A Samsung Galaxy Ring user ended up in emergency room after the wearable swelled up so badly on his finger that he couldn’t get it off.
Zone of Tech YouTuber Daniel Rotar was entering his 48th hour of travel when his smart ring battery began to ripple and swell, becoming so tight around his finger he was unable to remove it. Under pressure from the shrinking ring, his finger subsequently began to swell as well.
Ahhh…this is…not good.
My Samsung Galaxy Ring’s battery started swelling. While it’s on my finger 😬. And while I’m about to board a flight 😬
Now I cannot take it off and this thing hurts.
Any quick suggestions @SamsungUK @SamsungMobileUS? pic.twitter.com/LOO1kSlQUw — Daniel (@ZONEofTECH) September 29, 2025
Worse yet, Rotar was in transit, live-tweeting the debacle from the airport gate as he was waiting to board a flight home.
He shared photos of the ring on his bloated finger as he and airline crew members tried to remove the gadget with soap and water — which caused the battery to swell even more before he was ultimately disallowed to board his flight and sent to the hospital. There, medical staff iced his hand to reduce the swelling of his finger before leveraging medical grade lube to slide it off.
On X-formerly-Twitter, he shared a photo of the buckled battery and said he “won’t be wearing a smart ring ever again.“ His finger also showed chafing on the site of the injury.
Update:
– I was denied boarding due to this (been travelling for ~47h straight so this is really nice 🙃). Need to pay for a hotel for the night now and get back home tomorrow👌
– was sent to the hospital, as an emergency
– ring got removed
You can see the battery all… https://t.co/SRPfYI92Zg pic.twitter.com/ob8uUp5BeW — Daniel (@ZONEofTECH) September 29, 2025
At the time of the incident, Rotar says, his ring’s battery wasn’t even charged.
It doesn’t sound like he was the only person affected. After his own digging around on Reddit, he found other users were similarly experiencing waning battery life and at least on other swelling battery. Redditors said the brand has been offering free replacement batteries.
The issue makes intuitive sense. Batteries in other devices like laptops and phones are notorious for swelling, which is a common warning that they could be about to combust.
Samsung’s customer service page offers guidance on removing rings from swollen fingers, without any mention of what to do should the device’s battery start to squeeze its user. Rotar was traveling to Hawaii for the Snapdragon Summit, and aside from the battery life seeming substantially shorter — lasting only one and half days as opposed to the normal seven — reported no other issues with the health tracker.
Upon arriving home, Rotar posted another update to X, sharing that Samsung had reached out to him, compensated him for the unexpected hotel stay, booked him a car to drive home, and collected the ring for further investigation.
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