Why should you absolutely not buy this connected ring for less than 30 euros?

There are more and more connected rings on the market. If most of the references available from the main players like Samsung, Oura or Ultrahuman cannot yet be described as affordable, really cheap – and very questionable – models are already starting to appear. This is the case of the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker, a connected ring sold for less than 30 euros on GeekBuying.

We learned about this product on Dealabsa community site that shares a whole bunch of offers, tech or not. And if some comments suggest that the product does not seem to be of good quality for its price, this is not the case for all. Some will obviously be fooled, or even believe the implausible data that the ring collects. We are therefore here to take stock and avoid any impulsive purchases.

Choose your connected ring

Wanting a connected ring or any other activity tracker is often synonymous with wanting to take up or return to sport. This desire to take care of your body can already represent a big step, which should absolutely not be wasted with a disappointing activity sensor which could demotivate you. The reasons can be various: poor product quality, really unreliable data or even a software interface that is not intuitive or not practical to use.

Tell yourself that the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker unfortunately ticks all these boxes. This is why it is important to do your research before making a purchase of this kind, and even more so for connected rings. Because, in addition, the size is unique, so you shouldn’t make a mistake – especially since all brands adopt different size nomenclatures.

On GeekBuying, the ring brand does not offer a ring sizer or sizing kitso you have to go a little blind. After some information on the Internet, I chose size 11, but the merchant site provided very little information when ordering last October. It took me about 3 weeks to receive it. Since then, GeekBuying has updated the product sheet a little, this time with sizes in millimeters.

On the design side, it must nevertheless be said that it is a little surprise. Indeed, the ring is rather pretty, with its wide black band surrounded by two thin metallic lines and is somewhat reminiscent of what is done at Ring One. We can also clearly see on the interior part the printed circuits with some sensors which sometimes light up in red or green. Plus, it fits well on my finger and I had no difficulty removing it when I needed it.

M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker: what is it really worth?

On paper, the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker is attractive for the price. It promises continuous monitoring by collecting data on your sleep, your heart rate, your blood oxygen level or even the distance traveled and calories burned. This seems quite complete, especially since the site indicates an autonomy of between 3 and 5 days.

The data collected and the software interface

Once you have your ring on your finger, you need to download the CyFit application, available on iOS and Android. The translation is particularly approximate in French, notably with a tab “ sports target » where we add our objectives, such as distance, calories, but also “ failure »… between 3,000 and 50,000 « steps “. Who knows why. I think it’s obviously the number of steps (steps in English, which also means steps), but it’s quite disturbing.

Regarding the measurements, everything seems biased, starting with the sleep analysis. When consulting the application, I sometimes saw that it detected that I was sleeping from 7 to 8 p.m. after work, while I was simply watching an episode of a series on my couch. And it happened several times! Even with a full night’s worth of data, there’s still a big lag with the Apple Watch 10, as evidenced by these screenshots from my smartphone.

Apart from noting that the sleep data are very different, it was above all the bedtime that shocked me: 9:22 p.m. for the ring and 11:10 p.m. for the watch. And I went to bed around 11 p.m. that day. Additionally, my night was restless and I actually woke up several times, which the Apple Watch 10 detected but which the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker completely missed.

The other problem with this ring “ connected », concerns sporting activities. To put it simply, the app simply does not offer exercises as basic as walking or running, but only “ somatosensory games » which don’t even launch and get stuck at 99% loading. In short, impossible, like the Apple Watch, to determine a specific activity. The data is therefore necessarily misleading depending on your sport of choice.

For the example, I ran for just under 30 minutes wearing the Apple Watch 10 on one side and the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker on the other. The first tells me that I did a little more than 3 km for 4,817 steps and 259 calories burned when the second tells me 3.66 km (which may be in line with the first measurement by counting the few additional meters to get home) for 5,700 steps and only 73 calories burned. This is not even enough to eliminate a 100 g sole (a low-calorie fish) from your body. In short, the Apple Watch also only offers an estimate, but it is clear that it is much more reliable on the Cupertino company’s side than with this M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker.

The only metric where I had some confidence in the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker was heart rate.. In both cases I had a result of 73 BPM at rest. My colleague Geoffroy, used to testing rings and watches, then advised me to also measure heart rate during exercise.

I went back to run a little less than 5 km one morning, and stopped halfway to take the measurement. The observation is clear: around 140 BPM for the Apple Watch 10 and not even 90 BPM for the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker. Needless to say, I was quite out of breath at that time.

Finally, the oxygen level in the blood does not seem too aberrant to me, with a result of 100% on the Apple watch and a result of 98% on the ring. But after the previous completely erroneous measurements of the ring, it is difficult to believe in its veracity.

Autonomy

Now is the time to kill the myth of autonomy: the ring barely lasted a day on its first charge. Subsequently, by removing the 24-hour tracking functionality from the application, it held up just as well as the Apple Watch 10 that I had on my wrist to compare the measurements, namely a day and a half in the best case. It’s really not fun for a connected object without a screen.

Compared to market leaders like Samsung with its Galaxy Ring or Oura with its Ring 3, this is approximately 6 times less autonomy. You will then tell me that it’s not too much – it’s difficult to compare a ring at 30 euros and a ring at 399 euros, but let’s take the NewGen Medicals connected ring at less than 100 euros. Here again, the autonomy is much greater: a little more than 4 days according to our test, activating the heart rate measurement every ten minutes and with a total of 1h30 of exercise.

To go further
Test of the Newgen Medicals ring from Pearl: an inexpensive, but effective connected ring

However, we can say that the M1 Smart Ring Health Tracker recharges quite quickly with its magnetic charger: around 1 hour 30 minutes for a full charge. However, there is a big problem with charging : it no longer works after a certain time, in my case after a month of use.

In fact, the ring does not seem to be very waterproof up to 5 ATM, or even resistant to water or perspiration at all, as the brand claims. The small magnetic port that allows you to recharge the ring is already completely oxidized. At this time, I can no longer charge the ring.

Conclusion: buy another wearable

You will have understood, this “ smart ring » is not intelligent. Absolutely all the measurements taken are false, so not sure that this is of much interest, especially if you will no longer be able to recharge it after a short time of use (1 month). Unless you really want a cheap tech geek object to amuse the gallery, but it would be a real shame to come to that.

For the same price, we advise you to turn to a connected bracelet if you want to (re)start sport, like those from Xiaomi, Huawei or Honor. It may be a little less aesthetic, but it is much more practical, reliable and useful on a daily basis.

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