World's No. 1 Challenges Galaxy Ring... The Catch? Price Point and the Domestic Showdown

It looks like an ordinary ring on the outside, but it is packed with various sensors on the inside.

This is the "Oura Ring 5," a smart ring introduced in South Korea for the first time by the Finnish company Oura.

It measures heart rate and blood oxygen saturation to analyze stress and recovery status, among other metrics.

[Choi Seunghun / Reporter: I wore this smart ring to bed last night (the 17th), and the application tells me that my sleep time was 5 hours and 42 minutes, with a sleep score of 74 points.]

While smartwatches are comprehensive wearable devices equipped with GPS and call functions, screenless smart rings are evaluated as specialized for focusing on health data collection over long periods, and are also praised for being more comfortable to wear while sleeping.

Even though smartwatches are already widely adopted—with about 1 in 3 South Korean adults using one—Oura expects sufficient demand from consumers looking to use a smart ring alongside their smartwatch due to the ring's unique advantages.

[Brian Lynch / Oura Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering: We see smart rings and smartwatches as very complementary to each other. They work very well together when used in tandem.]

The high price tag remains a barrier to entry.

With retail prices starting at 630,000 won and a monthly membership fee of 9,400 won required to view personalized health insights, it faces competition from Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Ring, which was released earlier in the domestic market at around 490,000 won and provides key health information without a separate subscription fee.

Oura currently leads in global market share.

Oura held an overwhelming first place with 74% last year, followed by Samsung and India's Ultrahuman with 9% each.

As Samsung has begun developing follow-up products, competition between the companies is also heating up.

Citing issues such as how batteries and sensors are arranged inside the ring, both sides have accused each other of patent infringement and requested bans on sales in the United States.

With global smart ring shipments projected to grow from 6 million units this year to 15 million units by 2030, competition for market dominance is expected to intensify further.

Just Slip It on Your Finger... 'World No. 1' Lands in Korea (August 18, 2026, 8 News)

(Reported by Choi Seunghun | Produced by Bae Jun-hwi | Filmed by Choi Dae-woong | Video Editing by Lee Hong-myeong | Design by Jo Su-in | Produced by SBS Digital News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.