Smart rings are the new thing in wearable tech but, in South Africa at least, early adoption is either pricey or inconvenient. The Colmi R10 lets you sidestep both of those issues to experience both the benefits and drawbacks of smart rings. Some of the problems are universal (these things don't have much internal space) but when you consider the price, it's a decent ground for experimenting with something new.
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Design7
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Features7
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Tracking6
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Battery6.5
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Value7
If you buy a smart ring from Samsung, expect to pay R8,000. The Oura Gen 4 isn’t much better, except that you’re resorting to Amazon for your purchase. Chinese brand Colmi has a local distributor for its far more affordable lineup, which includes the Colmi R10 Smart Ring. At less than a quarter of Samsung’s Galaxy Ring price, what’s the catch?
Enter the Ring
On the surface, there’s little to be concerned about. It’s… well, it’s a smart ring, a plasti-resin circlet for your finger packed with sensors and terminals for charging it up from the lightweight case. It’s light and only just noticeable against your other fingers, a tendency that became more pronounced over time.
There’s a lightweight case packing 200mAh of battery storage to augment the 17mAh in the ring itself. The Colmi R10 sits inside — it’s not a snug fit — and will charge when it’s fixed to the contact points in the case. The tricky bit is making it sit still so that a connection is made. Stick it on a desk and you’ll be fine. In a pocket? Not so much.
Wrist or finger?
Tracking options include steps, sleep, heart rate, and blood oxygen – options that are available from any competent wearable. The R10 does so in a smaller package and with somewhat less accuracy. When you see how dinky this thing is, both physically and in terms of price, the tendency makes sense. Step tracking is reasonable, provided you’re using your non-dominant hand, and heart rate is decent, if intermittent. It’ll only measure your heart rate every 30 minutes or so, so it’s not the most accurate picture. Sleep tracking isn’t terribly reliable when compared to even basic wristband wearables.
The accompanying QRing app mimics the tile-based layout used by loads of wearable brands. There are shades of Apple’s Rings metrics in the design language, but the app lacks polish. We found that low battery notifications never turned up, which marred the experience, but it’s functionally usable. That particular error seems to stem from the phone we paired the Colmi R10 with rather than any specific fault with the app.
Miss the screen
The Colmi R10 faces the same challenge as all smart rings – there’s no screen for users to instantly glean information from. The R12, which isn’t here yet, does have an LED display that jumps ahead of this issue. For Colmi R10 users, all information is only visible via the QRing app.
As with every other smart thing on the market, if you break it, you’ll throw it away. Not only will any fractures compromise the waterproofing, but it’ll be rendered utterly unrepairable. Colmi includes a few silicon covers in the box in case you’d like to keep the R10’s textured surface safe. It’s the same concept as a phone cover, just on your finger.
Colmi R10 Smart Ring Verdict
There isn’t anything here that you won’t find from any wrist-based wearable costing half the price, but that doesn’t mean you should overlook Colmi’s R10 ring. As smart rings go, you won’t find anything more affordable in SA, and it has the basics covered. The major drawback is sleep tracking, on the sensor side, and an app that may or may not do what you need it to. Our review saw the ring going flat often, due to missing battery notifications, but the fault is probably smartphone-specific.
Tech specs
Processor Realtek RTL8762 ESF Bluetooth 5.0 Battery (ring) 17mAh Battery (case) 200mAh Waterproof rating 5ATM App QRing Requirements Android 5.1/iOS 8.0 or better
