Amazfit Helio Ring Review: Not the Smart Wearable of Your Dreams

The smart wearable market is flooded with smart rings, with newer and better ones emerging on a regular basis and I am loving it. One of these new emergents is the Amazfit Helio Ring, which was launched around two months ago. Having used Amazfit smartwatches already, I was excited to find out what Amazfit’s first-ever smart ring had in store for me.

So, I did the obvious: I got myself the Helio ring right upon its launch and wore it for over a month. This article is all about my chronicles with the ring and how I liked it. If you’re someone planning to buy the ring, keep reading!

WearableXP’s Verdict

The Amazfit Helio is one of the sleekest, most comfortable, and most durable rings available. Although its battery lasts only 2-3 days, charging the ring is not a hassle at all. It is packed with the most advanced sensors and offers lots of useful features, but sleep tracking is where the ring shines the best.

Furthermore, the Helio is said to be specially designed for athletes, and when I first heard that, my hopes for the ring went soaring high….before coming crashing down. Because even though the ring comes with various sports modes, it can only track around four activities— and that too manually. What a bummer.

So, activity tracking metrics and Helio’s companion app could use some work.

Specifications

Look & Feel

Compared to most of the other smart rings I have tried and tested, I found the design of the Amazfit Helio to be quite unique. While it is sleek and doesn’t look bulky at all, it doesn’t have a shiny finish like I have seen in rings like Oura or Evie.

Instead, the ring has a dotted texture on the outside that not only looks cool but also makes it quite scratch-resistant; it’s hard to see scratches on an exterior like that.

But the scratch resistance can’t just be credited to the dotted exterior; it’s also because the Helio ring is made of titanium alloy, which makes it tough. Besides that, the resin covering on the inside makes the ring quite comfortable for wearing all day— regardless of whatever chores I might be doing, and also to bed at night.

As of now, the Helio ring only comes in Titanium color and is in three sizes, with the third size, i.e., size 8, having launched very recently. Up till then, the ring was only available in sizes 10 and 12, thereby making the ring unusable for a lot of people.

However, while this may put off a lot of potential buyers, it didn’t bother me at all. The titanium color of the ring has a pale gold tint to it, and the color, combined with the dotted texture, gives me Greek mythology vibes that I am all into. The fact that the word “Helio” itself means “sun” in Greek (this could explain the pale gold tint, maybe) makes things even cooler for me.

I wear the Helio ring in size 10, so again, I am not bothered by the unavailability of more size options. But I still wish that Amazfit would hurry a little more to release the other ring sizes it has promised.

Battery Life & Charging

Since the Greek aesthetic and a cool Greek name aren’t all that I need from a smart ring, I had to test the ring across other parameters, too. For example, the battery life of the ring. I hate having to connect devices to their respective chargers frequently and, therefore, need my devices to come with long-lasting batteries.

And, well, the Helio ring mildly disappointed me in this regard. Amazfit promises up to 4 days of battery life in its adverts, but in my experience, no smart device lives up to its claims like that. Battery life depends on so many factors, like individualistic usage.

So, as per my usage of the ring, I only ever got up to 2-3 days of battery life. I wish the Helio could have longer battery life, but it wasn’t because I had features like Emotion Tracking via the EDA sensor turned on.

The feature is off by default because of the amount of battery it drains, but these days, as per my therapist’s advice, I am paying attention to how I feel, and this feature is quite helpful for that. So, in order to learn emotional regulation, I have to compromise on battery life a bit.

But it’s okay. Charging the Amazfit Helio Ring isn’t such a hassle. Just like the Oura Ring, the Helio Ring also comes with a charging dock; all I have to do is put the ring on the charging cradle and connect it to a power source via the USB-C cable that also comes along with the ring. It did take me a few tries to get the ring placement right, but after the initial frustration, the process has always been quite smooth.

The ring takes around two hours to charge completely. While I don’t mind the wait all that much, I still wish the charging time was less, like with other smart rings like RingConn, Circular Slim, etc.

Sensors

Sensors	Availability
PPG Sensors
Skin temperature Sensor
Photodiodes
3D Accelerometer
Gyroscope
Green LEDs
Red LEDs
EDA Sensors

Features

Tracking Accuracy

The Amazfit Helio ring has just the right specs and all the sensors and useful features that I’d want from a smart ring. But what’s still more important to me is how accurately the ring tracks the health data it promises to track. So, I tested the accuracy of the ring across some health metrics that mean the most to me.

Steps & Activity

I really thought, like most smart rings or even other Amazfit wearable devices, the Helio ring would have automatic activity detection. But I found out the hard way that it doesn’t. I had gone on an impromptu hike and didn’t log the workout on the companion app, Zepp, as I should have, so I was quite bummed to see there was no detailed analysis of my mini adventure.

Furthermore, Helio can only track up to four activities: walking, running, cycling, and treadmill workouts. For someone who does so much more than this, i.e., me, this simply doesn’t make the cut.

Plus, it’s disappointing on so many levels because I had expected a 2024 smart ring to do better. Not only that but having used Amazfit GTS 4, I could track up to 154 workouts. I had expected the Helio to be able to track at least 20.

Never mind, though. When it comes to tracking steps, I found the Helio ring’s accuracy to be similar to that of GTS 4’s. However, just like any other smart ring, the Helio ring would still over-count my steps a lot of times.

When I was sharing these concerns with a friend, she suggested that I wear the Helio ring only to bed for sleep tracking and wear an Amazfit smartwatch like the GTS 4 or Balance during the day for physical activity tracking. But, the idea didn’t really appeal to me, given that I was actually looking forward to going watch-free once I experienced the lightness of my wrists sans it.

Sleep Monitoring

Sleep Monitoring is an area where the Helio ring truly shines. It has always given me accurate sleep-related data, and the total duration of my sleep has always been in accordance with what I have observed.

But apart from the total duration of sleep and time spent in different sleep stages, the Helio ring also helped me gain insight into other relevant sleep-related metrics, like Daytime Sleepiness, via the Zepp Aura app (more on this later).

I do have one complaint, though. While the Helio ring boasts that it can record naps, I have seen that every time I log in for something like a quick 20-minute power nap, I get to see warnings about napping too much, and, argh, it’s so annoying! Let a girl rest, Helio!

Heart Rate Monitoring

Amazfit Helio is equipped with advanced sensors for heart rate monitoring, so I was fairly optimistic about its accuracy.

Well, I found its heart rate monitoring to be nearly as accurate as that of other smart wearables I have worn, like the Oura ring— most of the time. Because during the times I went out on hikes, I noticed that the Helio would end up overestimating my heart rate. And not just that, it would also not be able to track my heart rate properly during intensive workouts like HIITs.

Apart from this, I am pretty much okay with the heart rate tracking data that the Helio ring provides me with. The only catch here is that I have to make sure the vertical mark on the ring is facing my palm side. When the ring rotates or is not positioned that way, it simply fails to record any data.

Menstrual Tracking

Just like most smart rings, the Helio ring will depend on me logging in the start and end dates of my periods for at least a few initial cycles before it can start predicting the correct dates. I haven’t been able to do that yet since I have only had the ring for around a month or so.

But I want to see how it compares to something like Oura, which depends on changes in my skin temperature and the metrics I log to estimate my period accurately.

Zepp App

The Amazfit Helio Ring works in conjunction with the Zepp app. And, well, the Zepp app isn’t the most user-friendly app out there. Having used the app with GTS 4 before, I didn’t particularly mind the overwhelming sight of numbers cramped in a small space. But I still wished that the Zepp app was prettier and more spaced out, like apps like Oura or Evie.

Although it looks like it is kept apart, I did find the Zepp app quite useful. It provides all the necessary information right on the home screen. So, every morning, a quick scroll through the home feed tells me how I should plan out my day. How? Well, thanks to the scores, it shows Readiness, Recovery (both physical and mental), and more.

What I particularly like about the Zepp app is that it not only shows me my stress scores but also monitors my stress 24*7 (when the option to do so is enabled in the Zepp app). Because of continuous monitoring, I am able to see what parts of the day I am highly stressed or relaxed, and having this kind of insight into my stress levels helps me manage my day better so that I am more relaxed.

The bottom tabs of the Zepp app are Home, Sleep, Aura, Workout, and Profile, which are quite self-explanatory.

Zepp Aura is an in-app paid feature. Subscribing to that provides me with detailed sleep assessments, calming music, etc., and I find all of that quite helpful. One of the many things that I like about this app is that along with detailed sleep health assessments and calming music, it shows risks to various things like Sleep apnea, daytime sleepiness, RLS, and Insomnia.

Zepp is compatible with both iOS and Android devices, which is quite nice. However, the app’s layout could use a little more work.

Pricing & Subscription

While the Helio ring is more affordable than other smart rings I have at $299.99 USD, I still found its pricing a little unreasonable. After having used the ring, I think a $200 price tag would have been more justified.

And well, I could have gotten the ring for $150 off if I had purchased it along with an Amazfit smartwatch as part of their ongoing bundle deal. However, given that I already have a GTS 4, I didn’t see a point in getting another one.

Furthermore, while the Zepp app is said to be free to use, some useful features, like Zepp Aura, are locked behind a paywall. I ended up paying $69.99 for a year to access them.

There’s also a feature called Zepp Fitness that’s priced at $19.99 for six months, but given that I already work with a fitness coach in my gym, I didn’t see a point in paying extra for this feature.

Should You Buy An Amazfit Helio Ring?

If you want a ring mainly for sleep tracking, then I’d say get an Amazfit Helio. But, if you also want other kinds of data like accurate activity tracking, menstrual tracking, and heart rate monitoring, I’d say explore other options like Oura, RingConn, etc.

Because while the Helio ring could work perfectly fine in conjunction with an Amazfit smartwatch like GTS, it may not be able to offer you much as a standalone device.

Frequently Asked Questions