The Apple Watch’s biggest weakness is the best case for the Apple Ring

the Apple watch It has a problem that a software update can’t fix. It’s still the most accurate device I’ve tested, but the need to recharge it daily means it often gets stuck in the charger overnight, which is when some of the most valuable health metrics are collected.

As wearables increasingly compete on long-term health insights rather than exercise stats alone, battery life is Apple’s biggest weakness. Smart rings like the Oura Ring and non-screen bands like whoop and Fitbit Air It’s carved out a niche by doing the opposite of the Apple Watch: disappearing. It stays on your body for a week or more at a time, gathering health trends that the smartwatch misses while it’s on the charger.

I’ve tested dozens of wearables, and I recommend the Apple Watch over other smartwatches because it always comes out on top in my opinion Heart rate test. But despite years of trying, I’ve never been able to wear one to sleep consistently.

It only takes about an hour to charge my Apple Smart Watch, but between late-night deadlines, kids, and an unpredictable schedule, I’ve never developed a reliable charging routine before wearing it overnight. Sooner or later, I either forget to charge it or forget to put it back before bed. I’m not alone. I spoke with researchersAnd athletes and friends who choose another wearable device simply because they can wear it around the clock.

Apple leaves an opportunity on the table. Not because the Apple Watch isn’t good enough, but because it demands too much of those who wear it. The missing piece might be a low-maintenance wearable like a smart ring that complements your Apple Watch.

Battery life is hard to solve

Accuracy isn’t just about having better sensors. It’s a balancing act between sensor quality, software algorithms, and sampling frequency (how often the device measures your vitals). The Apple Watch excels at all three. The optical sensors, algorithms, and near-continuous heart rate sampling during workouts consistently outperformed other wearables in my testing. They are also the reason why the battery drains very quickly.

In contrast, smart rings are a completely different design and have their own compromises. Their smaller batteries mean they sample less frequently, which is fine overnight when your vitals don’t change much, but less ideal for picking up spikes during interval training.

In my test of Oura ring 5his measurement of peak heart rate during a 3-mile run was 8 beats per minute lower than the chest strap (the gold standard), although the average heart rate was almost identical. In comparison, the Apple Watch tracks almost identically with the chest strap even during those peaks.

Apple struggles to keep devices on your wrist

Apple’s sensors and software can already offer many long-term health insights like the smart ring. The Vitals app flags signs of illness when one or more health signals are out of range, and tracks menstrual cycles and recovery metrics. The problem is that these ideas depend on constant, all-night wear and tear. This means you have to remember to charge it before bed, and not accidentally forget it on the charger (that’s me!).

For example, Apple’s retrospective ovulation estimates require sleep tracking for at least five consecutive nights to establish a temperature baseline, and approximately two complete menstrual cycles to detect ovulation estimates. Upgrading to a newer model or resetting your watch means Start the whole process.

Compare that with the Oura Ring 5, which lasts a week or more on your finger without interruption before needing a charge. Even if I forget to wear it the night I charge it, I won’t have to reset my baseline. It just picks up where you left off. This means I can see my ovulation data as it happens and not retroactively like the Apple Watch. As a woman trying to understand my cycle better, this continuity has made it much easier to connect the dots between my hormones, sleep, recovery, and workouts.

Can the Apple Watch have its cake and eat it too?

There are battery developments flowing through the pipe. Silicon and carbon-based battery technologies – which allow for more battery capacity without increasing its size – could eventually succeed They make their way from phones To a wearable device such as an Apple Watch. More efficient processors such as Qualcomm The Snapdragon Wear Elite also promises additional battery gains for this year’s wearables. Apple uses its own chips, but they’re probably taking notes.

Even these improvements are unlikely to push the Apple Watch anywhere near the week-long battery life offered by Garmin watches, smart rings, and fitness bands without a screen. At least not anytime soon.

If Apple wants a week’s worth of battery life without sacrificing the accuracy of the Apple Watch, it will likely need to develop an entirely new wearable. The band would likely require giving up some accuracy in tracking your workout compared to an Apple Watch or a thicker sensor-based band, but for me, that would be a sacrifice worth it. Trust me, I don’t need another band on my wrist.

The winning formula, based on my experience testing both devices side-by-side, would be a set of monitoring rings: a watch for notifications, workouts, and live training data, and a ring for everything that happens when you’re not outside. While this means purchasing multiple devices, Samsung already supports combining health data when wearing both devices Galaxy Ring and Galaxy watch. Google is also doing something similar with the Fitbit Air, which can be worn alongside the Fitbit Air Pixel watch.

Leg-up, but late in the game

Apple isn’t starting from scratch with a smart ring. It already has a lot of health infrastructure with the Health app, years of biometric algorithms and more than a decade of Apple Watch development. The company has proven that it can shrink heart rate sensors into a tiny earbud without sacrificing accuracy. In my country AirPods Pro 3 test It tracks surprisingly close to the Polar Chest Strap during workouts, second only to the Apple Watch.

The challenge isn’t whether Apple can build a ring; It’s whether he can catch up. Oura and Whoop have spent nearly a decade improving not only devices, but also the way people understand their health. They turn complex biometrics, such as cardiovascular health, into concepts like “cardiovascular age” that are easier to understand and act on. Who wouldn’t want to shave a few years off their heart?

Oura also has a large share of the smart ring market and hasn’t hesitated to go after anyone who gets too close. The company has filed patent lawsuits against competitors Samsung and Superhumanmaking it clear to any newcomer that there are indeed high stakes in this game.

I can’t get over them, buy them

If it wanted to bypass the legal drama, skip years of hardware development and instantly get a mature ring platform by purchasing one, Oura would be the obvious target. It’s the same playbook that Google used when… It acquired Fitbit In 2019.

The two companies actually share more DNA than you might expect. Oura has become a landing spot for Apple talent, including former Apple hardware executive Brian Lynch, Apple’s former chief health officer Ricky Bloomfield and designer Miklo Silvanto, who previously worked under Jony Ive.

But that’s not Apple’s style. The company has historically preferred to build its products from the ground up rather than source them outright.

Will we get an Apple Ring?

Apple has thought about the idea of ​​its own smart ring for many years and has filed patents Dating back to 2015 For finger-worn devices covering everything from biometric sensors and NFC to gesture controls for AR headsets. But patents are not products, and many designs from Apple never see the light of day.

The biggest argument against the Apple Ring has always been cannibalization. In October 2024, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple had no active plans to build one because executives were concerned it would impact Apple Watch sales. And asking people to spend an extra $300 (or more) on a ring over a nearly $400 Apple Watch is certainly a lot to ask for.

But after testing both, I don’t think they solve the same problem. One wins in workouts, notifications and live metrics. The other collects long-term health data in the background. The global smart ring market is expected to grow from $519 million in 2026 to $3.77 billion by 2034, according to Fortune Business InsightsIt’s a category that’s becoming harder to ignore. Apple has already successfully expanded a product category with minimal sales cannibalization: the iPod. At one point, there was the iPod Classic, the iPod Shuffle, and the iPod Nano.

Even Gorman has since softened his stance. In mid-2025 Authority on the newsletterHe said that Apple should seriously consider the smart ring. And with Apple’s next CEO John Ternosa longtime hardware engineer who helped oversee the Apple Watch, AirPods, and Vision Pro, the company may be entering another hardware-focused chapter.

If I had to bet, I’d still say Apple is doubling down on the Apple Watch in the near term rather than introducing an entirely new category. Better batteries, more efficient chips, and new health features.

But in the long run, the ring doesn’t seem so out of reach anymore. And if the “Infinity Loop” — my name for Apple’s hypothetical ring — becomes a reality, I’ll be first in line.