.55mm thick and clocks the scales at around 4-6g, while the Circular Ring Pro is 2.75mm and 4g.

The Circular Ring Slim packs a three-axis accelerometer, temperature sensor, PPG sensor, and LEDs that are used to monitor the likes of breathing rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen saturation, and heart rate are sticking around, too.

Despite the smaller size, battery life is also relatively superior. Circular claims that the Slim will last around five days on a single charge. We'll be putting it through its paces.

Smart ring key considerations:

Getting the size right

This applies to all wearables, but if you're looking at buying a smart ring, you need to make sure you get a good comfortable fit. Whether it's something you're going to keep on in bed to track sleep, use it during exercise or it's something you'll want to be able to wear while you tap away on a keyboard, these are all things you'll need to think about.

Most of the smart rings we've tested provide a sizing kit with a plastic version of that ring so you can try a range of different sizes before the one packed with smarts is sent out to you. You must wear that first ring for a day or two to make sure it's the best fit and feels comfortable in all the scenarios it's recommended you wear it. Also, pay attention to the finger that smart ring makers recommend you wear that ring on. This is particularly relevant to sensor-packed devices to ensure you get the most reliable readings on a day-to-day basis.

Scratch and water resistance

Feeding into the top consideration, you will no doubt want to make sure that the ring is looking as nice as it did when you first put it on. There are smart rings that opt for titanium designs to offer a lightweight build that can also offer the look of a normal ring.

Some also promise scratch-resistant designs, though may still suggest taking it off when doing activities like lifting weights. You can find options that offer a level of durability that will let you wear it in the shower or go swimming with it, just make sure you pay attention to the IP rating to determine the level of protection against moisture.

Health and fitness features

Many of the rings we've seen so far have been designed to track elements of your health and fitness. Whether that's tracking steps, sleep, or monitoring heart rate and body temperature, they promise to offer a level of accuracy that matches or even surpasses other wearable form factors.

To deliver that data it's using similar sensors used in wrist-based devices, so light-based optical sensors that can deliver continuous heart rate monitoring and blood oxygen data. You can also find rings that pack in ECG sensors to offer a level of heart rate tracking seen in the medical space.

Payments and other smarts

Some rings prioritize putting other features onto your finger and that includes the ability to make payments or letting you take control of features on your phone. That payment support is driven by similar NFC and contactless technology used in smartwatches and bank cards, letting you raise your ring to the terminal to make a payment. Those rings that offer smartphone control features are tied to maintaining a connection with your phone via Bluetooth to deliver those control powers.

Battery life

Planting those innovative sensors into an even smaller form factor than watches and fitness bands does mean you're currently not going to enjoy weeks and months of battery life.

Most rings at the moment can last anywhere from a day to 4-5 days. So you will need to charge on a pretty regular basis and need to use a proprietary charging cradle to power things back up.

We will no doubt get to a point where smart rings last longer between charges, but it's early days, and just under a week is the maximum you can typically expect.