In case you might not have caught on yet, the smart ring wearable segment is gearing up to go fully mainstream. Sure, there have always been relatively big players in the space, but with the first household name, Samsung, prepping itself for entry, things are about to get wild in that market.
Maybe that's why Circular has chosen now to release an upgraded Ring Slim model. The new Ring Slim brings a few substantial improvements over the previous iteration. Plus, with a design that's low-profile, it might actually be a bit of a contender against the upcoming Galaxy Ring.
The Circular Ring Slim Goes Hard On Improving Its Durability
A smart ring needs to have a certain basic level of toughness to be able to survive in the real world. It should be able to handle as much as a regular ring can. For instance, you can't have a smart ring that has to be taken off every time you want to wash your hands.
The previous Ring Slim has IPX8 water resistance, so that wasn't much of a problem. However, Circular has decided to push that a bit further, and the new Ring Slim has IP68 certification, so, not only can it withstand submersion, but if you're planning to wear it at the beach or rub chalk on your hands before a power lift, it'll be able to survive all those particles coming at it.
The finish on the previous Ring Slim was another thing that many people complained about, commenting that it scratched pretty easily, and for a fitness-focused smart ring, that shouldn't be the case. Circular says that the new watch comes with an improved scratch-resistant coating, so it should be able to handle the brunt of working out a lot better than before.
The Ring Slim Brings New Health-Focused Features Too
Circular's Ring Slim has always been aimed towards the more active among us, providing a low-profile design paired with health and fitness tracking features. While the original Ring Slim already had a pretty impressive suite of features, the new model brings a lot more to the table. Most notably, there's a new “Heart Rate During Sport” feature that makes it possible to accurately track your heart rate when engaged in all sorts of workouts or activities.
Circular also introduces “Circles” to its Kira+ mobile application (which is the company's upgrade to the previous Kira app). These circles are intuitive interfaces that make it so much easier for you to view and understand tracked data and metrics.
One of these Circles is the Sport Session Circle, which gives you the chance to see detailed metrics from a workout session that you had, and if you're a runner or cyclist, it even lets you see the GPS route you followed. There's also an Advanced Analysis Circle which makes it possible to view, compare, and analyze all of your health data in a single easy-to-use graph.
The Circular Ring Slim costs $281, which seems to be the sweet spot for smart ring pricing (similar to what you get with the Oura Ring and Amazfit's Helio), and you can get it at Circular's official website. Only time will tell how the existing smart rings in the market may be able to compete against Samsung's upcoming entry.
