Samsung Galaxy Ring will be shown at MWC this week — what you need to know

 Samsung Galaxy Ring.
Samsung Galaxy Ring.

We'll finally get our first real look at the Samsung Galaxy Ring at this week's Mobile World Congress 2024. In a weekend blog post, Samsung said the smart ring will be "publicly displayed for the first time" at its booth at the Barcelona convention, which kicks off tomorrow.

First teased at January's Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, the upcoming wearable will track users' health and fitness similar to the Oura ring.

"Samsung will be displaying its intelligent health lineup at MWC, offering users even more personalized and seamless health experiences with the transformative power of AI, across even more devices," the company said. "As part of this portfolio, Galaxy Ring is being unveiled as a new health form factor that simplifies everyday wellness, supporting smarter and healthier living via a more connected digital wellness platform — Samsung Health."

It remains to be seen whether Samsung will let people get a hands-on demo of the Galaxy Ring at its booth. But the press release's phrasing that it'll be "publicly displayed" implies that won't be the case, which wouldn't be surprising. Samsung could display the Galaxy Ring behind a protective glass box in the same vein as it did with the original Galaxy Fold when it made its appearance at MWC after being first unveiled in 2019.

Possible Galaxy Ring launch date

While there's still much we don't know about what the Galaxy Ring will be capable of, rumor has it Samsung plans to launch its first ring-based wearable health monitor at an Unpacked event later this year. A recent report from ETNews suggests that could be in the latter half of July at an event that may also see the official announcement of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and the Galaxy Z Fold 6.

That same report claimed the Galaxy Ring will come in eight different sizes and will feature ECG functionality, which would allow it to monitor your heart's electrical activity to "track and measure health and sleep-related information.”

Right now, the smart ring on the market to beat is the Oura Ring, which is easily the main competition for the Galaxy Ring. Rumor has it that Apple intends to build its own competitor based on several patents that the iPhone maker has taken out recently possibly pointing to features on a ring-like wearable, but there's no official word on the device yet.

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