RingConn Smart Ring Review

A lower-cost Oura Ring alternative

I’m PCMag’s senior analyst covering smart home and wearable devices. I’ve been writing about tech professionally for nearly a decade and have been obsessing about it for much longer than that. Prior to joining PCMag, I made educational videos for an electronics store called Abt Electronics in Illinois, and before that I spent eight years covering the smart home market for CNET. health monitoring ring

The RingConn Smart Ring offers an affordable and comfortable way to monitor every detail of your sleep, but it lacks the accuracy and features to double as a meaningful fitness tracker.

Slip the RingConn Smart Ring onto your index finger and the sensor-loaded $279 wearable will immediately start tracking your calories burned, heart rate, steps, stress level, time standing, and more. When you go to bed, it tracks sleep stages and key overnight health metrics like your skin temperature, SpO2, and respiratory rate. It's a good option for monitoring your basic daily activity and nighttime well-being if you don’t want to wear anything on your wrist, but for finger-based health insights, we prefer the $299 Oura Ring Generation 3, which justifies a monthly membership fee with greater accuracy and a more polished app. As a more value-rich alternative to both, the Fitbit Charge 6 ($159.95) is a traditional wrist-worn fitness tracker that costs less and offers far superior workout tracking capabilities and comprehensive sleep data.

Priced at $279, the RingConn Smart Ring is a more affordable and membership-free alternative to the popular Oura Ring, which starts at $299 and requires a $5.99 monthly fee for most features.

Available in Moonlit Silver, Midnight Black, or Pale Gold, the RingConn Ring comes in sizes 6 through 14. The company recommends wearing your ring on your index, middle, or ring finger. If needed, you can click “Don’t know my size” when ordering via the company’s site and RingConn will ship you a sizing kit for free. I tested a black, size 14 model on my right index finger for this review.

In the box, you get the ring itself, a case for storing and charging it, a charging cable, and some paperwork including a quick start guide and a manual.

The ring measures 0.31 inches wide and 0.10 inches thick, matching the Oura Gen 3. As with the Oura, the RingConn Smart Ring looks and feels a little thicker than ordinary jewelry. It’s bulky, but not uncomfortable. I wore it for more than two weeks of testing and had no trouble sleeping with it on. It did bother me when eating with silverware by clacking against the fork I was holding. That said, since I’m not used to wearing any kind of ring, the issue might be more of a personal one. I usually solved the problem by removing the ring during mealtimes, but I could have also switched it to the other hand, and RingConn promises minimal deviation in data if you need to move the ring to a different finger as long as it still fits snugly.

During the bulk of my testing, the ring didn’t interfere much with my day-to-day life, especially once I got used to it after a day or so. Its appearance is suitably streamlined and sleek, with the exterior entirely in a matte black finish. Inside are two sensor bumps, red and green sensor lights, and an indicator light that blinks blue in pairing mode. RingConn recommends keeping the sensor bumps aligned on the bottom of your finger.

Since these sensors aren’t visible when you’re wearing the ring, it successfully passes as an ordinary piece of jewelry at a glance. I was occasionally self-conscious while wearing it, but again, I’m not used to wearing any kind of ring.

Depending on what size you order, the ring weighs between 3 and 5 grams, which makes it a little lighter than the 4-to-6-gram Oura 3.

The RingConn Smart Ring is made of titanium with a PVD coating and a non-metallic, non-allergenic inner molding. After multiple weeks of wearing it, the ring still looks new, with no visible scratching. It can withstand dust and submersion under 165 feet of water with IP68 and 5ATM ratings, and operate in temperatures between 14 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s pretty durable, but the company still advises that you remove it while operating power tools.

The charging case also has a simple finish, though it’s black regardless of which ring color you pick. A company logo adorns the top, and a USB-C port for the charging cable resides on the back. On the front is an indicator light that blinks white when the case is charging and turns solid white when fully charged. When the case drops below 40% battery, the indicator light turns orange.

Fitting the ring into the case is easy, as you simply flip open the lid and slot the ring around the raised protrusion, lining up the sensor bumps with the slots for them. After you put the ring in place, the indicator light on the case turns blue for a few seconds to let you know the positioning is correct and the ring is charging.

You won’t need to return the ring to its charging case often. In my testing, the ring's 22mAh battery lasted about a week on a charge, as advertised. I returned the ring to its case after six days of testing when it had 15% battery remaining. The next time, I pushed it to seven days and returned it to the case when it had 1% battery left. The case itself has a 500mAh battery containing 18 recharges, and it can top off the ring in 90 minutes.

You might want to plan to charge it every six days to be safe, as the ring won’t proactively warn you when it’s running critically low on battery. You can see its remaining battery life via the app when the ring is connected, but if you’re not manually checking the app, you won’t know.

Once it's charged and in place on your finger, the ring uses four photoplethysmography (PPG) heart rate sensors, four temperature sensors, and a 3D accelerometer to gather insights into your health. While you’re awake, the ring tracks activity, calories, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), respiration, skin temperature, stress index, and time standing. While you sleep, it tracks blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), heart rate, HRV, respiratory rate, and skin temperature, along with duration of sleep, movement, sleep efficiency, sleep stability, and sleep stages to give you an overall sleep score.

RingConn has submitted its SpO2 data to the FDA for approval, but the stat is already visible in the app. The company is also seeking approval for sleep apnea detection using respiratory rate data. Blood pressure and menstrual cycle detection are in development as well.

The third-generation Oura has a similar mix of sensors and recently launched a feature to offer both menstrual cycle and pregnancy insights. In some ways, the RingConn app is better than Oura’s as it provides all of its info for free. Oura only shows basic scores for activity, readiness, and sleep without a $5.99 monthly subscription, but the premium app also includes guided meditations and offers a level of polish that RingConn can’t match yet.

Since the RingConn Smart Ring doesn’t have a display or any physical controls, you’ll need your phone to set up the ring and see the data it collects. Download the RingConn Smart Ring app (for Android and iOS), and you’ll be prompted to pair your ring and create an account. Just make sure the ring has some charge before you start to set it up in the app.

During the setup process, you’ll need to verify your email and enter some demographic data so the ring can calculate your health metrics. The app asks for your birth date, height, weight, and gender (with options for Male, Female, and Prefer Not to Say).

Altogether, I was up and running within roughly five minutes. To start getting useful information, you need to wear the ring for at least a day and a night. The ring collects data continuously, and automatically syncs info over Bluetooth when you open the app. It can also sync data with Apple Health and Google Fit via your phone.

The RingConn Smart Ring can store information for five to seven days between syncs in case you forget to open the app on your phone for a while, but it won’t ever sync in the background, likely to save battery. If you open the app for the first time in a few days, expect the syncing process to take a couple of minutes.

Moreover, due to its lack of background syncing, the ring will never be the active party when it comes to telling you information—you have to seek out your health data for yourself. No notifications might sound like a positive if you’re looking for unobtrusive data collection, but RingConn should at least offer an option for occasional background syncing to alert you if it detects a worrisome health metric or a low battery.

Once the app is open and the data is synced, you can peruse all of the information it has gathered, though the cluttered interface can feel overwhelming. By default, the app opens to the Insights tab, which offers sections at the top for Summary, Sleep, Activity, and Stress. The Trends tab lets you look at data graphed over time. The Me tab lets you change settings and personal information.

In the Summary section of the Insights tab, you’ll see a diagram of your Wellness Balance in the shape of a diamond. Mine usually says Improvable, as the app wants me to get more sleep at the very least. Under that, you can see glanceable health stats from the other tabs and a health timeline. At the top of the app, you can switch to different days with a tap.

It took me a while to figure out what the diamond diagram was actually telling me, as it overlays yesterday’s data with trends from the previous seven days and the information is confusing until you take some time to study it. Even then, it’s not all that insightful and its recommendations are broad. After getting used to the app, I liked seeing the rest of the information in quick summary boxes below the diagram, but I found the tabs for Sleep, Activity, and Stress more helpful as they were more focused on one specific area with relevant details.

The ring isn't the best tool for tracking workouts, as I'll discuss in the next section, but it's a good option for tracking sleep. The top of the Sleep tab shows your overall sleep score, and you can scroll down to see additional data including time asleep, time in bed, sleep efficiency, a chart of your sleep stages (awake, REM, light, and deep), and time spent in each stage. Below that, the app shows heart rate, HRV, and SpO2 charted over time. Finally, skin temperature, respiratory rate, and a sleep summary round out the page.

The Sleep tab is packed with info, but the app does a good job here of contextualizing the data. The time and efficiency metrics are color-coded in green or red to help you quickly gauge whether your results are normal or low compared with the reference average. The individual sleep stage charts show optimal intervals alongside your numbers. For heart rate, HRV, and SpO2, RingConn puts a paragraph of assessment info below the charts. The Trends tab also offers helpful sleep data at a glance, showing your score, efficiency, time asleep, and more graphed over the week, month, or year.

RingConn's sleep metrics proved mostly accurate compared with data from the second-generation Google Nest Hub, which tracks your sleep from a bedside table, and the Polar Vantage V3 GPS sports watch.

In general, RingConn gave me credit for less time actually asleep than either the Nest or Polar devices, but only by a few minutes and I don’t really mind it being a little harsher and encouraging me to get more rest. Moreover, all three offer similar results for my time spent in bed, and nearly identical sleep stage charts. The Nest Hub is less intrusive as you don’t need to wear anything, but you do have to pay a monthly fee for sleep data after an initial trial.

The ring is less accurate when it comes to detecting naps, however. I took one each day of the weekend because of my dedication to testing (and yes, because I love naps). It only asked to add them to my sleep schedule when I had the app open days later, even though I was checking the app every day. Additionally, I took a nap after work one day, and RingConn never registered it.

Still, the RingConn Smart Ring collects a wealth of information while you sleep while being less burdensome to wear than a wrist-based tracker. It also clearly charts all of the information it collects, with helpful assessments of each category.

Meanwhile, in the Stress section, it reported normal to medium levels throughout my testing, which matched my anecdotal experience. The graphs showed occasional spikes that I couldn't account for, but since it doesn't send a notification to you when it senses you're worked up, it’s very possible I might have been and just forgot about it.

Aside from the lack of notifications and the cluttered interface, the ring's big shortcoming centers around activity tracking. One of the times it thought I was stressed was when I went for a run, which is understandable, but the ring didn’t automatically know that I was working out or translate the data accordingly.

During my testing period, RingConn updated the app with an option to manually track workouts, but it's a pain that you have to remember to do this. The only place to access this option is a button visible on the default homepage, the Summary section of the Insights tab. Tap the button and you’ll see an option to track the following activity types: outdoor running, outdoor walking, indoor running, or outdoor cycling. However, at the time of this writing, it says the latter three are “coming soon.”

When an outdoor running workout is active, you’ll see calories, distance, duration, and heart rate. I tend to sprint in intervals while on a run, and the ring lagged well behind the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in keeping up with the spikes and dips. It also rounded off the heart rate spikes at a lower value and fell short by as many as 10 beats per minute during times of consistent activity.

RingConn uses your phone to track GPS during a run, but not very well. It showed me running in the right general vicinity on a map, but the route formed a triangle instead of the correct rectangle, with the app reporting I had cut through buildings.

When not working out, the ring's heart rate readings stayed within 5 to 10bpm of the Apple Watch, but lacked pinpoint accuracy. Its step count numbers broadly matched those of the Polar Vantage V3, so you can count on it as a basic pedometer.

RingConn’s Activity tab shows additional metrics such as Activity Intensity, Standing Duration, and Calories burned. It’s all helpful once you get used to it, but like the diamond graphic on the home page, the charts take some time to digest.

The RingConn Smart Ring is worth considering if you want to monitor your sleep and overnight health without a recurring fee and without having to wear something on your wrist. With a comfortable design and weeklong battery life, it accurately tracks the duration and quality of your sleep, as well as your skin temperature, SpO2, respiratory rate, and more. However, its workout heart rate readings and connected GPS functionality missed the mark in testing, and it lacks helpful push notifications or a display to quickly check your metrics. When it comes to smart rings, we prefer the Oura Ring Generation 3, which requires a monthly fee for most metrics, but offers a more robust and polished app. If you don’t mind a wrist-based wearable, meanwhile, the Fitbit Charge 6 offers a lot more bang for your buck with 40 exercise modes for workout tracking, an integrated GPS for pace and distance data without your phone, and a color touch screen.

The RingConn Smart Ring offers an affordable and comfortable way to monitor every detail of your sleep, but it lacks the accuracy and features to double as a meaningful fitness tracker.

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I foster many flavors of nerdom in my personal life. I’m an avid board gamer and video gamer. I love fantasy football, which I view as a combination of role-playing games and sports. Plus, I can talk to you about craft beer for hours and am on a personal quest to have a flight of beer at each microbrewery in my home city of Chicago.

Read Andrew's full bio

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RingConn Smart Ring Review | PCMag