Boat Smart Ring Gen 1 review: a few updates away from being the lord of the ring

Boat is among the early entrants in the smart ring segment in India, with other contenders being the likes of Ulrahuman and Noise. I have the Boat Smart Ring Gen 1 on my finger as you read this, but before I get into its details, let me first explain what a smart ring is, what it can do, and why might want to opt for one. A smart ring is one that has sensors to track body parameters, physical activity, and sleep, at the very least. It might have a few additional features as well. But aren’t smartwatches supposed to do the same thing, you might ask? Well, you’re right, of course. In fact, smart rings can’t tell the time, notify or alert the wearer in any way, unlike smartwatches. So why would you want to buy one? You see, a smart ring is supposed to be a minimalist gadget — one that you just wear and forget, and let it do its thing. Plus, a ring is something you could wear comfortably 24/7, in theory at least. So how does the Boat Ring fare?

Design and build

Right off the bat, it seems that Boat isn’t making any bones about the fact that its first ring might have a few niggles, given that the device name on the retail box says “Boat Ring Gen 1”. The ring is available in three different sizes — 7,9, and 11, with diameters of 17.4mm, 19.15mm and 20.85mm respectively. As far as I know, there’s only one colour available, which is charcoal black. The ring has a glossy, smoke-coloured exterior, with shiny silver visible on the rim, along with Boat branding and sensors located on the inside. A small red line on the side marks the touch-sensitive area which can be used to control and perform certain tasks on the paired smartphone — more on that later.

Made of ceramic and metal, the build quality seems solid, and it does look good on the hand too, at least in my opinion. During my review period, I accidentally dropped the ring onto a hard floor a couple of times, and the device came out unscathed, sans any scuffs or dents. Daily use hasn’t had any visible impact on its appearance yet either. Plus, it’s water-resistant up to 5ATM, so getting it wet (say while washing hands or showering) shouldn’t pose any problems. On the flip side, I think the ring is a tad bulky and not extremely comfortable to wear, especially while sleeping, which is something that goes against one of its core propositions. However, I’m still willing to give it benefit of the doubt, given that I’m not used to wearing a ring at all and this is my own personal opinion — you might feel differently about this.

Features

The Boat Ring’s key features include tracking physical parameters and activities like steps, sleep, heart rate, blood oxygen, body temperature and menstruation. As far as workouts are concerned, you can track running, walking and biking (with the latter labelled as riding in the app). Do note that this is a diminutive device as compared to a fitness band or smartwatch, so you can expect niceties like auto workout detection or built-in GPS. In fact, there’s no connected GPS either, so tracking routes for the aforementioned sports isn’t possible. The heart rate tracking isn’t continuous, and unless you launch the app, there’s no indication of remaining battery life. The ring can’t alert or notify you in any way too.

Again, I should emphasise that these can’t really be considered as negatives, since a smart ring is a different beast as compared to a smartwatch, and you can’t expect the same features.

While the companion app remains the only way for you to check the data and details on physical activity captured by the ring, Boat has added a way for you to interact with the device and use it to control your smartphone. Once this feature is enabled, you can basically use the area marked by a subtle red line on the side of the ring to perform one from a limited set of tasks listed in the app:

• If you choose Short video, you can long press on the marked area to like a short video (say an Instagram reel), and swipe up and down to scroll
• If Music is selected, you can long press to play or pause, and slide up to down to switch songs
• If Reading is chosen, you can flip pages in an e-book
• With the photo function selected, you can take pictures using a long press
• If Slides is selected, you can switch slides in a presentation deck using swipes

Do note that only one option from the above list can be enabled at one time. So if you’ve set it to shoot pictures but want to control music playback instead, you’d need to dive into the app and enable the required option. Apart from the above, there’s a separate setting for enabling SOS mode, a function which is tied to your phone’s native emergency mode — something that might come in handy if you find yourself in a sticky situation, God forbid.

App connectivity, performance and battery

The Boat Ring’s companion app comes in the form of the aptly named Boat Ring app, available on both iOS and Android. Pairing is a cinch and once the device is paired with your smartphone, you can use the app to view physical data and trends, start or end workouts, toggle the Smart Control features, update firmware etc. The app layout is easy enough, and is divided into four main tabs — status, sleep, fitness and control.

The status tab displays the data related to heart rate, SpO2 and temperature, the sleep tab shows slumber-related info, while the fitness tab shows steps and workouts. Apart from trends and historical data, each of these tabs also presents insights — the status tab shows recovery status, the sleep tab displays assessment based on your sleeping patterns, while the fitness tab shows analysis based on physical activity. Not just that, there are useful suggestions too, with indication of whether you had enough sleep, and whether your workout levels have been ideal or not. All these are handy insights to have, provided you follow those suggestions and try to get an optimum balance between regular activity, workouts and sleep, especially if those suggestions are backed by accurate numbers.

Speaking of, I found the accuracy to be okay, especially the data on parameters like heart rate, temperature and SpO2. Some numbers like those related steps / workouts, and sleep patterns seemed fine for the most part, but showed inconsistent data at times. Workouts like walking, running and biking can only be started and ended via the app, which is understandable. However, one can actually start a workout on the app even without wearing the ring, and it still captures and stores the numbers — I can’t say if it’s intended to work that way. Also, there’s no cloud-based backup as far as I can see, so when I unpaired the ring from an Android phone and paired it with an iPhone in the middle of my review period, I lost all the previously captured data. More importantly, the Boat Ring app has no option to sync data with platforms such as Apple Health or Google Fit, which is a bummer.

Next, the smart control features. Frankly, I found most of them a bit finicky, especially the ones that use swipe gestures. Taking photos and liking short videos via long press actions worked fine for me, though I must say that out of all the offered functions, the only useful feature seems to be the ability to use the ring as a remote for shooting pictures. This could come in handy in certain scenarios, while clicking selfies and group shots, for instance.

Coming to the battery. The Boat Ring charges via a proprietary charger which attaches magnetically to a single pogo pin located on the underside of the watch, next to the sensors. The charging dock has a USB Type-A cable that can be plugged into any USB adapter or laptop port, and a light in one of the ring’s sensors flashed red while it’s getting juiced up… turning to green when it’s fully charged. A single charge lasts about 4 to 5 days, which is slightly less than the promised 7 days but it is still reasonable I think.

Verdict

The Boat Ring isn’t really the first smart ring in India — there’s UltraHuman in the fray as well, and possibly others too. Brands like Samsung are said to be working on their own contenders as well. That said, Boat’s foray into this segment, combined with the soon-to-be-launched rival offering from Noise (which has been announced but isn’t available yet), should send ripples in the wearables arena and pique user interest. At Rs 8,999, the Boat Ring isn’t cheap, but is still significantly more affordable than UltraHuman’s device… aiming to take smart rings to the masses. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but for now, the Boat Ring does have a few rough edges, in a manner of speaking. A few software updates could resolve many of the niggles I mentioned above hopefully, and make this device a proposition worth considering.

Editor’s rating: 6.5 / 10

Pros:

• Standout looks and good build
• Decent tracking
• Useful trends and analysis
• Reasonable battery life

Cons:

• Not extremely comfortable
• No synchronisation with Apple Health or Google Fit
• Smart Control features can be iffy
• Just one colour available

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