Tested many smatwatches so why not a smartring? And why not with a display?!
ADD Before you read further, I would strongly suggest to look at the R13, that at similar price surpasses this in all but the app.
This SY01 is just a simple sub $20 thing from AliExpress, but I wanted to try and see how it worked, as I never tried a smart ring before.
It is 2.75mm thick and 8.1mm wide, and comes in (inner) circumferences 57-70mm (US #8-13).
The size #12 weighs in at 3.49g
I thought the display was just a gimmick, but worn on the middle finger on the left hand it is surprisingly simple to by a slight cross the index finger to tap to activate to see the time. even easier than turning your wrist to se a wrist watch…
Multiple taps cycle through
Time ►Steps ►HR ►SpO2 ► Sleep ►battery percentage ►
HR and SpO2 takes an ‘instant’ reading if you dwell at it.
There are no ambient light sensor, and the options for the brightness are dim/weak/strong, but even the strong is far from enough to work in sunlight.
I do not know the display type for sure, byt it looks like a plain LCD backlit with white for the segmented part and red/green for the heart/feet icon,
The touch area is permanently marked with what looks like a house and a mirrored one. It could be interpreted as Up/Down, but there is only one touch area that cycles through in one direction.
I think all exterior is plastic, and the inner side is transparrent. Unfortunately this is done in a way so there is light leakage not just through the skin, but through the side of the ring, here the red (for SpO2).
ADD: HOWEVER there is a setting “Wearing direction” in the app, with the options “Left” and “Right”, and what you see above is “Left”. If “Right” is selected the text is rotated 180° so you can rotate the ring, and have it shinning towards the hand on the right side of the finger,
Here some details of the inside
A crop of the last one
shows that the diodes are fairly close to the outer edge, and most likely they deliberately put the sensor deep (closest to the palm) to avoid false light in.
But any sort of barricade on the outside of the LEDs might have done wonders here.
A permanent marker helps somewhat but will obviously wear off. It make things worse, that I bought the ring one number too large, to be sure I could get it on/off.
Here the side view, where the transparency is very clear.
App
The app is RWFit, that reminds a lot of the apps we see for cheap smartwatches. The activity thing is limited to steps only.
It seems to get the overall sleep spot on, both the nights I wore it this far, the details… nah just ignore it, but would be TOO much to expect from a sub $20 thing!
The ‘monitoring’ is offered quite coarse so dubious to see it as monotoring.
SpO2 is done hourly xx:15 (any manual reading ring or app added is included)
HR can be selected to hourly or every whole half hour (any manual reading from ring or app added is included)
HRV is done hourly xx:45, manual reading can be done from the app (and are included)
As the HR and HRV monitoring are so coarse, it is a bit hard to see that they could be useful, but I think the HR is OK doing manual readings. I have no reference for the HRV so could be spot on or way off – I would not know either way…
And the SpO2 says that it is between 97 and 99, and that is most likely correct, but I do not know how to test it. Holding my breath does not have any ‘immediate’ affect.
Battery and charging
Due to the size, the battery is obviously tiny. 16mAh, I turned ‘all’ monitoring on, and played quite a bit initially, but yet it seems that it will hold over 48h, They say 4-5 days, I guess that will depend on the the monitoring selected, and perhaps the amount of movement? But no complaints on that. Typically down to 5-10% after 3 × 24h with my usage with maximum brightness offered. EDIT: I will need to adjust that. I have twice have it ran out before the full 72h, so I would recommend that it should be charged every second day. I guess the real stamina is somewhere between 65-75h with my usage.
I was unaware that the charging base actually has a 200mAh battery(!), so that should be able to provide the ring with a few charges. Obviously there will be waste charging from battery to battery, so I would not expect the 200/16 charges, but I would expect at the least 4-5. I will try to charge on the base disconnected the next time(s), and see how much it provides. The white LEDs in the outer ring I think indicates what power is left in the base after a charge, and it is at roughly 5/6 after one re-charge.
Add: Aa strange issue has occurred, that might be related to charging un-wired. The ring has systematically discharged normally to (about? )30%, and then turns itself off! Charging it then starts from 1%. I think it might be that the ring does not really get fully charged, when charged from the battery in the case, and then incorrectly ‘think’ it is at 100%. Not a big issue, as the percentage IS always just a guess/estimate anyway as described here.But this seems a systematic bug.
Water
The ring is completely sealed (I think they are ‘massive’ moulded in plastic, though not sure, but if so they should be pretty resistent, at the least to fresh water. They claim it 5atm, but with the connecting ring+point for charging, I would not feel that certain using it in seawater for a long time, but might be OK?
Here a crop from one of the above inside images
(for the test I wore it during a bath, and as there is no delay in the reaction when ‘pressing’ the touch area, it gets a bit confused by the water so do not wear it while showering. It did not fail in any way it just reacted as if I was fiddling with the button, trying to start a few extra readings…)
Specs
A more little specs from a listing
- Origin: Mainland China
- Size: 8 (inner diameter 18.2mm), 9 (inner diameter 19mm), 10 (inner diameter 19.9mm), 11 (inner diameter 20.7mm), 12 (inner diameter 21.5mm), 13 (inner diameter 22.3mm)
- Thickness: 2.6mm
- Chipset (main chip model): PAR2860 – ultra-low power consumption, longer lasting
- Memory (ROM+RAM): 512KB ROM + 32 KB RAM
- Sensor: SC7A20H
- BT version: 5.0
- Support APP-side GPS data: yes
- Heart rate sensor model: Tianyi 3918
- Battery type: polymer pure cobalt battery
- Working temperature: 0-50℃
- Battery capacity: 16mah
- Charging time: 1 hour
- Theoretical standby time: 6 days-20 days
- Usage time: 4 days-5 days
- Charging: charging box/magnetic cable
- Compatibility: Support for Android 9.0 and above; compatible with Apple IOS 10.0 and above
- Support OTA (OTA upgrade: Support Fota upgrade
- APP: RWFIT
Wishes
I would have liked them to offer finer granulation on the monitoring. At that price (less $20) having two, and simply swap every day, or even twice a day (morning/evening) would have been an acceptable option.
A bit odd that they do not use the display to offer notification alerts. Sure they could not offer much info, but could work at the least as well as an LED on a phone. At the least an office worker would spot any blinking on the top of the hand fairly quickly.
Compare
I made a compare of some health data from this and the R13 ring as well as the H06 watch here. And I must say this looses flat out to the R13 in all areas… It could be that it is simply older?
Conclusion
The coarse HR make me a little uncertain of the use case for this, but I have been quite surprised on how handy it is to check the time this way.
It seems to get the sleep period spot on so I would say it is worth the low amount of money, but I doubt it would trigger me to buy an advanced one.
But I must say that I really see no reason to buy this over say the similar priced R13, that surpasses it in all fields less the app. It might actually be a successor, but the R13 could be a newer competitor from another manufacturer (I do not now the manufacturer of neither of them).