Pros & Cons
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- Affordable
- No subscription required
- 10-day battery life
- Detailed sleep tracking
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- Minimal exercise tracking
- Some inaccurate heart rate readings in testing
- Slow app syncing
RingConn Gen 2 Air Specs
| Battery Life | 10.5 days (tested) |
| Compatibility | Android |
| Compatibility | iOS |
| Display Type | N/A |
| Heart Rate Monitor | |
| Sleep Tracker |
The $199 RingConn Gen 2 Air is the most affordable smart ring we’ve tested, undercutting the original RingConn by $80 and popular competitors by even more. The Gen 2 Air trims the size of the original and offers longer battery life and sensor refinements for improved accuracy. With a comfortable design, 10 days of power on a charge, and no app membership fees, it's a good option for unobtrusive sleep and health monitoring. However, if you can afford it, we still prefer the Oura Ring 4 ($349 plus membership fees), which offers better exercise tracking and AI insights, plus a more intuitive app, remaining our Editors’ Choice for smart rings.
Design: Simple Stainless Steel
RingConn sells the Gen 2 Air alongside the more expensive Gen 2 ($299), which offers a few upgrades, most notably sleep apnea detection capabilities. Despite their names, the standard Gen 2 weighs less, as it's made of aerospace-grade titanium, a lighter yet tougher material than the Air's stainless steel. For comparison, the first-generation RingConn is also made of titanium, as are the rest of our favorite smart rings, including the Oura 4, the Samsung Galaxy Ring ($399.99), and the Ultrahuman Ring Air ($349).
RingConn models come in sizes 6 to 14, with the Air's weight ranging from 0.09 to 0.14 ounces, depending on your size, versus 0.07 to 0.11 ounces for the Gen 2. Both are lighter than the Oura 4 (0.12 to 0.18 ounces). The Air is slightly heavier but similar in weight to the Samsung Galaxy Ring (0.08 to 0.11 ounces) and the Ultrahuman Ring Air (0.08 to 0.13 ounces).
Before ordering a ring, you can get a free sizing kit from RingConn. The Gen 2 Air comes in Dune Gold or Galaxy Silver, while the Gen 2 comes in Future Silver, Matte Black, Royal Gold, or Rose Gold.
(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)I spent roughly a month wearing the RingConn Gen 2 Air in Galaxy Silver for this review, and the sleek, stainless finish gives it the appearance of ordinary jewelry at a glance. The bottom of the outer surface has a telltale notch so you can make sure the ring is oriented correctly on your finger, but it otherwise looks like a plain metal band. It’s comfortable enough that I regularly forgot I was wearing it.
Though less durable than titanium smart rings, the stainless steel-clad Gen 2 Air held up just fine to ordinary wear and tear. I noticed minor scratches on the lower surface after a weightlifting workout, but any smart ring is potentially vulnerable to this problem. If you’re worried about durability, RingConn sells clear and multi-color silicone ring protectors for $29.90.
(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)On the inside surface, the RingConn Gen 2 Air houses the blinking lights and sensor bumps customary of smart rings. Those blinking lights are photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors that measure blood flow and heart rate, a component RingConn says it has upgraded for improved accuracy from the original model. The ring also packs skin temperature sensors and a three-axis accelerometer to monitor physical activity. Its sensor suite is similar to what you'll find in competing smart rings like the Galaxy Ring and the Oura.
Setup and App: A Balanced Approach
All three RingConn rings measure blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and movement, among other health metrics, and use that information to grade your activity, sleep, stress, and vital stats. The rings send collected data to the RingConn app for iOS and Android over Bluetooth.
The Gen 2 Air comes with a charging pad and instructions in the box. This is in contrast to other RingConn models, which come with a charging case that holds up to 150 days of extra battery life. The case is certainly a nice convenience, but the charging pad is at least easy to use.
(Credit: Andrew Gebhart)To set up the Gen 2 Air, place it on the charger to wake the ring up, then open the RingConn app on your phone. If you're new to the brand, the app will prompt you to create an account and input some basic health and personal information so it can properly calibrate your data. Specifically, it asks for your birth date, height, weight, and gender (with options for female, male, and prefer not to say).
Next, head to the Me tab to pair the ring, a quick and easy process in testing. After pairing, the app will install updates and show you a basic user guide. Once the setup process is complete, you’ll need to wear the ring for a while to let it collect data and populate the different tabs of the app.
After a couple of days, the app's main Insights page shows four teardrop-shaped bubbles at the top representing your activity, sleep, relaxation (stress level), and vitals (comparing your current measurements with your baseline stats). Each bubble dynamically fills with color throughout the day, based on your score from 1 to 100. You can tap any one of the individual bubbles for a breakdown of factors contributing to your score.
Together, these four factors contribute to an overall Wellness Balance score meant to offer a holistic view of your physical and mental state. While interesting, I don't find RingConn's Wellness Balance score as helpful as the holistic health scores from competitors. The Oura and Samsung Galaxy Ring synthesize various health metrics into an energy or readiness score, respectively, that can help you quickly gauge your overall recovery status, and both provide a clear recommendation of how much activity you should plan for the day, insights I didn't get from the Gen 2 Air.
RingConn’s feedback is sometimes as simplistic as “Better Sleeping Skin Temperature leaves you feeling refreshed and invigorated. Keep it up!” To that end, it didn't always offer tangible advice for improving my Wellness Balance score.
(Credit: RingConn/PCMag)To dive into all your health data, scroll down the Insights page for interactive cards dedicated to activity, exercise, sleep, stress, and vitals. The AI button at the bottom of the app lets you talk to RingConn’s beta chatbot, though this feature is very limited at the moment because it only offers inputs for certain questions that you can easily find answers to elsewhere in the app (such as "how did I sleep" or "how active am I"), and there's no way to input your own questions.
In the app's Plan tab, you can fill out a questionnaire to create an AI-generated wellness plan based on your goals. The Trends tab shows your seven-day averages for activity, sleep, stress, and vital signs, and you can click these cards to see your data charted over time. The Me tab is where you can access device settings and update your profile.
In all, the RingConn app is more well-organized and understandable than it was when I tested the first-generation model, but there's still room for improvement. In comparison, Oura's app is a lot more thoughtfully designed, and it offers more insights and guidance to help you make sense of your data and meet your goals. Oura also offers long-term health assessments for your cardiovascular age, sleep regularity, and stress resilience, data the RingConn app lacks.
The Ultrahuman Ring Air app offers more customization options than RingConn, with add-ons to track relatively uncommon wellness metrics like circadian rhythm alignment and optimal caffeine windows. RingConn also falls short on women’s health features, omitting pregnancy insights, but the app will predict menstrual cycles.
Battery Life: Lengthy, With a Trade-Off
In testing, the Gen 2 Air lasted just over ten days on a charge in two separate battery rundown tests, as advertised, an impressive result. That far exceeds the original RingConn, which lasted between six to seven days on a charge in my real-world testing. I haven't verified it, but RingConn says the standard Gen 2 offers even better battery life than the Air, with up to 12 days of power on a charge.
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For comparison, the Oura 4 lasted seven days on a charge, the Samsung Galaxy Ring lasted six, and the Ultrahuman Ring Air lasted five. The Gen 2 Air provides additional peace of mind with a feature that lets you schedule a weekly charging time, so you don't have to worry about it running out of juice in the interim.
The Gen 2 Air doesn't sync your data to its companion app in the background, which has pros and cons. The lack of background data syncing helps extend battery life, with a big caveat: If you fail to open the app before the battery runs down, you will lose any unsynced data.
Unlike the original RingConn, which never sent notifications, the Gen 2 Air will occasionally ping my phone to remind me to sync if it’s been a few days and I’m in danger of losing data. It also sometimes sends notifications regarding my metrics or the ring's remaining battery life shortly after a sync. Unobtrusive health tracking is one of the main benefits of owning a smart ring, and the Gen 2 Air's notifications certainly don't feel intrusive. However, if it's been longer than a few days since you last opened the app, it won't notify you that the ring is running low on battery.
As such, if you don't plan to check your stats in the RingConn app daily, and/or you tend to ignore phone notifications, you should set reminders to charge the Gen 2 Air so you don't accidentally lose data. Moreover, if you go a couple of days or longer without syncing, the RingConn app takes several minutes to update your information, which feels quite slow. So, while I’m impressed with the RingConn Gen 2 Air’s battery life, I’d trade a day or two from the total for background syncing for more reliable low-battery warnings and quicker access to my latest data when opening the app.
Sleep Tracking: Decent Detail
The RingConn Gen 2 Air accurately tracks numerous metrics during sleep. For each night, the app reports the duration of your time asleep and time in bed, as well as your sleep efficiency (the percentage of time in bed spent actually sleeping). It also charts your sleep stages and movement throughout the night. In addition, it tracks health metrics like your heart rate, HRV, respiratory rate, skin temperature, and SpO2 as you sleep.
Under your sleep score at the top of the page, you can tap a button to see the different contributing factors, such as efficiency and HRV, and how you did on each. In this section, the app also offers advice to help you improve in areas you fell short.
(Credit: RingConn/PCMag)I compared its sleep data over several nights against the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and a Google Nest Hub, which monitors sleep from the nightstand using a motion sensor. For time asleep, the Gen 2 Air's values generally matched those of the Nest Hub, only deviating by a couple of minutes, and both usually undercut the total I saw from the Apple Watch.
All three tended to agree about the amount of time I spent in bed, but the Gen 2 Air and the Nest Hub subtracted more time for tossing and turning from my sleep total than the Apple Watch. The resulting sleep stage charts matched these trends. Deep sleep values were generally in alignment for all three devices, but the Apple Watch categorized more time as light sleep, whereas the Gen 2 Air and the Nest Hub called it time awake.
Respiratory rate lined up on all three devices. Sleeping heart rate readings from the Gen 2 Air were also accurate, staying within 5 to 10bpm of the Ultra 2’s numbers.
RingConn doesn’t tally sleep debt in the same clear way as the Ultrahuman Ring Air, but it still offers useful overnight stats and guidance to improve your slumber. Overall, the Gen 2 Air generally offers comparable sleep tracking capabilities and advice with the Ultrahuman Ring Air and the Oura Ring 4. Addtionally, the Gen 2 Air didn’t show any gaps in data during the night, a problem the Samsung Galaxy Ring exhibited in testing.
Activity and Exercise Tracking: Needs Improvement
During the day, the RingConn Gen 2 Air measures your general activity, including calories burned, steps taken, time active, and time standing. It uses your HRV to measure stress, with a score of 1 to 29 representing low, 30 to 59 for normal, 60 to 79 for medium, and 80 to 100 for high. For vital stats, it tracks your heart rate, HRV, skin temperature, and respiratory rate. It tracks your workouts automatically, with the option to manually start an exercise session for outdoor running, indoor running, outdoor cycling, or outdoor walking.
To gauge the accuracy of its activity and health measurements, I wore the RingConn Gen 2 Air alongside the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for a week. In that time, its calorie burn and step count totals were within a reasonable margin of error of the Ultra 2’s measurements, only deviating by 20 to 30 calories (out of hundreds burned) and a couple hundred steps (out of thousands taken) each day.
(Credit: RingConn/PCMag)The Gen 2 Air’s stress score often seemed high to me anecdotally. It regularly skewed into the high end of normal and sometimes into the medium stress tiers when I wasn’t aware of any particularly stressful situation. It sits in the 60s as I type this with a purring cat in my lap, and I certainly don’t feel stressed.
Scrolling down on the page shows a stress summary over time as well as stress levels during sleep, but the page isn’t as informative about the causes of stress or how to deal with it as the Oura app. Oura offers AI-generated tips and shows your stress graphed over time with movement and activity overlaid on the chart to easily identify causes of high-stress situations.
The Gen 2 Air also trails the Oura 4 when it comes to exercise tracking. RingConn didn’t automatically label any of my strength-training workouts during the testing period as an exercise, though it did show increased activity for the day.
I tested its manual workout tracking functionality for a 30-minute outdoor run while still wearing the Apple Watch Ultra 2. The Gen 2 Air’s heart rate readings weren’t close, often more than 20 to 30 beats per minute (bpm) behind Apple’s. When I sprinted at intervals during the run to elevate my heart rate, the Gen 2 Air barely showed a spike in its readings. Looking at the graph afterward, I couldn’t even tell where I’d sprinted, so the numbers are clearly off.
Otherwise, a manually tracked workout shows your calorie burn, distance, heart rate (graphed over the course of the session and broken down into intensity zones), and route taken (using your phone’s GPS). Despite underreporting my heart rate, the Gen 2 Air's Calorie burn and distance numbers for my 30-minute outdoor run looked fine. Still, this isn’t a device for accurate or detailed exercise tracking.
The Oura Ring 4 is better at this task, providing accurate workout heart rate readings, plus more reliable automatic tracking and a wider range of supported exercise types for manual tracking than the RingConn. That said, if exercise tracking is a primary concern and you’re looking for granular details of any workout, you’ll need to turn to a wrist-based fitness tracker or a smartwatch. For running, the Apple Watch Series 10, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, and the Google Pixel Watch 3 smartwatches all capture advanced form metrics like cadence, ground contact time, power, and vertical oscillation. Devices with a screen are also obviously easier to check during a workout if you want an update on your current heart rate without pulling out your phone.