OURA is as big a name in the world of celebrity fitness these days as Ozempic.
But with celebrity status comes celebrity price tags — Oura charges up to £499 for its new-generation smart rings, as well as a monthly subscription fee on top.
In this RingConn Gen 2 review, I’ve tested one of the dark horses in the smart ring race; it’s cheaper than Oura with better battery life, but can it really compete?
RingConn Gen 2, $387 (£311.30)
A decade ago this year, Oura Ring came out with the first generation of its smart ring, sparking a wave of imitations.
They come at a range of price points; unpronounceable brands on Amazon sell them for less than £50, while Ultrahuman recently announced the release of its £1500 “luxury smart ring”.
Even mainstream tech giants have got in on the act, with Samsung releasing its Galaxy Ring last year.
However, one of the brands most comparable to Oura is one I’ve only recently heard of; RingConn.
In fact, it’s so comparable that Oura took it (and a couple of other competitors) to court for patent infringement last year.
With its second-generation ring priced at $387 (£311 at the time of writing) regardless of colour, it presents a decent saving over the Oura Ring, and on paper, it goes toe-to-toe with the big dog of Smart Rings; in some ways, such as battery life, it even outdoes it.
I’ve been testing out the RingConn Gen 2 ring for the last couple of months, and comparing it with my 3rd Generation Oura ring to see how it matches up.
Read on for my full thoughts.
Pros
- Relatively affordable
- Doesn’t require an ongoing subscription
- Excellent sleep tracking including Sleep Apnea Monitoring
- Provides a wealth of sleep data
- Nicely designed
- Impressive battery life
- AI assistant provides helpful actionable suggestions
- Portable charging case
Cons
- Activity and health tracking isn’t as sophisticated as Oura
- App and communication could be more sleek
- AI plans need expanding
Rating: 7/10
How I tested the RingConn smart ring
I tested out the RingConn against my third-generation Oura Ring[/caption]
RingConn Gen 2, $387 (£311.30)
As The Sun’s reviews manager, it’s my job to test out the most trendy products — and these days, they don’t come hotter than smart rings.
I’ve already tested out arguably the biggest two names in the game; the Oura Ring and the Samsung Galaxy Ring.
I’ve been wearing Ringconn’s competitor for the last couple of weeks, alongside my trusty third-generation Oura Ring.
It’s been tasked with improving my poor sleeping habits, and I’ve also embarked on its “Body and Mind Balance” AI plan to see if it can make me feel better day-to-day.
Other criteria I’ve been focusing on include value for money, battery life, design, app compatibility and more.
RingConn review: Quickfire Q&A
Is RingConn legit? Don’t be put off by RingConn’s admittedly odd name, or the fact that most people have never heard of it. It’s a worthy competitor to the Lords of the Smart Rings, Oura and Samsung.
How much is the RingConn Gen 2? It’s $387 — approximately £310 in pounds and pennies — and it feels important to mention here that there is no monthly subscription involved.
Who is the RingConn best for? People who are put off by the Oura Ring’s high price point and frankly audacious subscription fee but want an easy-to-use companion for sleep and step tracking.
What we loved: Its interminable battery life, its promising-looking AI health plans and well-fleshed-out sleep monitoring. And the portable charging case is a lifesaver.
What we didn’t: The AI plans need some work, its communication can be a bit confusing, and there’s a way to go before its app and insights can compete with Oura. I’d also have preferred more sophisticated suggestions about what to change about my day-to-day habits.
Does it tarnish? When she reviewed the RingConn for her piece about the best smart rings, The Sun’s Health Features Editor Alice Fuller noted that her ring got a bit beaten up during testing. However, after a couple of months of wearing it on my dominant hand, I’ve been impressed with mine — it’s got a couple of nicks, but nothing major.
Our verdict: Ringconn has carved out a well-deserved place for itself in an increasingly saturated market, providing a cheap alternative to some of the more expensive tech on the market. However, don’t expect as professional an experience as you’d get from the big dogs.
Ringconn review: The Nitty Gritty
First impressions
Even next to the Oura Ring (left), the RingConn (right) looks noticeably sleek[/caption]
RingConn Gen 2, $387 (£311.30)
As is the case with most smart rings, the first thing you’ll have to do when you order a RingConn is figure out your ring size.
To achieve this, RingConn will send you a sizing kit (free of charge).
It contains sizes 6-14 — the same range as Samsung, and a slightly larger one than Oura.
Once it did arrive, my first reaction was a pleasant surprise; this is a really sleek ring.
Rather than the completely circular design opted for by Oura and Samsung, Ringconn’s ring has a very slightly squared-off silhouette, which is a nice detail.
It’s also impressively slim. Next to it, my third-generation Oura Ring looks visibly chunky.
I’m not sure if that’s some sort of optical illusion created by the squared-off design fitting closer to the finger, because it seems a more stark difference than the 1.1mm on paper. (It’s also worth noting that the Oura Ring Gen 4, which Sun Shopping hasn’t managed to test out yet, is slimmer than the third generation).
However, the big game-changer in the RingConn box is not even the ring itself.
RingConn Gen 2, $387 (£311.30)
Instead, it’s the charging case that accompanies it, which allows you to charge the ring while on the go.
Having had an Oura Ring for a few months, I can say confidently that the biggest inconvenience is finding time to charge it.
The time I charge most of my other devices — while I’m asleep — is obviously out as its main purpose is to track my slumber, and I also don’t want to charge it while I’m on the go lest my steps go uncounted.
Having the RingConn case in your bag means that you can throw the ring in it for a few minutes while out and about, and RingConn claims that you can get over 150 days of continuous use from the charging case alone.
Does it deliver?
‘Appy days
As is the case with all smart rings, the RingConn links to an app on your phone, where you’ll find all your vital stats and feedback.
The app is easy enough to connect to; to be honest, a couple of months later I can barely even remember doing it, which speaks for itself.
If memory serves, it simply comprises downloading a (free) app and connecting to the ring via Bluetooth. It took two or three minutes, max.
A big factor making setup easier is the fact that you don’t have to sign up for a rolling subscription to use all of the ring’s capabilities, as is the case with Oura. (I’ll save my scathing opinion piece on this for another time).
The first thing you’ll see when you open the app is a four-leaf clover display[/caption]
The first thing you’ll see in the app is a four-leaf clover-shaped graphic displaying your four core vitals; Sleep, Stress Level, Activity and “Vitals Status”, which comprises things like heart rate and blood oxygen.
This is a nice idea from RingConn, making it good for people who don’t want to do a deep dive into their stats every day; it’s nice to be able to log on for just a few seconds per day and get an overview of your vitals.
Inferior insights
However, it became obvious after playing around with the app for a while that RingConn isn’t operating at Oura’s level when it comes to insights, especially when it comes to things like cardiovascular health, which is something Oura has been working hard on recently.
It does have pretty robust sleep tracking, going as far as to offer a comprehensive assessment of whether you suffer from Sleep Apnea (I don’t, thankfully).
But while it might sound harsh, accurate sleep tracking is pretty much the bare minimum for a £300-plus smart ring these days.
While it might sound harsh, accurate sleep tracking is pretty much the bare minimum for a £300-plus smart ring these days.
I also noticed that the RingConn is a lot more complimentary with its sleep scores than Oura. My sleep score from RingConn is usually in the high 70s to low 80s; with Oura, I’m lucky to break 75.
This isn’t necessarily good or bad, though.
AI on hand
Conversation with the RingConn AI Assistant can feel… one sided[/caption]
The way that RingConn makes up for its less exhaustive tracking is to channel its insights into an AI assistant, designed to make its data more useful and easier to act on.
The assistant, which was only introduced recently and which RingConn admits is still in the beta stage of development, works in two main ways.
The first is a direct-message interface through which the bot sends a constant drip of emoji-punctuated insights, encouragements and affirmations.
I’ll admit I quickly got bored of these; they essentially just verbalise data from the app dashboard, and for some reason, there’s no notification when the AI assistant sends you a new message; instead, you have to manually go into the interface to check for new messages.
And to make things even more annoying, the conversation is almost entirely one-sided; there are a couple of questions you can choose from (“How did I sleep?”, “How active am I?”) but there’s no way of asking it anything specific.
And, to put it diplomatically, you can tell that RingConn’s AI assistant has not been trained by a company whose first language is English.
There are no howlers, exactly, but some messages are worded… clunkily, and this is something a theme throughout the app.
Take this example: “You start today’s activities with full energy! The duration of medium and high-intensity activities has reached five minutes, keep moving!”
The AI Assistant’s second responsibility is to compile and update an AI Health Plan, which sets achievable targets relating to sleep time, number of steps, daily activity and stress level.
These targets are reassessed every week, and the AI assistant might also slash your targets if you’ve had a bad night’s sleep.
Having these achievable targets is really helpful; the 10,000 steps target that everyone harps on about — which, you might be interested to learn, actually started thanks to a marketing campaign for a pedometer ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics — doesn’t fit everyone’s lifestyle, and the same goes for getting eight hours of sleep.
It’s good to know that my targets are designed using my data; as someone who struggles to sleep, RingConn only challenges me to get seven hours of sleep per night, and as someone who walks everywhere, it’s not unreasonable for it to ask me to target 13,000 daily steps.
I’m looking forward to seeing how RingConn further leverages AI to make its ring more user-friendly; the initial signs are encouraging, but there’s certainly some undiscovered potential.
The release of a “sleep improvement plan”, which RingConn has been teasing on the app for a while now, might be a positive step.
Practical matters
The RingConn (right) constantly outlasted my third-generation Oura Ring when it came to battery life[/caption]
A big tick on the scoresheet for RingConn’s smart ring is how unbelievably easy it is to live with.
First and foremost here is the battery life; it feels endless. On some occasions, I’ve had to charge my Oura Ring twice before I’ve had to charge my RingConn once.
If anything, RingConn has understated the 10-12 day battery life that it claims on its website.
The charging case makes life even easier, meaning you can charge it on the go or when you’re sitting at your desk at work.
Another practical consideration is that it’s pretty resistant to tarnishing. My Oura Ring began to look pretty beaten up after just a few weeks; on the other hand (literally), my RingConn, which I’ve worn on my dominant hand since I got it, looks pretty much brand-new.
However, I will caveat this by saying that The Sun’s Health Features Editor, Alice Fuller, had a different experience, finding that her ring got scratched after several weeks of wear.
The Sun’s Health Features Editor, Alice Fuller, found that her ring got quite tarnished, but mine seems okay so far.[/caption]
RingConn Gen 2, $387 (£311.30)
How much is the RingConn Gen 2?
The RingConn Gen 2 retails for $387, which translates to around £310 in pounds and pennies.
While that doesn’t exactly make it a bargain, it certainly compares well to Oura, whose 4th generation ring starts at £399 (for the basic black and silver finishes) and goes up to a wincing £499 (for more lux colourways like gold and rose gold).
However, the bigger saving comes once you’ve got the ring; Oura charges a £5.99 monthly fee to use your ring’s full suite of features.
Admittedly, it’s not much, but I’ve never been quite sure how this fee is justified — asking customers to pay a monthly fee to access the features of a device they’ve already bought seems cheeky at best.
And although I’m sure you have more expensive monthly subscriptions, the costs do add up; you’ll save over £70 per year opting for the free-to-use RingConn over the Oura Ring.
Where to buy the RingConn Gen 2
For now, it seems that the only place to get your hands on (or in) the RingConn Gen 2 is the brand’s official website.
However, you can get the first-generation ring at third-party stockists including Argos, AO and Currys, so it wouldn’t be surprising to find the Gen 2 stocked there in the future.
RingConn Gen 2 alternatives
As you might have realised from my constant comparisons, the most obvious competitor to the RingConn Gen 2 is the Oura Ring.
It’s now in its fourth generation, and is generally accepted to be the standard-bearer when it comes to smart rings.
However, if you’re an Android user, you’d probably be better served by the Samsung Galaxy Ring, which integrates seamlessly with other Samsung tech and has the bonus of not charging a monthly fee.
More affordable options include the Amazfit Helio, which is around half the price of the other smart rings mentioned.
The Verdict: Is the RingConn worth it?
The RingConn Gen 2 certainly needs further development before it can be classed as a true competitor to Oura, but there are some very hopeful signs.
It’s well designed, with a battery life that outdoes all the competition, and I like that it’s leveraging AI to provide actionable insights (although it’ll be interesting to see how this develops past the beta stage).
Overall, this is a legitimate and affordable Smart Ring option, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to people put off by Oura’s high price point and frustrating subscription system.
- RingConn Gen 2, $387 (£311.30) – buy here
