It’s a big day for Samsung. At its biannual Galaxy Unpacked event—held today in Paris just weeks before the Olympics kickoff—Samsung took the wraps off of eight new devices, one of which is an entirely new product category for the company: a health-tracking smart ring. The Galaxy Ring arrives at a time when there’s growing interest and fresh competition in these miniature trackers from the likes of Oura and Ultrahuman.
Alongside the Ring are the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Galaxy Z Flip6—new versions of Samsung’s folding phones that are now in their sixth generation. In the audio department, the company showed off the Galaxy Buds3 and Buds3 Pro wireless earbuds. The Galaxy Watch7 smartwatch series as usual comes in two sizes. But unusually, there’s a new Galaxy Watch Ultra. It takes a lot of inspiration from the Apple Watch Ultra and, like Apple’s premium wearable, it targets more serious athletes. (Samsung hosted WIRED at its media event in Paris and paid for a portion of our reporter’s travel expenses.)
Here’s everything you need to know about what Samsung announced.
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The Galaxy Ring
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Most of us are used to tracking health and fitness data through a smartwatch or fitness tracker. Smart rings have been increasingly popular because the tech’s miniaturization has improved, and who doesn’t want to wear a small ring to do all this health tracking instead of a bulky watch?
Samsung’s Galaxy Ring, teased earlier this year at CES, is a lightweight titanium ring that comes in black, silver, and gold finishes. The company will ship out a ring-sizing kit once you place a preorder, but these rings will also be available at select retailers later this year, in which case you’ll be able to try them on in the store. (I, a 6’4″ man, could fit only the maximum size 13 ring on most of my fingers, so I’m a little worried folks with thick digits might have trouble.) There are nine size options.
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
