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Building on the success of conventional wearables, smart rings have been enthusiastically embraced by early adopters with a finger on the pulse of cutting-edge yet fashionable health and fitness wireless products.
- Read more: Wearables become high fashion
Bluetooth the preferred wireless connectivity tech
Typically equipped with advanced sensors alongside integrated wireless connectivity, smart rings enable users to track various health metrics—such as heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), movement, sleep patterns, calorie consumption, and skin temperature—as well as receive alerts or notifications, and in some cases even perform contactless transactions via near-field communication (NFC) technology.
Bluetooth wireless connectivity is the preferred connectivity technology for smart ring solutions due to its interoperability with smartphones. Such connectivity enables fast pairing and configuration and thereafter seamless data collection for handset-based apps.
Supporting battery life and capacity in small ML wearables
To keep things comfortable for the user, the size and weight of any wearable is an important design parameter, but this is particularly true for smart rings because they are designed to be worn on a finger or thumb 24 hours a day, for days on end. However, ultra-compact form factors limit battery size and hence capacity. As a result, to maintain a good working period between recharges, low power consumption is critical, and this is where Nordic’s next-level wireless connectivity solutions come to the fore.
Yet unleashing the full informative potential of smart rings means taking advantage of advanced AI and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms running on powerful processor cores. To trade off computational resources against battery capacity, AI and ML will be performed on the wearable device itself, rather than continuously sending raw data to the Cloud for further analysis.
Powerful processing and Edge AI capabilities
To supervise multiple sensors and process high volumes of data locally requires an ultra-low power SoC with powerfully processing and ‘Edge AI’ capabilities. Nordic Semiconductor’s latest wireless SoCs, the fourth-generation nRF54L Series and the revolutionary nRF54H Series, are ideally suited to sophisticated yet energy-constrained wearables such as smart rings. The nRF54L15, for example, is available in a 2.4 by 2.2 mm wafer level chip scale package (WLCSP) ideally suited to the tiny form factor of a smart ring.
A compact chip with excellent efficiency, like the new nRF54H20 SoC, combines advanced processor performance and seamless wireless connectivity with ultra-low power consumption to maximize battery life, enabling smart rings to run for longer whilst still providing continuous analytics based on multiple sensor inputs.
Nordic-powered next-gen smart ring
One of several next-generation smart rings making an impact in this nascent market is the J-Style JCRing – an out-of-the-box solution that comes with a breadth of monitoring options, including V02 max, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), blood glucose estimation, temperature, heart rate, and HRV, as well as sleep and activity data.
Developed by turnkey health, wellness, and medical equipment maker Joint Chinese LTD, a trusted Nordic partner, the smart ring design is based on Nordic's nRF52840 SoC, which provides the robust and stable Bluetooth LE wireless connectivity enabling the user to view and analyze their health data via an app on their smartphone.
The J-Style JCRing comes in a tiny 8 mm wide by 2.9 mm thick form factor, in a range of U.S. standard ring sizes. Despite its small size, the device offers advanced operation and superior data security, thanks to the Nordic SoC’s rich set of features.
A global wearables market on the move
As the ultra-low power wireless solutions that power wearables keep improving, and innovative startups as well as major players in consumer electronics continue to launch stylish and feature-packed designs, smart rings look set to make a serious impact on a global wearable technology market expected to be worth beyond $150 billion by 2029[1].
Valued at $210 million in 2023, the smart rings market is set for a decade of substantial revenue growth, with sales of smart rings anticipated to reach $1 billion by 2032, representing a CAGR of 24.1 percent across the eight-year forecast period[2].
The evolution of Nordic’s wireless connectivity solutions has enabled the wearables market to continually evolve in parallel. That evolution now extends to smart rings, tiny wearables offering big opportunities for developers.
References:
1. Wearable Technology Market Size, Share & Growth. MarketsandMarkets, October 2024
2. Smart Rings Market Size Forecast 2024 - 2032. Global Market Insights, February 2024
