Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The Galaxy Ring has passed through FCC, with different battery sizes spotted for different ring sizes.
- Ring sizes 5, 6, and 7 get a 17mAh battery; sizes 8, 9, 10, and 11 get a bigger 18.5mAh battery, while size 12 gets a 22.5mAh battery.
- The physical difference in capacity will impact battery life across the range, but even on the smallest ring, you can still expect multi-day battery life.
The upcoming Samsung Galaxy Ring has the potential to be a solid fitness tracker. It could be a practical option for users who prefer something more discreet than a big smartwatch. But smartwatches come with an adjustable strap that allows a wider range of wrist sizes to live with a particular-sized smartwatch. You are significantly more constrained for smart rings as you need to get a perfect fit for your fingers. As it turns out, if you have bigger hands and thicker fingers, you could get more battery life with the Galaxy Ring.
The Galaxy Ring has been spotted on its way to FCC certification, by MySmartPrice. As per the FCC listing, the Galaxy Ring will debut with the model number SM-Q503 (though I presume we could see a model number for each size). The listing reveals that Samsung will equip the Galaxy Ring with a 17mAh battery for sizes 5, 6, and 7. Sizes 8, 9, 10, and 11 will get a bigger 18.5mAh battery, while the size 12 Galaxy Ring will have a 22.5mAh battery. Information for size 13 is missing, but we can expect it to share the 22.5mAh battery from the size 12 ring.
Since the Galaxy Ring has no display, and the rest of the base hardware is expected to remain the same across sizes, it is easy and fair to conclude that your Galaxy Ring’s battery life will depend on its size. The biggest ring will have the most battery life thanks to the bigger battery.
The FCC listing also mentions that the Galaxy Ring will come with support for Bluetooth 5.4 and Bluetooth LE.
Competitors like the Oura Ring also follow a similar approach. The smaller-sized rings have a smaller battery, as the ring has less physical space to pack a bigger battery. Consequently, the total battery life on the larger rings will be better than that of the smaller rings, simply by virtue of more battery capacity. But you needn’t fret that much, as even the smallest-sized ring offers multi-day battery life, which is difficult to say for the smallest-sized smartwatches. So, you should still aim to get the best fit for your smart ring and not worry that much about battery size.
