Do you think an Apple Ring is ever gonna happen?

[cutter74]

So I'm wearing an Apple Watch ever since Series 3 and although I do enjoy the overall convenience, I mainly use it as an activity and health tracker. Personally I find the watch itself uninteresting or even ugly and since I absolutely love mechanical watches, if they ever produced a reliable health tracker with NFC capabilities, I would ditch the Apple Watch in favour of a mechanical one immediately.

It seems that a lot of companies are getting into this particular market segment. Oura being the most well known at the moment; a lot of others have just released or are in the final stages of bringing their products into the market and since from what I hear, Samsung are also in development, I don't think that Apple would leave that market segment without an offering, specially since all the hard work is already done (the electronics and metrics have already been developed for the Apple Watch; they would just have to repackage this to fit a ring). What do you think?

 

[arc of the universe]

i think you are right. (whether or not its for health monitoring, or related to AR, or related to data input (Air Mouse™ ).

but it really isn't about a potential ring.

i think that apple would be interested in any device within the general wearable category if health related data/measurements cant be done better by housing it within the Watch.

its been rumoured that future Air Pods may include some sort of ability to track and report health related data.

i could also see apple doing some sort of upper arm band that feeds measurements for blood pressure and might have some uses for running/training.

apple would love to be able to:

1. measure body temperature (more accurately than now only being able to detect basal temperature changes).
potentially the Air Pods could provide this.

2. non-invasive real time glucose monitoring

the iPhone will likely remain the mobile hub for these peripheral devices.

 

[the future]

I don‘t think this will ever happen. Why would Apple enter the lower price/margin category of fitness bands/rings/etc. when they already dominate the higher price/margin category of smart watches? Also, how big is the niche of people who are so attached to their mechanical watches that they would rather get a third-party band/ring than take advantage of all the functionality (and eco system integration) of the Apple Watch? Not even the OP, apparently. For other companys that niche may be big enough, and they, unlike Apple, don‘t/won‘t cannibalize their existing products, either.

 

[GaryGnu]

Apple rings are sold in many fine grocery retailers world-wide.

 

[cutter74]

I don‘t think this will ever happen. Why would Apple enter the lower price/margin category of fitness bands/rings/etc. when they already dominate the higher price/margin category of smart watches? Also, how big is the niche of people who are so attached to their mechanical watches that they would rather get a third-party band/ring than take advantage of all the functionality (and eco system integration) of the Apple Watch? Not even the OP, apparently. For other companys that niche may be big enough, and they, unlike Apple, don‘t/won‘t cannibalize their existing products, either.

The argument against a ring in fear of cannibalising their existing products is definitely a valid one, and the very first thing that came to my mind as well when I started this thread.

I have no idea how big the niche of people willing to trade the convenience of the Apple Watch for a smart ring and a traditional Watch is, but I’ve already decided that this is the way to go for me and I’ve already ordered a ring.

Will it be as accurate as the metrics of the Apple Watch? I highly doubt it. Will I get rid of my Apple Watch? Again, no. I feel there’s a place for all of these accessories.

Apple Watch is great to wear when working out. I wouldn’t want to jog while wearing am expensive mechanical watch, in the same way that I wouldn’t want to go into work or a business meeting wearing an Apple Watch.

In an ideal scenario, I would get accurate metrics through a smart ring, complemented by a smart watch when working out or jogging outside so that I won’t have to carry my iPhone with me to answer calls etc. Once I’m done working out, I can go back to wearing my traditional watch.

I think there’s a market here and I certainly hope that Apple decides to enter it, because we all know, they will do it better than everyone else!

 

[the future]

In an ideal scenario, I would get accurate metrics through a smart ring, complemented by a smart watch when working out or jogging outside so that I won’t have to carry my iPhone with me to answer calls etc. Once I’m done working out, I can go back to wearing my traditional watch.

I think there’s a market here and I certainly hope that Apple decides to enter it, because we all know, they will do it better than everyone else!

Don‘t get me wrong, I would like this to happen! I have a nice mechanical watch that I wear occasionally and for these occasions a ring would be nice. I just think that Apple (rightly) feels they „own“ the wearables market already, so why bother. Only way I can see this change was if some sort of band/ring from another company would be a surprise runaway success.

 

[GaryGnu]

To give a serious response, if they can get serious in-depth health information working and have it connect correctly to airpods and get an eSIM in there and make it look stunningly fabulous, then I don't see why they wouldn't do it. But that's a lot of "ifs".