Man Lands in Hospital After Samsung Smart Ring Battery Swells and Traps Finger

Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago

bundie

21 points

7 comments

neowin.netTechstory

skepticalnegative

Debate

20/100

SamsungWearablesBattery Safety

Key topics

Samsung

Wearables

Battery Safety

A YouTuber's Samsung smart ring battery swelled, trapping their finger and requiring hospitalization, sparking discussion about the safety of wearable devices and the need for better battery design.

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01Story posted
Sep 30, 2025 at 5:12 AM EDT
3 months ago
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02First comment
Sep 30, 2025 at 5:50 AM EDT
38m after posting
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2 comments in 1-2h
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04Latest activity
Sep 30, 2025 at 2:09 PM EDT
3 months ago
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Discussion (7 comments)

Showing 7 comments

sschueller

3 months ago

2 replies

Does Samsung provide any documentation on where to cut the ring in order not to puncture the battery?

kotaKat

3 months ago

Both Samsung and Oura do, yes. I’d almost want to have a little wallet-card with the emergency cut diagram, out of first responder paranoia.

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/troubleshoot/TSG10003554/

https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025428394-...

potato3732842

3 months ago

Just cut it in a bucket of water or sink or something. The battery can get angry all it wants, the thermal mass of a 1-5gal bucket of water or flooded sink is just gonna laugh at it.

Dude could probably have made his flight if TSA had been willing to call in a favor from the buildings and grounds guys. Might get a little nick from the bolt cutters or whatever so cut on the top or bottom of the finger where there's less blood vessels.

KomoD

3 months ago

> He's had it since January this year and claims the battery life degraded from the advertised ~7 days to around 1.5 days before the swelling incident. This rapid drop in capacity made him stop charging it regularly, and it actually had no battery juice left when the swelling happened.

Personally if I knew the battery was bad and wasn't going to bother charging it, I sure wouldn’t keep wearing a ticking time bomb

fl0ki

3 months ago

I had an Oura Ring 4 for a few weeks, and it's one of the only tech gadgets I have ever returned. Thankfully it didn't swell and trap my finger, but it hit some kind of internal deadlock that didn't go away until the battery fully depleted over several days. The repeated-knock gesture to hard reset didn't work either. Best part is, my wife hit the exact same bug just a week later. I don't see myself buying a smart ring ever again.

mielioort

3 months ago

Software bloat kills, my precious, and they saw it, monitored his distress and did nothing, precious. The lord of the rings, rules by fear of liability precious, a burning eye, lidless, cutting costs, gollum. One ring, to rule them all.

csoham

3 months ago

Wow this is crazy. What's crazier is the drop in battery level from 7 days to 1.5 days in 9 months!

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ID: 45423490Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 4:41:30 PM

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