None of these 3 problems have anything to do with it being a smart ring. Same problems that regular rings have, yet people still wear them.

1. Adulting: buying rings that are the right size. eg My tungsten wedding ring cannot be resized either.

2. Most people don't even lift. Those that do, dont mind taking off jewelry. I can see how this would be a problem for someone who wants to wear a smart ring for lifting. Sounds like an issue that should have been noticed earlier.

3. Adulting: moving the ring up and down your soapy finger and washing your hands properly.

Most people do not wear tungsten wedding rings. A wedding band can be resized and it's typical to have it resized several times during a long marriage. This is a legitimate downside of smart rings that is only shared with one niche-but-overrepresented-here option.

People wear wedding rings but take them off for pull up bars and so on. But a fitness tracking device you need to take off to... Do some fitness exercises... Is not a smart idea in my book.

I don't wear my wedding ring for similar reasons as described in this post. (Mostly reason #1.) But my wedding ring was $75, can be resized pretty cheaply if I'd like, and is harder to damage because it's just solid metal.

An Oura ring appears to be $400, easy to damage, can't be resized. Lots more room for regret there.

A tungsten wedding ring is a pretty silly/unsafe thing to have. I'll readily admit it's cool but I like my fingers too much to worry about degloving one of them. That said using it as an example of or point of comparison for most anything is pretty unrealistic.

Similarly I am not willing to wrap a LiPo battery around one of my fingers. Absolutely not. I suspect this is in part why we have not seen more smartwatch bands doing the same.

My wife and I both just stopped wearing our wedding bands, and it turns out you’re still married even if you’re not wearing the ring. Also we just have simple gold bands so we never spent much on them in the first place.

> Most people don't even lift.

It’s about any physical activity involving hands and friction. Rock climbing, basketball, tennis, etc. Perhaps this depends on intensity. Still, much more than just lifting.

People who don’t usually wear rings might not realize this.

There aren't many places where a wearable doesn't get in the way, even an Apple watch it's unusable if you do kettlebell training (I severely scratched one doing a kb snatch).

I also stopped wearing my wedding ring because of lifting, it mangled beyond all recognition and had to cut it off with pliers and send it for repair.

Agree. I thought this article was going to be about smart rings, but it was a rant about rings. His first exposure to rings was a smart ring, but that's it.

> Same problems that regular rings have, yet people still wear them.

In some jobs/hobbies, it is highly recommended to wear soft metal rings, and add a structural weakness to the ring in order to limit finger injuries, in case you forget to remove it.

Doesn't mean everyone must do it, but as with this post, it's a good point of view to get before making a choice: not everyone rides horses, but the same injuries can happen in everyday life.

> Adulting: buying rings that are the right size.

He did buy it at the right size. Then he lost weight.

I have a soft gold ring, and I lift. I take my ring off to lift or it would get absolutely destroyed.

> Most people don't even lift. Those that do, dont mind taking off jewelry.

I dimly recall some folks promoting silicone wedding bands, although at that point I think it's more about social-signalling "I'm in a relationship" rather than a durable memento or signalling wealth.

A health and fitness tracker that cannot be worn during a common health and fitness activity seems highly problematic as a form factor, especially since competing form factors do not have this problem.

I think what we might be moving towards is the idea that rings are kinda dumb.

Rings make our fingers less mobile, harder to clean, get in the way of our delicate hand-tasks, scratch things our hands are manipulating, yada yada.

Earings make much more sense. Or bracelets. What about Torques?