Gabit
Wearable

Gabit Smart Ring review

The ring that does things

₹ 13,110

Wrist-based fitness tracking is a fairly common thing now, and there are plenty of smartwatches and basic trackers that you can buy right now. However, you don’t need to block your valuable wrist space for the purpose anymore. A ring will be able to handle that just fine, letting you keep your wrist free for either a nice wristwatch or nothing at all, depending on your preferences. Smart rings are light-weight, comfortable to wear, and also distraction-free - there’s no screen or buzzing which forces you to pay attention.

While there are smart rings available across various price segments going from affordable all the way to the Rs. 38,999 Samsung Galaxy Ring, an option that has been grabbing attention of late is the Gabit Smart Ring. Priced at Rs. 13,110, this smart ring promises a lot, without you to contend with a huge price tag. Does it live up to the hype, though? Find out in this review.

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Gabit Smart Ring review: Design and features

Gabit Smart Ring

Rings need to be purchased according to size, and Gabit fortunately offers its smart ring in various sizes to ensure you get the right fit. The ring is available in sizes ranging from 6 to 13, and Gabit will first send you the ring sizing kit. Once you’ve tried that out and figured out what the right size is for you, Gabit will send the actual smart ring.

Although the company suggests that you wear the smart ring on the index finger of your non-dominant hand, it’s really up to you when it comes to picking the right finger. You should ideal pick the size based on the fit on your index finger, but the Gabit Smart Ring works the same regardless of which finger you wear it on. I typically wore it on different fingers at different times for comfort, but that likely has to do with my fiddly nature.

The Gabit Smart Ring itself has an outer shell crafted with titanium, while the inner shell is made of transparent resin. The ring is available in three colours - matte black, matte silver, and rose gold. The black option probably looks the sharpest and most gadget-like, also highlighting the texture of the titanium outer shell nicely. It’s also quite scuff-resistant, and it wasn’t hard to clean off any marks on it, without damaging the shell itself. 

The optical sensors illuminating on the inner shell are quite a sight, and a lot of people were curious to know more about the ring on seeing the flashing green lights on my finger. The Gabit Smart Ring is 5ATM water resistant, so it can be worn all the time without much risk of damage from water exposure.

Gabit Smart Ring

That said, I’d recommend taking it off when washing your hands or in the shower to avoid soapy water from getting stuck inside, and also giving it a wash with plain water at least once a day to clean away any grime and collected impurities. You should also give your finger a bit of a ‘breather’ for a few minutes once every few hours.

The Gabit Smart Ring tracks a bunch of health and fitness metrics, thanks to its range of sensors. This includes heart rate which also covers resting HR, heart rate variability, SpO2, and VO2 Max, and there’s also skin temperature, sleep, and activity tracking. Using the basic data, the app can also estimate active calorie consumption and balance, as well as stress levels. All of this is, of course, accessible through the app on the paired smartphone, which synchronises with the ring to collect and present the data points.

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The app - available on Android and iOS - works fairly well, synchronises with the ring quickly and efficiently most of the time, and presents all of the information rather nicely. You can also log food intake to help with generating a calorie balance figure, which will help you match your activity with your food and beverage intake.

Gabit also offers optional health plans for coaching and assistance on fitness, nutrition, and habits. As mentioned, this is entirely optional, and the ring works fine and delivers plenty of information and insights even without it.

Gabit Smart Ring review: Performance and battery life

Gabit Smart Ring

Smart rings are typically much more expensive that smart watches for a few reasons, including the need to pack in all of that tech into a smaller form factor, the use of more expensive materials for the ring shell, and of course the fact that it’s still relatively new technology as compared to the now ubiquitous smart watches. While there are smart rings available at even under Rs. 5,000, the Gabit Smart Ring hopes to strike a good balance between price, the use of premium materials, and the actual capabilities of the smart ring itself. 

To start with, the app is the control centre for everything, given that the smart ring itself doesn’t have a user interface of any kind. You’ll need to pull out your smartphone and sync the app with the ring to do anything actively (such as getting an instant heart-rate reading), although the ring does almost everything passively without the need for manual intervention. Fortunately, this works well most of the time, and I don’t think I had more than one or two delays in synchronisation during my many weeks using the Gabit ring leading up to this review.

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What I found most useful on the Gabit Smart Ring was the sleep tracking, which is quite accurate and was usually reflective of how I felt after waking up every day. The deep sleep and duration detection was largely on point, and the ring was also able to analyse individual sleep and nap sessions to derive a sleep score. 

Short sleep sessions weren’t necessarily judged harshly, while at times even getting eight hours of average quality overnight sleep wasn’t enough; I usually felt exactly how the score described it. I also used the information for corrective action, such as taking a nap to make up sleep, or sleeping a bit earlier at night to ensure I covered up, thus improving my sleep habits and patterns a fair bit.

Gabit Smart Ring

Step tracking is decent enough, again assigning an activity score based on the kind of exercise and activity I logged on the Gabit Smart Ring. Heart rate tracking was workable when sitting down or largely idle, but didn’t seem to register very accurately when on the move; as such, I didn’t pay too much attention to those metrics, beyond keeping an eye on my resting heart rate. Skin temperature also varied heavily depending on environmental factors, and didn’t really tell much as a result.

Calorie balance tracking is great, assuming you do your part in adding details of your food intake. While the ring collects the calorie utilisation data on its own, you do need to input details of things you’ve consumed; the app then estimates the calorie consumption and balances out your calorie figures. This obviously takes some effort on the user’s part, but the insights are fairly useful if you do stick it out.

Battery life on the Gabit Smart Ring is stated to be seven days per charge, but this has a bit to do with the ring size that you pick. The battery capacity can range from 14.5mAh to 21.5mAh depending on the ring size, so the larger variants will run for a bit longer. My size 10 ring typically ran for about 8-9 days on a single charge, and took about two hours to top up.

Some smartwatches come with comparable battery life, but the difference here is that you won’t necessarily miss having the ring on when it is charging, or even if you forget to charge it and run out while you’re away from the charger. The ring comes with a combat charging case which connects to a standard USB Type-C charging cable, so charging itself is fairly convenient even if you’re traveling.

Verdict

Gabit Smart Ring

The Gabit Smart Ring is a rather useful and accessible piece of tech for a number of reasons. It’s made with premium materials, offers a reliable user experience, and generally offers useful insights that put it on par with similarly priced smartwatches and fitness trackers. However, it’s smaller, lighter, and looks great, while also keeping your wrist free for a traditional watch (or nothing at all).

After ditching smartwatches a while ago (because I found frequent charging requirements to be annoying and didn’t want my wrist to buzz for notifications), the Gabit Smart Ring has finally brought me back into the fitness tracking way of life. It does exactly that, without the distractions, and has been a genuinely useful addition to my tech kit.

Stuff Says

Looks and feels good, decent fitness tracking without the distractions
Good stuff
Bad stuff
  1. Light weight, excellent design and build quality

  1. Very good app, lots of insightful data

  1. Distraction-free health and fitness tracking

  1. Sleep insights are on point

  1. Good battery life, quick and convenient charging

  1. Heart rate, temperature tracking not always accurate

Specifications
Materials: Titanium (outer shell), Resin (inner shell)
Weight: 3.1-3.9g (depending on ring size)
Battery: 14.5-21.5mAh (depending on ring size)
Sizes: 6-13
Water resistance: 5ATM
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0 (BLE)
App: Android, iOS