Samsung’s latest Unpacked event in Paris introduced a brand-new smart ring, the Galaxy Ring. It’s a fitness device that measures wellness metrics, similar to the Oura ring that’s been on sale for years. But it has one extra feature that caught my eye: double-pinch gestures. I have a feeling that’s a bigger small feature than it might seem to be right now…especially with Samsung brewing up a mixed reality headset competitor to the Apple Vision Pro in the next year.
Wearable tech is currently mostly a fitness-focused landscape, with good reason: step tracking, heart rate tracking, sleep tracking and wellness coaching are pretty useful. But wearables could and should be ways to add gesture controls for what could be a new wave of glasses and XR headsets.
I just flew back from an AR-focused conference that had multiple companies showing how wearables like watches and bands could help be small controllers for extremely small smart glasses. Sony has its own upcoming business-focused mixed reality headset that has its own ring and stylus controls. DoublePoint, a software company, has built a layer on Samsung watches that adds gesture controls for Magic Leap AR headsets.
Watch this: Samsung Galaxy Ring: Everything You Need to Know
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Samsung’s ring only has double-pinch controls for now, similar to the double-tap gesture on Apple’s Series 9 watches. It can be a remote camera shutter control for Samsung phones, or other simple action triggers.
But what if it could do more? What if the gestures become expanded over time, and extra touch sensors added to the ring itself? Watches already seem like a clear companion accessory of the future for smaller smart glasses that may not necessarily have their own onboard tracking cameras. Rings could be even more useful, or at least smaller. And even without glasses, a gesture-controlled ring could eventually work with smart home tech, or TVs.
Using the double pinch gesture to dismiss an alarm.
While the gesture controls on Samsung’s ring seem pretty basic at the moment, the ways that a simple double tap could work without having to wear a watch seems fascinating. It’s also the type of idea that the fitness-focused Oura ring hasn’t introduced at all yet.
Samsung’s Galaxy Ring has just been announced, and Samsung’s upcoming mixed reality headset doesn’t exist yet. Samsung doesn’t have smart glasses to compete with Meta’s Ray-Bans…yet. But now that Samsung does have a ring in its wearable toolkit, I’m very curious to see what happens next on the gesture front. Considering Samsung has a giant hardware lineup in their corner, the possibilities could be a lot bigger than they first seem.