When talking about smart rings, a lot of people will go on and on about Oura, and more recently, you’ll hear a lot of people speak about Samsung’s recent addition to the club. However, there are quite a few players in that wearable space, and one of them is Circular, with its generically-named Circular Ring.
The manufacturer’s next project is the Circular Ring 2, and while it isn’t available on shelves, it has already opened for pre-orders on Kickstarter. As the company crossed the $1m milestone, it has decided to reveal that the device is going to be getting two pretty advanced features via OTA updates: blood pressure tracking and blood glucose tracking.
The Circular Ring 2 Will Kick Its Health Tracking Capabilities to the Next Level
A smart ring is the best choice for someone who wants to track their health metrics around the clock. However, the major downside to a smart ring is that its diminutive build makes it more limited in the sensors that it is capable of fitting in. You can typically expect your heart rate, sleep, stress, and other basic majors to be tracked, but things more complex than that aren’t usually present.
However, Circular seems to want to make its smart ring the number one stop for the health-conscious ones in society. Its upcoming Circular Ring 2 is going to support both blood pressure and blood glucose tracking, which is pretty notable stuff for a smart ring to do. However, these capabilities will be added post-launch via OTA updates.
The Circular Ring 2’s Blood Pressure Measurement Uses New Sensors
Blood pressure measurement isn’t a usual feature that you’ll see with smart rings. There are smartwatches capable of it, but it is just so much harder to fit the necessary sensors into something as compact as a ring.
However, Circular has beaten the odds and figured something out. While the average smart ring uses PPG (photoplethysmography) sensors, this one combines the existing tech with ECG sensors, which makes it possible to measure pulse transit time, which is the basis of measuring your blood pressure with such a small device.
This feature will be available via an OTA update towards the end of this year. That’s a long time to wait, but at least you know it is coming, especially when competitors like the Galaxy Ring don’t have this feature.
Non-Invasive Blood Glucose Tracking Is Coming to the Circular Ring 2
If there’s one feature that you’ll very rarely find on any wearable, it is the ability to track blood glucose. Typically, you’ll have to resort to invasive measures such as finger pricks to measure that. However, Circular claims that its Circular Ring 2 will bring groundbreaking, non-invasive blood glucose tracking. That’s not a small deal.
The PPG sensors will be able to analyze how light interacts with your blood, and by pairing that with machine learning, it will be able to provide new insights on your blood glucose trends in relation to your other health metrics. Circular does say that this won’t be a replacement for traditional techniques to measure blood glucose.
This feature is going to be available a lot later than the blood pressure feature. You’re going to have to wait until late 2026 before this is pushed out through an OTA update.
