The idea of Samsung releasing a smart ring has been around in online circles for many years. Trademark and patent applications kept teasing us once every few months, but after countless seasons of waiting and hoping, Samsung finally released its first smart ring earlier this summer.
It's called the Galaxy Ring, and to nobody's surprise, it's very compact — so much more than some early patent applications may have suggested. It puts all the previous concepts to shame.
The downside is that the smaller things get, the more difficult they are to repair. And judging by a teardown of the Galaxy Ring performed by iFixit, Samsung's first smart ring is virtually unrepairable.
To get inside the Galaxy Ring, you have to break it. There's no way to detach the inner part of the ring from the outer layer and see what Samsung sandwiched between them without breaking the plastic coating and resin. And once you do that, you can say goodbye to your precious ring.
Disposable smart tech. Is anyone surprised?
The fact that the Galaxy Ring is completely enclosed and unrepairable won't be a revelation for most people who have seen this device before. The thought of repairability hasn't crossed most people's minds when they laid their eyes upon this wearable.
Needless to say, the Galaxy Ring is a slim wearable packed with smart features. Underneath its slick profile, the ring hides tiny components (including a minuscule battery) soldered onto a flexible circuit board that wraps around in a circle. It's so small, a heat gun would probably melt every component off the ribbon PCB in moments.
The Galaxy Ring shows impressive levels of engineering, but it is so small it's borderline unrealistic to expect a high degree of repairability while maintaining such a slim design. Some things — like broken chips — just aren't repairable. But should we just accept this fact?
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Although most of us aren't surprised by the Galaxy Ring's repairability or lack thereof, that doesn't mean we should ignore what will inevitably happen to all Galaxy Rings in the future.
One day, if nothing else inside the Galaxy Ring fails, its battery will stop holding a charge. And when that happens, it will be as useless as a regular metal band around your finger. In the best-case scenario, it could continue serving an aesthetic purpose. But most people will likely take it off at that point, and they'll throw the Ring away eventually.
Samsung is improving sustainability, so the answer to this potential e-waste issue should come from the company. A solid trade-in program for Galaxy Ring users could mitigate the fact that the wearable is completely unrepairable. But only time will tell what the future holds.
