Priced at 18,000 yuan apiece, with affordable alternatives available for only dozens of yuan, are smart rings a so-called "intelligence tax" that wastes consumers' money or a genuine promising market trend?

The smart ring segment is about to welcome its first public listing player.

According to IPOScoop, Finnish smart ring brand Oura has recently officially launched its IPO, and is expected to list on the NASDAQ on September 30, with a company valuation that may exceed 100 billion yuan. The capital market has given this tiny titanium alloy ring a hundred-billion-yuan level of imagination space.

While the foreign smart ring market is booming, many domestic enterprises are also making layouts in the domestic market. Domestic brands including RingConn, Amazfit, Dreame, VERTU and other brands are all making efforts in the smart ring track. Among them, RingConn has the largest scale, firmly ranks first in domestic smart ring sales, and has secured a place in the global track.

On one side is the capital's enthusiastic pursuit, and on the other side is users' doubts. Many consumers bluntly state that smart rings are "intelligence tax" and a pseudo-demand. Simply in terms of price, the cost performance of smart rings is not high. A smart ring generally costs about 3000 yuan, which is equivalent to the price of an ordinary mobile phone. However, its functions are almost the same as those of a smart band, while the price of an ordinary smart band is only one tenth or less of that of a smart ring.

Behind the bustling concept, is it a real industry outlet or a pseudo-demand after all?

A single smart ring is priced as high as 18,000 yuan

Once a ring is associated with the AI concept, its value soars instantly.

The so-called smart ring is a smart wearable product similar to smart watches and smart bands, which can monitor people's health data such as sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen, body temperature and exercise. Functions of different brands are mostly similar, and the main premium is reflected in the intelligence level, brand and decorative parts. The more functions it has and the more design sense the decorative parts have, the higher the price will be.

The core advantage of smart rings comes from "unnoticeable wearing experience". Compared with smart watches and bands, a smart ring weighs only 2-4 grams, has no screen, and will not cause the uncomfortable foreign body feeling of pressing against the hand when worn during sleep, which can realize uninterrupted collection of physiological data such as sleep, heart rate, body temperature and breathing throughout the night. For many users who hate wearing watches at night, smart rings are a better carrier for sleep monitoring.

People who pay more attention to health and wellness and look for affordable alternatives to smart watches and smart bands are the core users of smart rings.

The price of a smart ring is usually around 3000 yuan. As the category pioneer, Oura, which is about to land in the capital market, its price and sales volume almost represent the industry ceiling. Data shows that the current industry pattern of the smart ring segment presents a situation of "one superpower with multiple strong players". Oura firmly ranks first in the global market with a 61.1% market share (2025 data), Samsung Galaxy Ring and Indian brand Ultrahuman each account for about 9% of the share, and Chinese brands such as RingConn follow closely behind.

Since Oura launched the first generation of Oura Ring in 2015, it has completed five generations of product iterations. In May this year, Oura released its new generation product Oura Ring 5. The Oura Ring 5 is priced at 399 US dollars per unit, and the advanced finish version is priced at 499 US dollars. After consumers purchase the ring, they need to pay a subscription fee of 5.99 US dollars per month or 69.99 US dollars per year to unlock full functions including sleep analysis, recovery score, women's health and AI health advice. Data shows that in the past year, Oura sold about 3.6 million smart rings, and the cumulative sales volume exceeded 5.5 million units as of June 2026.

Domestic brand RingConn is currently "the No.1 smart ring brand in China", and its products have iterated from Gen 1 to Gen 3 in a year and a half. The price of Gen3 smart ring ranges from 2599 yuan to 2799 yuan. Different from Oura's hardware + subscription model, RingConn currently only charges for hardware, and users do not need to pay extra fees for monthly health data. The product focuses on thin and light wearing experience, and forms a differentiated selling point in sleep apnea risk monitoring.

In order to increase product premium, brands have begun to make continuous efforts in functions and decorations. VERTU, the high-end luxury mobile phone brand, has also launched its own smart ring. According to VERTU sales staff, the company launched the first generation of smart rings last year, and updated to the second generation this year. There are two models of the 2nd generation product, priced at 2598 yuan and 3699 yuan respectively, and the price difference mainly lies in the outer ring ornament. The price of a single outer ring ornament is about 1000 yuan. In addition, the company will continue its high-end style to build high-end smart rings, and will soon cooperate with gold brand Lao Feng Xiang to launch 18k gold smart rings, with product prices ranging from 7999 yuan to 17999 yuan.

Cheap alternative products are priced at only dozens of yuan, smart rings fall into the "intelligence tax" controversy

In addition to increasing product premium through decorations, many brands are also constantly adding new functions to their products.

Some smart ring brands have added functions such as recording, meeting minutes, mouse/keyboard control, robot remote control, voice AI Agent and other functions on the basis of basic health status monitoring.

In addition to high-end smart rings and mid-range products, the market is also flooded with a large number of low-cost copycat products. Daily Business News reports that since the beginning of this year, according to incomplete statistics, more than 200 new brands have poured into the smart ring track in China. Cheap smart rings priced from dozens of yuan to hundreds of yuan are equipped with crude sensors, and their data is completely untrustworthy, which further reduces the reputation of the entire category.

At present, the market size of the smart ring segment is limited, and product experiences are uneven, and the "intelligence tax" doubts surround the entire industry. The real feedback from many users points out many hard flaws of smart rings.

Netizen Dazuo revealed that she bought a smart ring from a brand's live stream, but returned it two days later. At first, she wanted to buy a device to record sleep, exercise steps, calorie consumption and heart rate. After comparing the Apple Watch and Xiaomi Band, she thought that the smart ring, which is smaller in size and more suitable for carrying around, is more convenient, and the price is not expensive, only three or four hundred yuan, so she placed an order for a smart ring. After receiving the product, she found that two key monitoring data of this brand's smart ring are inaccurate, one is blood glucose, and the other is blood pressure.

The smart ring for monitoring health conditions cannot provide effective data reference, so Dazuo finally chose to return it. In her opinion, the functions of a smart ring can be fewer, and the values are allowed to have deviations, but the logic must be correct. The key indicators of blood glucose and blood pressure monitoring do not match the time logic, which directly reduces the trustworthiness of the entire data system.

On social media, a large number of Huaqiangbei smart ring products are priced from dozens of yuan to one or two hundred yuan, with functions comparable to thousands of yuan's big brand products. However, their performance failures are also very common: non-sleep status is recorded as light sleep, and blood oxygen is counted as more than 90% when the user is hypoxic during mountain climbing.

Of course, we cannot simply classify smart rings as "intelligence tax" for this reason. Its value is targeted at specific groups of people: people who pay close attention to sleep quality, have sleep apnea risk, hate wearing watches or bands during sleep, and need health management. The portable smart ring can provide continuous and long-term reference for physiological trends. It is not a medical device and cannot replace hospital examinations, but long-term continuous data can help users perceive their own physical changes and adjust their work-rest schedules and lifestyles.

Smart rings are still in the early stage of development, the market size is relatively small, and public acceptance needs to be improved.

Niche market, sluggish sales, pseudo-demand?

Oura has raised the ceiling of the entire industry.

Its profitability has proved to the outside world that the smart ring category has a certain market. Data shows that in the 9 months ended June 30, 2026, Oura's revenue reached 1.2145 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 74%; its net profit reached 60.8 million US dollars, compared with 1.6 million US dollars in the same period of the previous year. In the same period, the company's paid members reached 5 million, and member revenue increased by 121% year-on-year to 240.5 million US dollars.

With Oura's successful listing, it will also bring a positive demonstration effect to the entire industry, attracting more capital and manufacturers to pay attention to the smart ring track.

However, the glamorous industry narrative cannot hide a cruel reality: no matter the overseas leading player Oura, or the domestic leading player RingConn, the overall sales volume is at a relatively low level.

The smart ring segment is still in a period of rapid growth. 2025 is known as the first year of smart rings, and this year's shipment volume is expected to reach 6 million units. Omdia data shows that the global smart ring shipment volume in 2025 is about 4 million units, which has increased by 5 times in two years, and is expected to reach 6 million units in 2026. The latest online retail monitoring data of smart rings from AVC shows that in August 2026, the online retail sales of smart rings reached 26.496 million yuan, a month-on-month increase of 45.7%; the retail volume reached 17,000 units, a month-on-month increase of 40.6%.

Other data shows that the shipment volume of smart rings has surged by 49% this year, and the growth rate is much higher than the industry average of 6% for smart watches, making it the most eye-catching sub-category in the wearable field.

However, compared with the annual shipment volume of hundreds of millions of units for smart watches, the gap is still very large. Even for global leading player Oura, the vast majority of its revenue is concentrated in the North American market, and the penetration rate in the Asia-Pacific market is still very low. Data from AVC shows that its market share in the domestic market in August is 11.51%. In the domestic market, although RingConn ranks first among local brands, the overall market size is still small, and the vast majority of ordinary consumers still will not choose smart rings as daily wearable devices.

It is undeniable that the smart ring track, which seems to have broad prospects, is still a very small sub-market at present. After Dreame AI smart ring made a high-profile appearance at this year's Spring Festival Gala, its announced revenue data in April was 11 million yuan. This figure is extremely insignificant in its annual revenue of 30-40 billion yuan.

Domestic smart ring sales are generally sluggish. A VERTU sales staff said that the monthly sales volume is about 2 to 3 units. A hardware stall salesperson revealed to Tech Planet that the main user group of smart rings is middle-aged and elderly people aged 30 to 50. The monthly sales volume of RingConn is about 40 to 50 units. Previously, they also sold Dreame smart rings at the same time, but due to poor sales, they could not sell even one or two units a month, so they stopped selling this brand of products in the end.

Smart ring is one of the most potential forms in the current smart wearable market. In the future, it may not completely replace smart watches and smart bands, but if it can break through the bottlenecks of technology and experience, it is expected to become a non-negligible force in the wearable field. However, smart rings still face considerable challenges if they want to develop from a niche product to a mass consumer product.

This article is from WeChat Official Account "Tech Planet" (ID: tech618), written by ZHAI Yuanyuan, authorized for release by 36Kr.