If wearing a smartwatch or fitness tracker every day is a hassle, but you want to know more about your health, a smart ring may be just what you need. This growing product category now offers the most discreet way to keep track of sleep, exercise, and recovery.

A major selling point of smart rings is their discreetness. Most smart rings contain a number of small health sensors, but they are only visible as jewelry. Compared to the best smartwatches and the best fitness trackers, smart rings have much longer battery life.

Thanks to its discreet design and several days of battery life, the Smart Ring can be worn virtually 24/7. As such, it can provide detailed wellness data and, in some cases, help you monitor your health in order to achieve your fitness goals.

Even if that goal is simply to improve sleep quality (who doesn't want to sleep better?), a smart ring can be a wise investment. However, not all smart rings are created equal. In fact, only a few of the options currently on the market are worth the money.

Our top pick is the Oura Ring, but there are some exciting alternatives coming soon that could make all smart rings more mainstream. Here's what you need to know.

What Can a Smart Ring Do for You? First, it is important to consider what you are looking for in a smart ring purchase.

If you want to improve the quality of your sleep, a smart ring can monitor your SpO2 and heart rate throughout the night to determine if you are getting restful sleep. With this information, you can pay attention to lifestyle factors that may be affecting your sleep; devices like the Oura Ring can also recommend what time you should go to bed based on your daily activity and sleep history.

If you want to count steps and monitor your activity, a smart ring can track your exercise and calories burned, just like a smartwatch or classic fitness tracking band. While you cannot see your current activity on the ring, you can check your measurements on the app that comes with the ring. This is a good option for those who want to check their fitness but do not feel the need to follow live metrics.

Depending on integration with the parent company's software, the Smart Ring could also provide information for other health areas such as fertility. Smart rings can provide health information that would normally come from a smartwatch, but in a more approachable package.

The Oura Ring (more specifically, the Oura Ring Gen 3) is currently the most popular smart ring. With sophisticated sleep tracking metrics and recovery guidance, Oura takes a truly holistic approach to understanding your health.

Whether tackling sleep apnea, monitoring stress, or tracking menstrual cycles, Oura Ring provides the information you need; by wearing the Oura Ring, one editor was able to learn that she was pregnant.

Oura's strength lies in its key brand partnerships and integrations: with Equinox, Therabody, Strava, Natural Cycles, and Peloton. Last year, the Oura Ring became available at Best Buy and more recently at Amazon; the Apple Watch complication for the Oura Ring also allows the Oura Ring to be worn with a smartwatch.

There are several alternatives to the Oura Ring, of which the Ultrahuman Ring Air is the clear winner. This smart ring accurately tracks sleep, fatigue, exercise, heart rate, skin temperature, and a variety of other metrics.

If you don't want to spend the money, the Amovan Smart Ring is one of the better budget options, although there are pros and cons regarding data accuracy.

But the smart ring options are changing rapidly, with Amazfit announcing the Helio Ring for athletes, while all eyes are on Samsung's Galaxy Ring, which will be released this summer. We got a close look at the Galaxy Ring earlier this year and have some ideas on how the Galaxy Ring and the Oura Ring should compare.

Not only that, but Apple is also rumored to be working on a smart ring. We don't know much about this so called Apple Ring, but it is sure to be an exciting announcement.

The important thing to know when purchasing a smart ring is that you need to buy the right size. Just as you need the right size running shoes to fit you correctly, it is very important to find the right smart ring for you.

Most smart ring brands offer sizing kits to help you find the ideal size. However, just because you know the size of one brand's ring does not mean that the size of another brand's ring will be the same. It is recommended that you use a sizing kit made specifically for the brand of ring you are purchasing.

As with most gadgets you buy these days, you should also find out if your smart ring requires a subscription. For example, Oura pays $5.99 per month to access all fitness metrics available through the Smart Ring. It remains to be seen whether Samsung will adopt a similar system for the Galaxy Ring, but it would make a lot of sense if it could avoid additional fees.

In any case, with the growing competition among smart rings, we should see quite a few advances in this area in the near future.