The new Sekonda smart ring costs just £80 - I wore it for a week and I wasn't expecting to be this impressed

Forget using a watch to track your steps, workouts, sleep and stress. Smart rings are the discreet, jewellery-like wearable replacing them for millions of women around the world. Sekonda is the latest brand to create one, retailing for just £80.

Known for affordable fitness trackers to record the basics of health and fitness, Sekonda's ring is the cheapest I've seen yet from a brand with reliable sensors. Along with the essentials, it promises to deliver HRV, stress, blood oxygen and other advanced metrics into the purpose-built app.

As woman&home's resident tech expert and digital health editor, I've had all the best smart rings over the years, from the very first to the latest Oura Ring 5 and everything in between. Most retail for at least £300, so this affordable option immediately sparked my interest.

Sekonda smart ring review

Specifications

• Size: 3mm thick, 7mm wide (diameter will vary by size)
• Weight: 3.5g - 4.3g (depending on size)
• Size range: 7 - 12
• Battery life: Up to 7 days
• Waterproof: Up to 5ATM (50 metres)

What is the Sekonda smart ring like to wear?

The Sekonda smart ring packs its sensors into a plastic ring with a metallic casing, available in multiple colours. I went for the gold to match my other jewellery. Its seamless design truly blends into my other rings in both design and colour.

It's similar to other rings I've tried, so fairly chunky. You can feel it on your hand when you bring your fingers together. The only one I've tried that's thinner and effortlessly lives on my hand is the Oura Ring 5. It's a noticeable difference.

Otherwise, it's easy to wear. Charging happens in a small plastic case with a USB-C charger. While the case doesn't feel particularly premium compared to the Ultrahuman Ring Pro, for example, it's very lightweight and small, making it easy to travel with and have on the nightstand.

Fitness tracking on the Sekonda smart ring

If you're new to smart rings, the first thing to know is that they are not step counters. I've never had an accurate step count from any smart ring I've tried. While testing the Sekonda smart ring, I wore the Oura Ring and my regular fitness tracker, the Coros Pace 4, and they all gave different readings. I'd say the watch was the most accurate of the bunch. However, it's still a good way to track your movement throughout the day.

The Sekonda smart ring doesn't auto-recognise activity, so it'll pick up on your steps automatically, but to do a dedicated workout, you'll need to start it in the app.

The profiles are very specific and include exercises, like burpees and crunches, as well as workouts from walking and cycling to Zumba and wrestling. Each comes with the same three on-screen metrics: heart rate, calories, and time. For strength training, a simple improvement would be to see how many reps or sets I had done.

The data is more detailed for cardio exercises like outdoor running. Here, you'll see your duration, kilometres, heart rate, average pace, average speed, and GPS route through your phone's native maps app, which is more impressive.

The information is basic. It covers the essentials, logs that data so you can see how your fitness patterns look over time, and it does this all on a clearly readable screen. If you're looking for a smart ring to help improve your fitness and stick to an exercise routine, you can't go too far wrong with this one, especially at this price.

Health tracking on the Sekonda smart ring

The Sekonda smart ring really shines in the health tracking features, offering insights well beyond what I'd expect. On the home screen, you'll see your heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen, stress level, HRV, respiratory rate, and mood.

Take heart rate as an example. Tap into the details, and you can see your current and average heart rates, and where your resting heart rate sits on a scale. If you're showing signs of tachy- or bradycardia (a particularly high or low heart rate), the scale will flag this, and you can bring the information to your doctor. You can also see the heart rate zones you've been in through the day, including fat-burning and aerobic.

Similar insights are available for all the health tracking features, which I was very impressed by. This is advanced data that smart rings triple the price struggle to display in a clear, understandable format that the Sekonda ring does.

The only way to improve this would be to have a notification on the homepage when this data drops below average. Other smart rings use AI to monitor your health data and flag when you might be getting ill. A cold infection tends to increase your body's temperature before you even have symptoms.

Sleep tracking on the Sekonda smart ring

The sleep data on the Sekonda smart ring isn't as advanced as you'll find on others, but there's enough there to see whether you've had a good night's sleep or need to take it a little easy the following day. It covers the duration and sleep stages (deep, light, REM and awake time), how that compares to your daily goal, average heart rate, HRV, and blood oxygen through the night.

Delving deeper, you'll be able to see how this compares to your baseline, which is useful for detecting any anomalies. For example, those with sleep apnoea tend to find overnight dips in their blood oxygen and irregular breathing patterns, which the Sekona smart ring could pick up.

However, you will need to know what each of the metrics means, be able to read the graphs, and note yourself whether something looks out of range. My light sleep was flagged as being 'High' one night, but there was no additional information about what this meant. I know that means my sleep perhaps wasn't as restful as it is normally, but if you're new to the world of sleep tracking, you might not.

These days, we are all spoilt for sleep data and I am comparing metrics on the Sekonda to those rings that have in-built AI function that takes all the data and reveals what it all means in written summaries. If this ring had that capacity, I can guarantee you it wouldn't be the price it is. So, given that, it's an impressive range of sleep features. To make the most of them, you'd need to do some background work, though.

Price and availability

The Sekonda smart ring is £79.99 and available to buy directly from the Sekonda website starting today.

It is significantly cheaper than most fitness trackers, whether that be watches or smart rings. The second-cheapest tracker I'd recommend based on reliability and metrics available is the Fitbit Inspire 3, which is £84.99 at full price.

No other smart ring from a well-known brand offers reliable data like this at this price, making it an absolute steal and well worth the spend.

Is the Sekonda smart ring worth buying?

Is the Sekonda smart ring the most advanced or the most premium? No, but it offers seven days of battery life between charges and covers the essentials of fitness, health, sleep, and stress data well, even comparing daily data against a day-one baseline.

For the price tag, the features are impressive. The app is also very easy to read and understand, free to use, and the brand promises that updates are on the way, which could mean more features in the future.

It's a great choice for beginners, people new to fitness trackers, and those trading in a sporty-looking Garmin watch or Fitbit for a smart ring, thanks to its discreet design and seamless health tracking.