Your ring goes through showers, workouts, washing up, and sleep without ever coming off. It is one of the few things you own that is in permanent contact with skin, sweat, soap, and hand cream at once.
Keeping it clean is not only about hygiene. The sensors sit on the inside of the band and read your heart rate and temperature through that surface, so anything building up between the ring and your finger sits in the light path.
In this guide, we explain how to clean your ring and what to keep it away from.
How often should you clean your smart ring?
Cleaning a few times a week is enough to keep on top of it. Worth doing more often if you have been sweating heavily, swimming, or using hand cream through the day.
The inside of the band is the part that matters, and it is the one surface you never wipe when you wash your hands. Soap residue collects there where you cannot see it.
Because the sensors read through the inner surface, a film of soap, sweat, or hand cream between the ring and your finger can degrade the signal. If your overnight heart rate or temperature readings have started looking patchy, clean the inside of the band before you assume a fault.
How to clean your smart ring
- For day-to-day marks, use a soft microfibre cloth**.** A lot of what looks like a scratch is a smudge that wipes straight off.
- For a thorough clean, use an alcohol-based solution made for delicate surfaces**.** That means a product designed for lenses, screens or jewellery rather than whatever is nearest. The ring is built to be chemical, sweat-, and corrosion-resistant.
- Pay attention to the inside**.** Clean it and dry it, especially after a workout. If your skin is sensitive, clean it more often than you otherwise would.
- Let it dry before you put it back on. A ring that never comes off never dries underneath, and trapped moisture is the usual cause of irritation under any ring.
What to keep it away from
- No scouring pads, no toothpaste, no polishing compounds. The outer shell is titanium with a Tungsten Carbide Carbon coating, and it handles ordinary wear well, but an abrasive will mark any finish.
- Gripping metal dumbbells or knurled bar surfaces will cause cosmetic wear over time. The same goes for washing dishes, where your hands are scrubbing against hard surfaces for long stretches. Taking the ring off for those keeps it looking new.
Looking after the skin underneath
- Marks or slight discolouration under a ring worn around the clock are normal and harmless, and the same happens with ordinary jewellery. Moisturising your hands regularly keeps the skin there in better condition.
- The inner surface is a medical-grade hypoallergenic coating, so irritation is far more often about moisture than materials. Keeping the inside clean and dry solves most of it.
- When washing your hands, take a few extra seconds to dry under the ring to ensure your skin doesn’t become irritated.
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