Samsung’s new smart ring gives users more power to track health, says UK boss

Samsung’s new smart ring is part of a wider plan for its business to put a “massive focus” on health technology, the firm’s UK mobile boss has said.

James Kitto said UK consumers “are telling us they want to take more control over their personal health” and “track it, monitor it” and then respond to the data they see.

The Korean tech giant has just unveiled a slew of new devices, including the Galaxy Ring, a smart ring with a seven-day battery life that can be connected to a user’s phone and smartwatch to help track health stats, including sleep monitoring.

We have millions of users in the UK and across Europe and the globe, and it’s an incredible home for your personal health data, but it’s really important to recognize that this is your health data, under your control, to stored on your phone. Privacy and security are at its core

James Kitto

It’s joined by two new smartwatches and Samsung’s latest generation of foldable smartphones – the Galaxy Z Flip6 and Fold6 – which have been loaded with the tech giant’s Galaxy AI tools for the first time.

“This launch is powered by our innovation and our focus and determination to continue to drive innovation – it’s absolutely at the heart of what Samsung is all about,” said Mr Kitto, Samsung’s UK and Ireland head of mobile.

He added that a key part of the company’s approach, helping it stand out in the crowded mobile technology market, was how it was meeting consumer desire for more health tracking tools in a growing range. of equipment.

“At the heart of these products is the ability to track outdoor activities, sports activities, workouts, as you would expect, plus heart rate, fitness, step count, all those types of activities, and then all of that data is built in an improved and ever-evolving Samsung Health,” he said.

“This is the largest health platform in the Android ecosystem, full stop. We have millions of users in the UK and across Europe and the globe, and it’s an incredible home for your personal health data, but it’s really important to recognize that this is your health data, under your control, to stored on your phone. Privacy and security are at the heart of it.”

The new Galaxy Ring, he said, would also help Samsung differentiate itself as a device ecosystem because the company can offer users a range of health-tracking devices and capabilities that no one else can.

“Samsung Health is the app that really aggregates all of your health data and you can collect it from your phone, and you can augment that with a smartwatch, and a lot of our customers do that with a Galaxy smartwatch, which will add more detail and allow you to track your activities, your training and get more detailed analysis about your heart rate, sleep, etc.,” he said.

“And then you can increase it further, of course, with the Ring. I call the ring passive – you put it on your finger a lot and forget about it. It will sit there and continuously track your health data, heart rate, changes in body temperature, skin temperature and of course it will track sleep.

“I think the important feature there is sleep tracking when you don’t want to wear a smartwatch – I certainly don’t want to wear a smartwatch (to bed), so I’ll charge it overnight and then the ring can take care of do that monitoring overnight. So we have this passive tracking.

“Then you have the much more active tracking from a smartwatch which also gives you notifications and lets you take calls on the go and so on.

I call the ring passive – put a lot on your finger and forget about it. It will sit there and continuously track your health data, your heart rate, changes in body temperature, skin temperature and of course it will track sleep

James Kitto

“The beauty of having a Galaxy Ring in the Galaxy ecosystem is that all of this data feeds into Samsung Health, and Samsung Health can then choose which data point to use.”

Alongside these health tracking tools, Mr Kitto said it was the key technology of the moment – ​​AI – that was also a core part of Samsung’s offering.

The phone maker introduced a suite of AI-powered tools in January, called Galaxy AI, which built artificial intelligence assistance into its flagship S24 phones — translating and transcribing text, summarizing documents, generating sketch-based images and photo editing, among others.

These tools have now been added to Samsung’s foldable devices, and Mr Kitto said this meant all the new devices were smarter and therefore more useful.

“The common denominator across all products is Galaxy AI and how these products work seamlessly with each other – how AI is powering either the product itself or the data you’re collecting from those products and providing insights from that data using AI algorithms to help provide a personalized approach to health data,” he said.

“We have pioneered the AI ​​smartphone era. We led the charge in the AI ​​era from exactly zero AI users in January and are now at 3.2 million in the UK and growing at a rapid pace. So we think we’re leading the way because we have an open and collaborative approach to building AI solutions.

“You’ll realize that the pace of innovation in AI means you can’t do it alone – no single entity, no matter how big it thinks it is, can decide to do it within the confines of its own walled garden. and suppose to do justice. You have to work with the best and that’s exactly what Galaxy AI is.

“Samsung has built its own big language models (LLM), has its own AI models and foundational models, but we’re also working with Google and others to bring together a customer-centric, consumer-oriented , tangible and useful. use the case for AI in their daily lives.”