Samsung Explores Contactless Payments With Galaxy Ring

Samsung ’s latest wearable device reportedly comes with health-tracking features.

The smartphone maker’s Galaxy Ring — the company’s first ring product — is set to go on display for the first time Monday (Feb. 26) at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, CNBC reported, citing an unnamed source.

Speaking to the network at the conference, Hon Pak, head of Samsung’s digital health team, said the new product is outfitted with sensors that provide readings on a person’s heart and respiratory rates, the length of time it takes them to fall asleep, and the amount they move once they’re sleeping.

In addition, the device can give users a “vitality score” which “collects data about physical and mental readiness to see how productive you can be,” Pak said, per the report.

Samsung is also mulling the addition of a feature that would let Galaxy Ring users use the device to make contactless payments, as they would with smartphones, according to the report.

“We have a whole … team that is looking at that,” Pak said in the report. “But I think clearly looking at multiple different use cases for the Ring beyond just health, for sure.”

The Galaxy Ring is due to hit stores this year, although Pak did not say when that would happen or how much it would cost.

Pak also discussed the role of artificial intelligence in Samsung’s health offering, telling CNBC the goal is to get technology such as large language models to provide greater insights into user health.

“Imagine that large language model, acting as my digital assistant, while looking at the context of my medical records, my physiological data, my engagement with a mobile device, the wearables during all of that … begins to bring greater insights and personalization opportunities,” Pak said.

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this month, research from MIT and Google shows that these models can be trained on wearable sensor data on resting heart rate and sleep patterns to deliver personalized recommendations.

The research found that the combination of AI and wearable data can offer up to a 23.8% improvement in health prediction performance.

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