Is An Apple Smart Ring in Your Future? Well, Maybe

During Samsung’s 2024 Unpacked event, the South Korean smartphone marker unveiled its new Galaxy S24 smartphones and also teased its entry into an only partially-tapped market: smart rings. Samsung’s Galaxy Ring could be released as soon as later this year.

Smart rings have been around for a while, with perhaps the best-known ring being the Oura Ring. The Oura looks like a nice piece of jewelry but the inside of the ring is lined with sensors that work much like the sensors in Apple’s smartwatch, the Apple Watch, measuring heart rate, movement, blood oxygen level, and nightly body temperature.

So, if Samsung is making the move into the smart ring market, people will naturally look Apple’s way, as a smart ring seems like a logical progression for a company that already makes the most popular smartwatch on the market.

Well, as reported by AppleInsider, Apple could be considering making a smart ring.

Over the years, Apple has applied for and received several patents for technology that could be used in a smart ring.

Apple has been mulling over a smart ring for nearly a decade, as an application named “Devices and methods for a ring computing device” that describes a miniature Apple Watch-type finger-worn device was filed in 2015. The device also sported a miniature touch display. Apple made a continuation filing that was granted in 2019 on the same idea.

The 2015 filing includes mentions of capabilities like inductive charging, a heart rate monitor, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope that would allow gesture input, Force Touch, and other features.

The patent filing also mentions voice control. communications over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC. Also mentioned is the ability to use the ring to control other hardware.

Apple has explored ways to interact with the ring without touching it. A patent entitled “Skin-to-Skin Contact Detection,” granted in April 2023, covers several ways to detect contact or gestures between two body parts, ala Double Tap on the Apple Watch Series 9. When a gesture is performed, the the ring senses motion or an action, performing the designated action.

Meanwhile, a 2020 Apple patent application describes using ultra-wideband to detect a device that the user wants to interact with. Gestures could then be used to interact with a designated device.

More recently, a patent granted in August 2020, entitled “Ring input device with pressure-sensitive input,” describes a device that could also notify users of events.

The ring would receive wireless input from a companion device and then alert the wearer that there is something they may want to take a look at. So, an iPhone notification could cause the ring to give a haptic buzz on the wearer’s finger.

The patent also mentions using a rotating outer band that surrounds a stationary inner band that remains in contact with the user’s digit. The external ring could be rolled around to switch between options or provide granular adjustments, like volume control.

Apple has also considered controlling a Vision Pro-like device with a smart ring. The ring would include a sensor and a visual marker, which could provide a method of gesture input.

It is possible that any ring devices Apple released may not be worn on a user’s single finger. Users could be wearing the ring across two adjoining fingers. Also possible is a device that could be worn “as part of a necklace, hoop earrings, electronic bracelet bands that are worn around the wrist, electronic toe rings, and the like.”

A November 2023 patent mentions wearing a ring-shaped device “around a user’s wrist, arm, leg, ankle, neck, head, and/or other body part.”

Apple applies for and receives patents regularly. Even though Apple may have patents for the components that could be used in a smart ring, the patents could also be used in other products. An Apple smart ring may never see the light of day.