The DL110 Smart Ring: An Honest Review After 6 Months of Daily Wear

There's a specific kind of disappointment that comes with buying a $30 smart ring from AliExpress, unboxing it with low expectations, and then realizing the hardware is actually pretty good - but the app is unusable garbage.

I've worn a DL110 for the last 6 months. This is what I found.

The hardware

The DL110 is built on the Actions Semiconductor ATS8266 chipset with a Goodix GH3018 PPG sensor. The accelerometer is decent. Battery lasts 4-5 days.

On paper, this is not a toy. It's a real wearable, sold at a fraction of the price of the premium brands because it has no brand, no R&D budget to recoup, and no VC overhead.

The data quality, by sensor

Over 6 months I compared the DL110 against a Polar H10 chest strap (HR), a Wellue O2Ring (SpO2), and my phone's screen-time as a proxy for time-in-bed.

Heart rate: Good. Across 40+ paired measurements the DL110's HR was within 2-3 BPM of the chest strap, both resting and during light activity. High-intensity exercise readings got noisier (±5-8 BPM) but that's true of every wrist/finger PPG I've tested.

Sleep duration: Good, if the app isn't broken. The raw sensor data is fine - the ring correctly detects when you're asleep vs. awake. The problem is the companion app, which I'll get to.

SpO2: Fine for trends, noisy for absolutes. Individual spot readings swing 2-3% from the O2Ring's values. Average overnight SpO2 was within 1%. Don't use it to diagnose anything, but the trend line is informative.

HRV: hourly, not live. The live "HRV" field in the ring's measurement packet returns zero on this firmware, but the ring's hourly health summary does carry an HRV value, and that is what Ringlo shows. Treat it as a trend, not a spot reading.

Steps: Acceptable. Off by 10-20% against a validated reference, which is normal for a ring form factor (arm swing confuses finger-mounted accelerometers).

The app problem

The stock SmartHealth app (or its sibling YCBT Life - same underlying SDK) is the reason most DL110 owners give up after a week.

Specific issues I personally hit:

Background sync barely works. Data often wouldn't appear until I opened the app and waited 30 seconds.
Half the translations are broken. I speak English so it doesn't affect me much, but if you bought this from AliExpress expecting your native language, expect machine-translated nonsense.
No export. No API. No integration with anything.
Advertising inside a paid health product.

Is the DL110 worth $30?

Yes - with an asterisk.

The hardware is worth $30. If you're willing to put up with the SmartHealth app, you get roughly 70% of what an Oura Gen 2 gives you at 10% of the price.

If you're not willing to put up with the SmartHealth app (most people aren't, after a week), you have two options:

Return it and buy an Oura.
Install a third-party app that replaces SmartHealth entirely.

I built option 2 because I refuse to pay $299 for a ring plus $70/year for an app to run it.

Who this ring is for

Yes: You're curious about sleep and HR trends, you're fine with "good enough" data, you're willing to try a third-party app if the stock one is broken.
No: You need medical-grade accuracy. You need cellular connectivity. You want premium build quality. You've never debugged a BLE pairing issue in your life and don't want to start.

Who this ring isn't for

If you're comparing it head-to-head with an Oura Ring 4 or a Galaxy Ring, the DL110 loses on polish, accuracy ceiling, and ecosystem. Don't kid yourself. Those premium rings cost 10x more for a reason.

But if your alternative is "wearable nothing" or "a FitBit that died two years ago," the DL110 is a legitimate entry point to the quantified self - provided you've got a decent app to pull the data.