Have you ever wondered how move affects your body ? In special , not just the symptom and effects that you may immediately feel , but rather , the nuances that technology can help you empathize . When was the last time you took a flight , did n’t catch some Z’s enough , and terminate up feeling highly tired for days on end ?
To answer these question , I took the skies , quite literally . My locomotion schedule over the past six weeks has been hectic . After attendingCES 2025 , I flew to London , fall ill , and then had to fly back to the US to see the launching of theGalaxy S25 series . The only problem ? I needed to be in Dubai for a family line holiday two days after Galaxy Unpacked , and the only way to do it was four flights in two days .
A crazy journey think an chance to explore the shock of change of location on health , and in particular , an chance to compare three of the best smart pack . Is theOura Ring 4the best , or is it the second - generationRingConn voguish ring ? How does theGalaxy Ring — Samsung ’s first generation voguish annulus — compare ? Here ’s what happened .
The craziest travel schedule I’ve ever undertaken
My travels take me from San Jose to London and Norway , followed by a night ’s rest — if you could call three hours of eternal rest that — and a day trip to Dubai via Doha . Four flights , five cities , far too many timezones , and the craziest traveling agenda I ’ve ever completed .
I wing a lot , and when I booked these tickets at dissimilar times , I did n’t understand just how stressful and tiring this trip would stop up being . More than a week later , I still have residual jet lag effects , compound by the fact that I ’ve take yet more flights and have now made it to India for the first time .
Throughout all of this change of location , one thing has prove percipient : flight , jet interim , and melodic phrase pressing change can attest in several way . In exceptional , I ’ve noticed that my fingers swell considerably , and when they do , each of these ring has a different impact .
Very different feelings with swollen fingers
It was the day after my last flight to Dubai that I begin to point out a throb pain in my fingers . A little detecting later , I realized that they had commence to well , a unwashed occurrence in the great unwashed with heart disease or diabetes . Interestingly however , the painful sensation was n’t triggered by the swelling in the finger’s breadth , at least not directly , rather the swelling meant that some ring were pushing against the swollen portion of my finger .
I ’ve antecedently celebrated the Galaxy Ring as it was supremely comfortable with vain fingers , and far more so than the previous propagation Oura Ring . However , the update Oura Ring 4 utilizes mix sensors , whereas the Galaxy Ring still has small ridge that house the sensors . While the concave conception think of that it ’s still more comfortable than the Oura Ring 3 , this was the first trip where I found the Galaxy Ring to be uncomfortable .
The Oura Ring 4 proved that a sensorless aim is the way onward . While the ring itself feels a tad thicker — a necessity given the integrated sensors and the desire to build as many tract for data point tracking — the want of sensor bumps means it remains more comfortable than Samsung ’s smart anchor ring , even with swollen fingers . This is the biggest melioration over the Oura Ring 3 , and it ’s the first time I ’ve been able to notice this with the latest from Oura .
However , the biggest surprise was the RingConn Gen 2 . It ’s 2 mm thin at its slender and this makes a large difference when you have egotistical fingers . The Oura Ring 4 is 2.7 mm thick , while the Galaxy Ring is 2.6 mm thick , and the 0.6 mm departure to the RingConn Gen 2 makes the latter far more comfortable when your fingers are a trivial egotistical . Similarly , it ’s slightly narrower at 6.8 mm — versus 7 mm or more — and this also avail when your finger are swelling .
Throughout the retiring four week of travel , it ’s the only one of these three that has remained comfy with every change in my finger , through want of sleep and in ecumenical use . My Oura Ring 4 has some scrape that bequeath me very implicated about its durability potentiality , but the shining exterior on the RingConn Gen 2 still has no blemishes or scratches .
Tracking my sleep… or severe lack of it
I ’ve always question ; when I travel , how do I sleep ? This trip and these smart rings symbolize a huge opportunity to understand this , and the results were interesting .
First , let me dig deeper into the travel agenda I booked . I first had a ~10 - hour flight from San Francisco to London , departing at 5:30 pm and get in at noon . I then had a 3.5 - 60 minutes stopover in London before a two - hour flight of stairs to Oslo . A night ’s rest should have travel along , and then an 8 am flight to Doha , a two - hour stopover , and a one - 60 minutes flight to Dubai get in at 9 pm .
The biggest challenge with a agenda like this is not the fly time , but the clock time deviation . My flight to London shore at 4 am San Francisco time and I eventually down in Dubai at 9 am the following Clarence Shepard Day Jr. . Unsurprisingly , this flight schedule was not conducive to getting right eternal sleep , and the result was needing to catch a wink on each flight .
Here ’s how each Smart Ring reported my sleep during the first nighttime :
First , it ’s very clear that I did n’t sleep anywhere nigh enough , but how does the reportage on each smart annulus stand up to how I finger ? I imagine the Oura Ring 4 had the salutary accuracy as I was a muckle once I land in London . Curiously , Samsung did n’t track any thick sleep , so take from that what you will , whereas RingConn immortalise a whole set of metrics but did n’t cover a rest score .
How about the next Clarence Day , which included a forced nap in Heathrow airdrome and during the flight to Oslo , but also resulted in very petty rest that nighttime in Oslo ?
The frustrating thing about all three chic doughnut is that none report all of your nap in one well-to-do - to - understand view but rather , they all divide your sopor into case-by-case blocks . The Oura Ring 4 was the only one to report three circle of sopor , with the first two being my in - flying sopor that was broken up by nutrient table service .
The last takeaway from this psychometric test is also that the Oura Ring 4 did n’t recognise any of my nap as naps , but rather as full sopor . I ’ve no idea why that is or how it shape between the two , but it ’s deserving keeping in mind withal .
Very different battery life and charging
The last takeaway from this test helped shape my decision about the best overall : battery life . I started this examination with the Oura Ring 4 at half battery life and I had to search for my charger once I had set ashore in Dubai as it was too depleted to track another night ’s eternal rest . For the Oura Ring 5 , this is my main charge that I trust the company fixes .
The Galaxy Ring make out much better as it lasted for another two sidereal day before die ( having started at around 60 % ) , while the RingConn Gen 2 lasted a further twenty-four hours and a one-half before also give in to a idle shelling .
Crucially , both of these also outperform the Oura Ring 4 when it comes to storage , transportation , and buck . Each fall with a charging case that makes it comfortable to enthrall as well as charge your Ring while in your bag , whereas the Oura Ring 4 requires a square charging puck that is meliorate over last class , but is a big miss opportunity .
This is the smart ring that I’d pick
I went into this test expecting that I would opt for the Oura Ring 4 , travel along by the Galaxy Ring , and then the RingConn Gen 2 . It release out that I was wrong : the RingConn Gen 2 is thebest smart ringof these three mainly for the comfort it pop the question me when I have swollen digit .
This is n’t to say that it ’s the well overall , as the plain number of metrics on the Oura Ring 4 , or the integration between the Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Ring , will invoke to many users . For most people , however , the RingConn Gen 2 offers everything you could desire from a sassy annulus and does so for both iPhone and Android users .
RingConn justly received many eclat for its first bright closed chain , which was widely recognized as the best affordable smart ringing . The second generation stepped it up significantly , and the feature solidification , battery life , and charging case now make this a no - brainer . On that bank note , where ’s my Oura Ring 4 charger ?
