Amazfit Helio Smart Ring Review: Low-Cost Health Tracker Keeps Things Simple

Smartwatches and other wrist-worn fitness trackers are a good way to combine the functionality of a timepiece with the usefulness of knowing how many steps you've taken throughout the day, or what your heart rate is at. Devices like the Amazfit Helio Ring do that, too, but without the timepiece stuff (and minus a few other things).

For all intents and purposes, the Helio smart ring is ultimately just a fitness tracker you wear on your finger, but in many ways that's actually a good thing. Anyone who's worn a smartwatch before will immediately notice how much less noticeable the Helio Ring is to wear. Yet, it still offers pretty much all the same health metrics you'd expect to find on one of those larger counterparts.

That said, there are some limitations to the device that are a byproduct of it not being a smartwatch, plus a few irritations that are more a byproduct of Amazfit's design choices. We'll get into all that. But for now, know that the Helio smart ring is a little — and forgettable in a good way — health tracking smart device that may stumble a little bit, but is still overall impressive.

Zepp has provided an Amazfit Helio Smart Ring for the purpose of this review.

There isn't a whole heck of a lot included in the box, but there also doesn't really need to be. In addition to the Helio ring in your chosen size — there's a choice of 8 (24 mm), 10 (25.7 mm), and 12 (27.3 mm) – along with a basic manual, charging dock, and rather short (like 14- or 15-inches) USB-C cable.

There's no power adapter though, so you'll either need your own or have access to a power-supplying device that supports USB-C. Something like a power bank with USB-C ports, or a computer with USB-C ports like the new MacBook Pro M4 Max. 

Another snag with the charger is that it's very specifically designed for Amazfit smart ring charging. This isn't necessarily a bad thing — and Amazfit is far from alone in taking this strategy, since the ring couldn't accommodate an actual USB-C port — but it does mean you can only charge the Helio ring using the included charger. That means no regular wireless charging on a standard Qi pad, and no other easy charging alternatives if the charger itself stops working at some point. At least the USB-C cable isn't attached, making replacing it easier should it fray or get chewed through by a pet.

Setup is a simple matter of downloading the official app from the App Store or Google Play, signing into or creating an account, filling in a number of personal details that aren't all strictly necessary for access (like height and weight) but are useful for health tracking purposes, giving the app various device permissions, then syncing it to the ring. Amazfit relies on the familiar BMI calculator to decide if — based on your height and weight — you're currently under or overweight.

You might expect this to be the point where we'd mention a mandatory subscription, but in actual fact there's no need. You can sync up, wear, and use Amazfit's Helio Smart Ring without the need to subscribe to anything — though you'll need to create a free account.

A few — very specific — features do require a Premium subscription: specifically Zepp Coach, which is the only way to create customized training plans and check weekly reports (including sleep reports) in the app. That being said, the app and even the fine print does confirm that Helio users can sign up for a lifetime of Premium for free — so long as they continue to use the Helio ring.

As a ring, the Amazfit Helio is surprisingly comfortable. It's significantly lighter than you'd expect based on photos. So much so, it almost feels like costume jewelry, right until you remember that it's full of electronics and has a titanium outer shell. 

It's a little wide, in comparison to your average non-smart rings, to the point where someone with smaller hands or a preference for thinner rings might need to get used to having it on their finger. To someone who's used to wearing a wider metal ring, though, it's all but imperceivable, and way less noticeable than something like a smart watch.

The Helio is also rated for 10 ATM of water resistance, meaning you can keep it on while swimming, taking a shower, washing your hands, etc. Somewhat confusingly, though the website says all of that's fine, the manual still warns against high temperatures and wearing it in the shower.

Orienting the ring can be irritating, though. There's a slight "notch" that's supposed to face inward — the palm side — to make things easier, but it's remarkably difficult to see in low light and almost impossible to find by feel alone. The sensor bumps on the inside are a bit more useful for this, but if the notch were just a bit more pronounced (or maybe a bump instead?) this probably wouldn't be an issue at all.

As a health-tracking device, the Helio smart ring does pretty much exactly what you'd think. It's essentially like wearing a tiny Galaxy Watch Ultra or other smartwatch around a finger instead of a wrist: you just don't get a display or speakers; there's no checking the time or reading emails; and no listening to music or taking calls. Depending on how easily distracted you are, that could all be considered a plus.

You'll need to open the app to see your tracked heart rate, heart rate variability, stress levels, blood oxygen, fatigue, sleep duration and regularity, sleep stages, breathing while sleeping, readiness and recovery time, skin temperature, steps, and burned calories. There's no shortage of charts and graphs that make it easier to parse some of these metrics. It's certainly a lot, but to its credit the app does make a lot of the data pretty easy to digest — and cross-references some of them throughout various applicable categories like sleep apnea risk (suspected hypopnea) under both Sleep and Readiness. It takes a day or so for enough data to be collected before it can start showing you summaries.

If you allow it, the app can also warn you about a high or low heart rate, high stress levels, or low blood oxygen, and then provide suggestions on what to do. Some of these health tracking features — including sleep breathing and blood oxygen — do put more of a strain on the battery. If you plan to use them, expect the ring to need recharging more often.

Battery life overall depends on what you want to get out of the Helio smart ring as a health and fitness tracker. The more monitoring options you turn on, the faster it's going to run down, but even at its most data-hungry you can still expect at least two or three days of uninterrupted use out of it. That stretches to closer to a week if most of the power-draining functions aren't turned on.

Charging the ring doesn't take long, though it might appear slower if you're used to the kinds of exceedingly fast wired charging we get from modern smartphones. Still, after being drained to about 3%, returning the Helio to a full charge took approximately an hour and 45 minutes.

You'll need the app to follow that process, though, as it's all but essential for keeping track of battery status. Battery percentage is understandably left to the app, yes, but the ring itself doesn't offer a warning when power is low — there are no warning blinks or anything — and if app notifications are turned off, chances are the smart ring will power down without you realizing. It would have been useful if the pulsing light on the charger could change color or intensity, too, to denote how close the battery is to full, so that you don't have to keep checking the app.

A lot of the Amazfit Helio smart ring's appeal is the simple fact that it's not a watch or other wrist-worn fitness tracker. The comparatively smaller size and significantly lighter weight makes it much easier to wear for days at a time, without really thinking about the fact that you're doing so. Despite that, it still tracks pretty much all the same kinds of metrics.

The trade-off is that, unlike a smartwatch, smart rings are basically a cluster of sensors without a display of their own: the Helio is functionally useless without the app you need to pair it with. Then there are the other minor quibbles, like how obnoxious it can be to try and properly seat the ring in the dark or without glasses on, or the lack of a proper low battery warning from the hardware itself.

Having a $199.99 MSRP (currently $159.99 on Amazon) does make the Amazfit Helio smart ring a serious price contender with high end smartwatches like the Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch, but less so with other more affordable watch options. You may find your FSA or HSA covers some of the cost. If you want something that can track all those health metrics but also let you juggle messages or listen to music, a smart ring isn't going to cut it, but if your primary goal is an unobtrusive fitness tracker that's easy to forget you're wearing, the Helio is a solid choice.