Finally, a Smart Ring that Rivals My Oura 4 with No Subscription Fee
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Most smart rings these days claim to offer marathon battery lives, but often fall short of their promise. Many smart rings claim to last a week's worth of battery, but only make it to five or six days before dying on me. Part of the appeal of smart rings, compared to smartwatches, is their longer battery life.
I've got one for you if you want a smart ring with a truly competitive battery life. I've been testing the RingConn Gen 2 smart ring that boasts a marathon battery life of 10 to 12 days. The smart ring comes with other perks – and a few drawbacks – that I'll get to below.
The RingConn Gen 2: A Smart Ring with a Truly Competitive Battery Life
The RingConn Gen 2 offers the longest battery life I've tested. It lasted longer than my Oura Ring 4 right off the bat. The RingConn 2 has some green flags. Unlike competing smart ring brands with products that start at $350 and go all the way up to $400 or $450, this smart ring costs $300 – and does not require a subscription to gain full access to your health data.
Sizing starts at size six and goes through size 14, and you can get the ring in three colors: silver, black, and gold. The build of the ring is more square than circular, but I found myself unbothered by this unique shape. It fits comfortably around my finger with no problems.
Despite healthy and frequent wear, the ring doesn't tarnish easily either. The RingConn Gen 2 comes with a case that extends its already impressively long battery life, powering the smart ring's empty battery for over 150+ days. As someone who is constantly charging several wearable devices at a time, this long-lasting charging case that I could use without hooking the smart ring up to an outlet made me partial to RingConn.
Most smart rings offer up daily scores for two to three important health metrics: sleep, activity, and readiness. Readiness is calculated based on yesterday's activity, how you slept, and other biometric data, like how late your heart rate dropped as you slept. The RingConn Gen 2 measures your vitals, sleep, activity, and stress, but doesn't measure readiness.
Instead of readiness, it provides a Wellness Balance feature. It takes all of the aforementioned data and displays it in a flower-like graph, with longer petals for the biometrics that are meeting or exceeding the recommended benchmarks and shorter petals for those that aren't. When all your petals are the same length, it indicates that your wellness is at equilibrium.
I liked that I could see all the important data displayed in such a digestible and visual manner right as I opened the app. RingConn's Wellness Balance compiles your activity, sleep, vitals, and stress scores into a holistic illustration of your health.
Battery Life: A Marathon Performance
The battery life on this smart ring is truly impressive. According to its website, the RingConn Gen 2 boasts a marathon battery life of 10 to 12 days. In my testing, I found that it only lasted seven days, but still, that's far longer than the battery lives of other smart rings I've tried.
The RingConn Gen 2 also boasts a sleep apnea detection feature with 90.7% accuracy. If you're a chronic snorer looking to learn more about how your breathing impacts you throughout the night, this feature could help monitor your conditions and answer some of your questions.
Is the RingConn Gen 2 Worth It?
I found most aspects of wearing this subscription-free smart ring enjoyable, and at $300 ($50 less than competitors), it's a smart ring I'd recommend to those looking for an alternative to Oura's subscription-based services. especially if you want a smart ring with a battery life that will actually last you a week before recharging.
The one area where I noticed RingConn's smart ring lacking was in its user interface. The app feels underdeveloped, and some of the messages lacked personal context that proved they were being generated from my own data.
On one good sleep score day, all that it said when I clicked on the sleep tab was: "Good sleep makes you happy." That's my only true gripe, and I hope the recommendations can become more tailored and informative in future software updates. Otherwise, the RingConn Gen 2 is an impressive smart ring with comprehensive health metric monitoring that's on the cheaper end of the smart ring spectrum.
It accurately tracks sleep with features like sleep apnea monitoring that could help you uncover your snoring patterns, it's got a marathon battery life (plus a charging case with 150 days' worth of juice in it), and a build you can wear comfortably. Looking for the next best product? Get expert reviews and editor favorites with ZDNET Recommends.