Oura on Thursday unveiled the fourth generation of its popular smart ring. The Oura Ring 4 arrives just under three years after its predecessor’s debut. Despite the gap, the new wearable largely refines — rather than reinvents — the experience.
The most notable hardware change is the slimmer profile, an odd thing to say about what was already an extremely compact device. The big difference is found on the inside of the ring, as the formerly raised sensors are now recessed, creating a more consistent — and, hopefully, comfortable — experience.
As with the Oura 3, the new ring is constructed out of titanium, a light and durable material that puts its weight in line with a standard, dumb ring. It’s available in a broader range of ring sizes, from 4 to 15 and six different colors, including a “deeper black look.”
Oura claims that in spite of recessing the sensors away from the finger, the new ring collects more accurate metrics than earlier models. The new model contains an accelerometer for movement; green, red, and infrared LEDs to measure heart and respiratory rates; and a temperature sensor.
“The [photoplethysmography] sensors are placed asymmetrically within Oura Ring 4, providing a variety of distances and tissue penetration depths for measurements,” the company explains. “As finger vasculature differs between people, the different measurement locations around the inner surface of Oura Ring 4 help achieve the best possible power efficiency and signal quality.”
There’s a lot to take into account when producing a wearable designed to appeal to as many people as possible, including differences in skin tone, BMI, and age, resulting in a broad range of different fingers.
It’s also worth noting that the ring is still capable of measuring blood oxygen levels, which is something the device has over the new Apple Watch. All told, the system can collect a few dozen metrics, including more complex data sets like cycle tracking, cardiovascular age, and stress levels.
Oura claims the following data improvements from the third-gen ring:
- 120% improvement in signal quality for blood oxygen sensing (SpO2), translating to a 30% increase in accuracy in average overnight SpO2 measurement
- 15% more accurate breathing disturbance index (BDI) thanks to the higher signal fidelity
- 7% fewer gaps in the daytime heart rate graph
- 31% fewer gaps in the nighttime heart rate graph
One of the nice things about the kind of passive tracking the smart ring traffics in is that it’s far less of a battery suck. Oura rings have always sported great battery life and this one bumps things up to eight days/nights on a single charge. Turns out not having a screen goes a long way toward lapping smartwatches on that front.
Android users are getting access to Oura Labs, the platform the company uses to test out “experimental” features before they’re made more widely available. The list currently includes meal tracking; Oura recently acquired metabolic health startup Veri, which will ultimately play a role here.
There’s also Symptom Radar, which can let you know when you’re starting to get sick. That’s effectively the consumer version of a feature the company first rolled out for professional sports leagues during the NBA bubble at the beginning of the pandemic.
Oura Labs is also home to Oura Advisor, a new experimental feature that uses generative AI “in concert with Oura health data and expertise to build a unique and personalized conversation with members to further their health goals and understanding of their data.”
The Oura Ring 4 is up for preorder starting Thursday and starts shipping October 15. Users get one month of membership to its software offering for free. After that, it’s going to run $6 a month or $70 up front for a year.
The company is also keeping the third-gen Ring around until the current stock is depleted.
