What you need to know
- The new Oura Ring 4 features an all-titanium design, more sizes, and longer battery life.
- The ring is able to track your heart rate and display your heart rate zones when automatically detecting activities, reducing manual input.
- The Oura Ring 4 also arrived with a new app redesign with fewer sections and a cleaner look.
- The Oura Ring 4 hits store shelves on October 15 and starts at $349.
It's been a few years since the Oura Ring Gen 3 launched in 2021, effectively kickstarting the smart ring craze. Now, after years of new features and styles for the popular smart ring, the Finnish company is back with a new model; the Oura Ring 4.
The ring features a fully circular design with a small divot to mark the "bottom." Unlike the previous model, the Oura Ring 4 is fully titanium with recessed sensors, which Oura says should help improve accuracy and comfort.
And speaking of sensors, the smart ring is doing a lot more to capture and manage your health with its new Smart Sensing technology. This is thanks to a combination of research-grade sensors, optimal positioning, and an improved algorithm that captures more than 30 health metrics throughout the day. According to Oura, the sensor placement is able to better capture measurements, with as much as a 120% improvement in signal quality for SpO2 measurements and a 30% improvement in SpO2 accuracy when compared to the Oura Ring Gen 3. Users should also notice fewer gaps in their heart rate data throughout the day.
With more accurate data, Oura is able to provide better insights into your daily wellness, improving on many of the features that made the Oura Ring Gen 3 such a hit. A big one is Automatic Activity Detection (AAD), which was already pretty impressive on the previous model, able to detect more than 40 activities based on your movement. Now, thanks to Smart Sensing, Oura Ring 4 will include automatic heart rate monitoring when it detects any of these activities, including heart rate zones.
That's a big improvement from the five activity types the Oura Ring Gen 3 can capture heart rate data for, all of which have to be manually triggered. And while smart rings aren't positioned as fitness wearables, AAD on the Oura Ring 4 should appeal to fitness enthusiasts who may consider replacing or supplementing their smartwatches with a smart ring.
There are also improvements to stress management, with the Oura Ring 4 building on the Daytime Stress feature, which will now include movement, activities, and tags with the stress graph, allowing users to see any potential contributors to their moods. And for users trying to get pregnant, Oura is expanding its partnership with Natural Cycles to give users a view of their estimated Fertile Window, which will roll out in the next few months.
Surprisingly, Oura has managed to increase battery life compared to the previous model, with the Oura Ring 4 lasting up to eight days on a single charge. The company is also bundling the ring with a much sleeker charging puck, although it would be nice to see a charging case like the one that comes with the Samsung Galaxy Ring.
A brand new app experience
With a new and improved Oura Ring 4, the company is also introducing a revamped app experience, which will feature a cleaner look to make it easier to find the data that matters.
The Oura app has grown increasingly crowded with all the new features the company has introduced, particularly on the bottom navigation bar. Now, Oura is stepping back and moving everything into three main views: Today, Vitals, and My Health, with each tab focusing on different type of data, from your daily health information to your long-term metrics.
The Today tab is similar to the previous Home view, displaying dynamic information such as your Readiness Score, Sleep Score, and major changes to health as you go on about your day. It will also include shortcuts to individual metrics that you can also find on the Vitals tab. These are the metrics that will affect your scores, and users will be able to view where they are in relation to their optimal range or tap each metric to view more in-depth data.
Lastly, there's the My Health tab, which will display long-term metrics like Sleep Trends and VO2 Max. This tab will help users see how they're trending with slower-moving metrics like heart health that may take more effort to change and can help further motivate users to adopt better habits.
One feature users may appreciate is the Timeline, which can be found in the Today tab. This provides a glanceable view of your day based on activities the ring logs throughout the day, not unlike the companion app for the RingConn Gen 2 Smart Ring. You can also log activities yourself, such as the food you ate, which sees the company dipping its toes into more metabolic health, although it's unclear if this type of data can be synced with other apps like MyFitnessPal.
Lastly, Oura is introducing its experimental Labs features to Android users after initially launching on iOS. This includes its Gen AI-powered advisor that will help users better understand their health data and set goals.
Price and availability
The Oura Ring 4 is launching in one style but comes in more sizes, ranging from 4 to 15. Pricing starts at $349, which is about $50 more expensive than the Oura Ring Gen 3, although some color options will cost as much as $499. Options include Brushed Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, silver, Stealth, and black.
While most smart rings now come subscription-free, Oura is retaining its $6 membership, which is still necessary if you want to utilize much of the ring's features. Many new and updated features, including Fertile Window, Automatic Activity Detection (AAD), and Daytime Stress. When asked about whether it has considered ditching the subscription model like Amazfit recently did with the Helio Ring, Oura says its membership helps the company continue to invest in its technology and further improve its devices.
The Oura Ring 4 is available for preorder starting October 3 and will ship on October 15.
