Casio introduces Smart Ring

Just when we thought smart rings had settled into their sleek, minimalist phase, Casio has arrived with something delightfully different: a tiny digital watch for your finger.

The Japanese watchmaker is taking its wonderfully quirky Ring Watch concept into proper wearable-tech territory with the new Casio CRW-H001M-8. It keeps the miniature digital-watch design that made the original such a conversation starter, but now adds health monitoring, fitness tracking, Bluetooth connectivity, and smartphone notifications.

Basically, Casio looked at the smart ring and thought, “Needs more Casio.”

FROM NOVELTY WATCH TO PROPER WEARABLE

Casio originally introduced its Ring Watch in 2024 as part of the celebrations marking 50 years of its iconic watches.

Rather than creating another anonymous metal band, Casio squeezed a functioning digital watch into something small enough to wear around a finger. The result featured its own LCD display, stopwatch, alarm, calendar, and LED backlight, all wrapped in a full-metal construction.

It was unmistakably a Casio, only much, much smaller.

The new CRW-H001M-8 doesn’t mess too much with that formula visually. There’s still a tiny LCD screen positioned prominently on the ring, giving you the wonderfully unnecessary-but-fun ability to check the time by glancing at your finger instead of your wrist or phone.

The bigger changes are hiding underneath.

YOUR FINGER IS NOW KEEPING TABS ON YOU

Casio has packed sensors into the new Ring Watch that allow it to monitor several health metrics throughout the day.

The CRW-H001M-8 can track heart rate, blood oxygen levels, and body temperature, while also recording everyday activity data such as steps and calories.

There’s sleep tracking too, meaning the little watch on your finger can continue gathering information even after you’ve called it a night.

For anyone who likes seeing their exercise stats, the ring also supports activities including walking, running, and cycling. Health and fitness information can then be viewed through Casio’s accompanying smartphone app, giving the device considerably more substance than its novelty-inspired appearance might suggest.

It’s a fascinating combination: retro digital-watch styling on the outside, modern wearable sensors on the inside.

NOTIFICATIONS WITHOUT CONSTANTLY CHECKING YOUR PHONE

Fitness tracking isn’t the only smart upgrade.

Casio has also fitted the CRW-H001M-8 with a vibration motor capable of providing discreet alerts for incoming calls, messages, alarms, and reminders.

That could make the ring surprisingly useful in situations where repeatedly checking a phone would be distracting. Instead of a screen lighting up across the room or a smartwatch buzzing on your wrist, your finger simply gives you a subtle nudge.

Bluetooth connectivity links the ring to a smartphone, completing its transformation from tiny timepiece into miniature connected wearable.

Of course, there’s something amusing about wearing a device specifically designed to stop you checking your phone quite so often while also having an actual digital display sitting on your finger.

Very Casio.

A SMART RING THAT DOESN’T WANT TO DISAPPEAR

Most modern smart rings are deliberately understated. Unless you know what you’re looking at, they can easily be mistaken for conventional jewellery.

Casio has chosen almost the exact opposite approach.

The CRW-H001M-8 proudly looks like somebody shrank a classic digital watch and attached the whole thing to a ring. Its display isn’t hidden, and neither is the brand’s familiar retro-tech personality.

That may ultimately be its biggest appeal.

There are already plenty of wearables designed to quietly blend into your everyday life. Casio’s Ring Watch feels more like a gadget you’ll want people to notice, ask about, and inevitably try on.

It’s part health tracker, part digital watch, and part tiny piece of wearable nostalgia.

THERE’S ONE CATCH: GETTING YOUR HANDS ON ONE

Before you start rearranging your fingers to make room for another gadget, there’s some disappointing news.

The Casio CRW-H001M-8 is initially getting a limited release in China, and Casio has not yet announced plans for a wider international launch.

That means gadget fans elsewhere will have to admire this wonderfully unusual wearable from afar for the moment.

Still, the CRW-H001M-8 provides an interesting glimpse at what happens when established watchmakers approach the growing smart-ring category without abandoning the designs that made them famous.

And if Casio eventually gives the Ring Watch a global release, it could offer something refreshingly different from the increasingly crowded field of minimalist smart rings.

After all, if we’re going to have computers monitoring our sleep, steps, workouts, messages, and heart rate from our fingers, they might as well look like ridiculously tiny digital watches while doing it.

via My Modern Met