Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
Smart rings promise always-on health tracking in something you barely notice, but that idea took a hit last year. A very public incident involving the Samsung Galaxy Ring saw a user sent to hospital after the ring swelled on his finger while he was about to board a flight. It was an unusual case, but it was hard to ignore, and it inevitably made people wonder how safe these tiny wearables really are. As such, we polled our readers to find out how much this scare might have changed their minds on smart rings.
Samsung recently wrapped up its investigation into what actually went wrong, and we included the poll in the article covering that news. As a reminder, Samsung concluded that the battery alone didn’t cause the swelling, but rather a crack in the ring’s internal molding. According to the company, both its own analysis and a separate review by an independent agency reached the same conclusion, and there’s no broader battery safety issue to worry about.
That’s obviously a reassuring outcome on paper, but for some people, the fact that the Samsung-commissioned investigation ultimately clears the battery may not be enough to put lingering doubts to rest. After all, the user still went through this scare. The poll results below reflect how you feel about this incident and Samsung’s findings. As the chart above shows, almost half of you said you were never interested in smart rings to begin with. That’s not especially surprising, given how much overlap there is with smartwatches and the fact that plenty of people are already lukewarm on wearables in general. An incident like this one was never likely to change those minds. What’s more interesting is what happened with everyone else. Among readers who were at least open to the idea, opinions ended up almost evenly split: 16% said they’re still interested, 18% said they’re now more cautious, and 17% said the incident put them off smart rings entirely.
If these results are any indication, this is bad news for Samsung and other smart ring manufacturers. Despite the investigation’s conclusions and the fact that this was undoubtedly a rare occurrence, the knock to public confidence is real. So much so, it appears to have put off around a third of the target market from buying a smart ring in the future, and another third are more hesitant. That’s a pretty huge setback for a product category that’s still trying to prove itself.
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The comments on our article about Samsung’s investigation gave us more insight into your feelings, and several came from people who were never really on board with smart rings to begin with. Some said they’d tried one in the past and found it redundant next to a smartwatch, while others simply didn’t like the idea of wearing a piece of fragile technology on their finger. There was also some skepticism about Samsung’s conclusion, with a reader pointing out that the damage shown in the original photos still looks like battery swelling, regardless of what the investigation ultimately found.
Others focused more on the practical side of things. Several readers raised questions about what to do if a ring gets stuck and needs to be removed in an emergency, especially if you don’t have time to look up a cutting guide (yes, Samsung does have one). One commenter shared a string of reliability issues across multiple Galaxy Ring replacements. At the same time, it wasn’t all bad smart ring vibes, with one user saying their long-term experience with the Oura Ring has been a good one.galaxy ring
The people have spoken, and there’s no quick fix for the smart ring industry here. It looks like it’ll take a good mix of reliability, utility, and time to restore this trust.
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