COLMi Smart Ring

I have been looking for a way to track my sleep habits, and given that I love a good gadget, I thought that this might be the way to go. Initially, I tried wearing my Apple Watch in bed, but I found it uncomfortable and the results didn’t seem very accurate, so I gave that up. Then, I was listening to The Rest is Politics podcast, and Rory Stewart was waxing lyrical about his Oura smart ring, and I thought now that might just be the answer.

If you’re Rory Stewart being paid £1 million a year for your podcast, then you can afford to splash out £350 on a high-end smart ring, but, sadly, I am not. Enter the COLMi smart ring, which set me back the princely sum of £15. Yes, you read that right – fifteen pounds. The question is, is it any good? Read on to find out.

Unboxing

Unsurprisingly at £15 the contents of the box is pretty minimal. You get a slim instruction book, a USB-c charge cable and the ring itself. Some models also come with a charge case that includes a small battery for charging on the go (see picture above).

To get started, you need to charge the ring – there is a tiny bit of plastic covering the magnetic charge plate on the ring itself, and I spent quite some time trying to work out why my ring wasn’t charging before I realised – and download the companion app called QRing. Pairing the ring to the app was very straightforward and once done you can slip it on and you are good to go.

I should point out that it took me a few goes to get a ring that fitted comfortably on my finger and the ring measurement guideline given on the support pages didn’t seem accurate.

The ring I have is the R06 but there are others in the range as shown in the comparison table below and as you can see they are very, very similar which I found confusing when making a selection.

Feature	COLMI R02	COLMI R03	COLMI R06	COLMI R09
Design	Sleek, lightweight	Compact and stylish	Rounded stainless steel	Concave, lightweight design
Sensors	Heart rate, SpO2	Heart rate, SpO2	Heart rate, SpO2, accelerometer	Heart rate, SpO2, body temperature sensor
Health Tracking	Heart rate, SpO2, sleep monitoring	Heart rate, SpO2, sleep tracking	Heart rate, SpO2, sleep monitoring	Heart rate, SpO2, sleep, and temperature tracking
Waterproof Rating	IP68 & 3ATM	IP68	IP68	IP68 + 5ATM
Battery Life	3–5 days	5–7 days	5–7 days	7–10 days (up to 39 days with charging case)
Charging	Magnetic charging cable	Magnetic charging cable	Magnetic charging cable	Charging case + magnetic cable
Compatibility	iOS 8.0+ / Android 5.1+	iOS 8.0+ / Android 5.1+	iOS 8.0+ / Android 5.1+	iOS 8.0+ / Android 5.1+
Bluetooth Version	Bluetooth 5.0 BLE	Bluetooth 5.0 BLE	Bluetooth 5.0 BLE	Bluetooth 5.2 BLE
Sizes	Sizes 6–12	Sizes 6–12	Sizes 6–12	Sizes 8–13
Unique Features	Basic health tracking	Enhanced notifications	Enhanced accelerometer for activity tracking	Temperature monitoring, lightweight design

In Use

Once on your finger, it looks and feels just like any other ring that you might wear. It is lightweight; in fact, I would say that it actually feels too light. The only way you and others will realise that it is anything other than an ordinary ring is the red and green lights that come on periodically as it takes readings.

You can choose within the app how often readings are taken, and at the most aggressive, they will be done every 30 minutes. This does have an impact on battery life (see below) but will give you the most accurate information.

A few things about the ring. FIrstly, it is waterproof. I leave it on when washing my hands, but I do take it off before showering, although that shouldn’t be necessary. Next, the lights are pretty bright, I assume to better enable accurate readings. If you have your hand on your face when the red light comes on, you’ll certainly know it. The quality is what you would expect for £15; it is robust, but the black colour on mine is beginning to come off after just a couple of months. Go for a silver one in order to avoid this if you can.

Battery use

Having a smart ring means that you have yet another thing to remember to charge. Fortunately, the app does give you a notification when the battery level drops below 20%. I’ve found that it charges pretty quickly, which is unsurprising given how small the battery must be in it.

COLMi state a battery life of five to seven days but I have never got anywhere near that length of time. I have been tracking charge times using WDiL since purchase and mine needs charging roughly every four days.

If you want to get better battery life out of the ring that you can reduce the frequency of readings but that’s not something I’ve tested.

Accuracy

The R06 measures the following:

Activity (steps, calories burned & distance)
Health (heart rate, HRV, blood oxygen)
Stress levels
Sleep (awake time, REM, light and deep sleep)

The easiest to compare are the activity stats, and the table shows the figures from my watch and ring for the same day. Distance is the only one that is in the same ballpark and could be considered to be within a reasonable margin of error. The others? Well, I have no idea which is right, but if I were basing it on the amount paid, then obviously the watch would win.

	Apple Watch	COLMi R06
Steps	5,837	7,258
Calories Burned	617	346
Distance	2.99mi	3.08mi

However, I was more interested in sleep data. I’d tried wearing the watch in bed but found it uncomfortable, and the ring is much better from that aspect.

As for the data, it gives you a breakdown of your night and an overall score from 1 to 100. I consistently score above 90, and the only time that it has dipped below that is when I have had a disturbed night when my granddaughter has been staying over, and even then it was still in the 80s. I shudder to think what you have to do to score, say, 20! I’m not convinced I wake up feeling like I have had a 90+ night, but then again, I do generally sleep pretty soundly.

Looking at the detailed data, I would say that it is broadly accurate. As accurate as it can be based on a sample rate of once every half an hour, which is an issue for watch-based trackers too. It’s fine for what I wanted to achieve. As a bonus, the data is also synced to Apple Health, so you can look at the stats there along with other data from other sources.

Conclusion

I came to the COLMi R06 with low expectations given the price point, but it actually works better than I expected and has allowed me to keep track of my sleep in a much more comfortable fashion. Speaking of fashion, I like the design of the ring, but the quality of the finish shows where cost savings have been made to keep the price down. Overall, I’m happy with it. You can purchase your own ring here.

Pros