RingConn Smart Ring — First Impressions: Nice surprise

A few days ago, the post office delivered a small package to me with a RingConn sign on it. I didn’t get any echo about the package from RingConn beforehand, so I wasn’t really sure at first what was coming to me.

I am pleasantly surprised in many ways. I was very worried that the RingConn Smart Ring would be a quickie and “Aliexpress-version-copy&paste” of the Oura ring GEN3. Copy&paste it largely is, but very high quality, and with a definite bonus.

In this article, I want to cover my experience with RingConn after a few days. I will again report lightly to Oura Ring GEN3. I will look at both the HW and SW side of things.

I will give a full review, or a sharper confrontation towards Oura3, after a more extended experience.

HW

I don’t do unboxing videos, but I have to admit that the box impression is very nice. It’s a compact package with thoughtful placement of the individual components in several tiers. The first tier contains the “Know yourself better” marketing message (which is actually quite a witty motto), the next tier contains the ring itself, then the charger in the form of a resealable case, and not to be missed are the manual and the USB-A<->USB-C cable

Matte is good

I own the Oura3 in the glossy version (it’s actually cheaper than the matte version). RingConn produces all their variants (silver/gold/black) in a matte finish. This is more aesthetic and practical from my point of view.

The edges of the ring are shiny. I’m not a fan of any abrupt change in appearance, however, in general, I like the matte finish with a subtle shiny edge of the ring.

Battery box

The charging box with its own battery is a very interesting differentiation from the Oura. It can be especially practical for users who travel frequently. The box can charge the ring up to 18 times, according to the paper claims.

Batteries

It’s tricky to judge a battery after a short period of use. First of all, every firmware update (of which there are usually a lot in these fresh products) can change the situation a lot (in a negative and positive sense), also there is no way to predict the behavior of the battery after some time and “stress”, i.e. exposure to different conditions, cold, heat, etc. These aspects usually have an effect on the battery.

It’s not entirely fair to compare a new RingConn and a 1-year old Oura3, however, I think the Oura3, at least my ring, hasn’t aged much battery-wise so far.
To illustrate, the starting condition of both rings was 100%. Below is the evolution of the batteries.

This is quite optimistic for the RingConn, even taking into account the fact that it captures more data during the day than the Oura3 (this can be seen in the more frequent glowing of the LEDs inside the ring).

Size

Please note that I own the Oura3 in size 10 and due to the fact that I ran out of index fingers (left: Circular, right: Oura), I purchased the RingConn in size 9 and its home finger will be the ring finger. But the size difference between 9 and 10 doesn’t change the fact that the widths and thicknesses of the rings are almost identical.

I found a certain, specific, ovality of the ring a bit strange in the promotional photos, which is round on the inside but has a touch of a rounded square on the outside. After real experience, I actually like this characteristic more than the sheer roundness. With RingConn, this shape makes it easier to orient the underside with the sensors, which should ideally be positioned relative to the inside of the finger.

Sensors

The PPG module’s sensors are made similarly to the Oura3, a pair of green led primarily for daytime HR, red for SP02, and infrared for nighttime HR.

Between the twin of green LEDs are two metal pins designed for charging, but they are almost completely recessed, so you won’t feel them. It may also be worth mentioning the small blue LED that is an aid to pairing.

HW [-] & [+]

I’ll get into a deeper analysis in a proper review. For now, let’s go over the pros and cons of first impressions.

[+]

• battery life
• the compactness of the ring
• matt finish
• battery box

[-]

• some might not like the “square oval” shape

SW

The RingConn mobile app has been available for download for iOS (currently in version 1.0.3) and Android for a few weeks now.

I feel like they’ve found a very good compromise in basic clarity of the most important data, and at the same time a fairly intuitive drill-down into an unprecedented depth of data. This includes displaying longer-term trends for individual metrics and customizing (personalizing) some of the screens.

Let’s take a look at an example:

I must add in the same breath, however, that there is currently a strong lack of better interpretation of measured and calculated data. In other words, you’ll see plenty of graphs and numbers, but you’ll largely have to draw your own conclusions for now. At the moment you have to make do with simply rating the basic metrics with the Excellent / Improvable label

I mention this mainly because I find the verbal Readiness rating for a given day to be a very good functionality in competitor Oura.

Sleep and Sleep Stages

I found a discussion on the kickstarter site that the sleep algorithm needs about a week to learn according to individual physiological metrics to correctly recognize sleep stages. After a week the situation is quite similar to the beginning, no very good compared to EEG Dreem2, judge for yourself based on one night:

Activities

Ringconn is not currently working with isolated activities. The Activity area is more of a broad overview of your waking day, with metrics such as steps, calories, and activity intensity. Reports for activity summary scores, distance, etc. are derived from this.

Stress

Stress is the third core area alongside sleep and activity. The entire Stress metric is actually calculated based on HRV.

SW [-] & [+]

[+]

• a large amount of data
• live Sp02 and HR measurements
• customization of reports

[-]

• no personalized recommendations based on data
• temperature function not yet released
• absence of cloud AI
• no integrations (iOS, GFit)

Conclusion

I didn’t have high expectations from the RingConn Smart Ring, which is probably why I am pleasantly surprised, especially by the quality of the manufacturing, which is close to the Oura3.

The battery life is de facto double that of the year-old Oura3, I consider that very positive. The charging box is a very interesting move, which is perhaps inspiration from the not-released-yet Ring Evie.

The important thing is of course the quality and accuracy of the measured data, I will address this more in the full review.

It would be very easy to criticize RingConn in terms of application, in particular, one could criticize the current lack of temperature measurement or temperature display, then the almost zero personalized recommendations based on measured data. I won’t be that harsh. They hit the market very quickly, there is no long wait of months, not to say years, for a ring, the price is very decent and there is no subscription model. At the same time, it’s good to remember that Oura came with its 3rd generation with great fanfare, and we waited a year, it lived up to all the promises (and its new sleep phase algorithm is still in beta…).

RingConn has sold thousands of rings and now of course there has been a wave of user feedback, bugs, etc. This will take some time to come to terms with. What I consider positive is the level of sharing information from RingConn team, which is primarily on the FB group.

RingConn is currently 249 USD. The cheapest Oura3 is 314 EUR, and you still have to keep in mind 5.99 EUR monthly subscription fee, without it perhaps the Oura ring is not even worth considering.

I will continue to monitor the development and update of the app and calculate in the future with the release of a full review and also a direct comparison with Oura3.

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RINGCONN — https://fitnesator.link/ringconn
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