Every smart ring on the market right now has the same problem. You want to check the time, you still have to look at your phone or your watch. Oura Ring? No screen. Samsung Galaxy Ring? No screen. That’s the one glaring gap in the smart ring category, and Casio just walked right through it. The company announced the CRW-H001M-8 Ring Watch, a wearable that squeezes an actual digital display into a ring-shaped body. Yes, a real screen. On your finger.
This is a big deal because it fills a gap that’s been obvious since smart rings started getting popular. The pitch for smart rings has always been simplicity, something lighter and less intrusive than a smartwatch. But the tradeoff was always that you had to pull out your phone to see any data. Casio, being Casio, looked at that problem and apparently thought, “we’ve been putting displays on tiny things since 1974, we can handle this.”
The ring measures 25.3 x 19.5 x 6mm and weighs 19 grams, which is honestly not that light when you compare it to the Oura Ring 4 at around 4 to 6 grams. But you’re getting ceramic and stainless steel construction with mineral glass protection, so it feels like a proper piece of hardware rather than a plastic novelty. It’s water-resistant for daily use and fits an inner ring diameter of around 20.1mm.
On the health side, Casio packed in heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen tracking, body temperature, sleep analysis, step counting, calorie tracking, and workout activity logging. The companion app handles training logs, workout breakdowns, health reports, and menstrual cycle tracking. Smart alerts cover incoming calls, notifications, silent alarms, health warnings, and custom reminders. So the feature list is genuinely competitive with what Oura and Samsung are offering, not just a watered-down version.
The display side adds world time, a stopwatch, alarm, automatic calendar, LED backlight, and both 12-hour and 24-hour formats. Battery life splits into two parts because the ring essentially has two separate power systems. The smartwatch module lasts 4 to 6 days on a charge, with around 25 days in standby. The watch display itself runs on a separate battery rated for about two years. That’s an interesting engineering choice and one that keeps the time-telling function alive even when your main battery is dead.
The specs that matter most:
- Built-in digital display for time, no phone required
- Heart rate, SpO2, body temperature, and sleep tracking
- Ceramic and stainless steel body with mineral glass
- Smart alerts for calls and notifications via vibration
- Smartwatch module: 4 to 6 days battery, 25 days standby
- Display battery: approximately 2 years
The catch right now is availability. The CRW-H001M-8 is priced at 1,990 CNY, which works out to roughly $295, and it’s currently sold only in China with after-sales support limited to that market. So if you’re reading this in the US or Europe, you’ll have to wait and see if Casio brings it global. Given how much attention smart rings have been getting lately, it would be a missed opportunity not to.
Casio is also clear that the health features are for general fitness and wellness, not medical purposes. That’s standard disclaimer territory, but worth keeping in mind if you were hoping to replace any clinical devices.
At $295, this sits right in the smart ring price range. Oura Ring 4 starts at $349 plus a subscription fee, and Galaxy Ring starts at $299. Casio is actually competitive on price here, and it’s offering something neither of those rings has. The weight and the China-only launch are real limitations right now. But the concept? Genuinely smart. And coming from a brand with 50-plus years of putting watches on everything, maybe they’re exactly the right company to pull this off.