Oura Unveils New, Thinner Smart Ring to Rule Them All
Oura said this month, it said it should have more than 5 million paid members this quarter, with plans to IPO later this year.
Sign up for smart news, insights, and analysis on the biggest financial stories of the day.
Honey, they shrunk the smart ring.
Oura ring stacks are about to look a lot less chunky after the smart ring-maker announced it downsized its newest wearable by 40%. It’s a feat of shrinkage that Oura said involved redesigning essentially all of the ring’s plumbing (mechanical, electrical, optical, battery and sensing).
The Oura Ring 5 apparently won’t sacrifice performance for size, with the company touting its longer battery life and more accurate sensing. A slew of other new features includes a type of activity detection that Oura said is better at detecting low-impact workouts like Pilates, as well as GLP-1 tracking and insights.
Oura is also partnering with Counsel Health to offer optional AI health advice for an unknown cost on top of the Ring 5’s $6-per-month subscription.
Do One Thing, Do It Well
Oura basically makes one product: its rings, plus accessories like chargers. The Finnish startup has dominated the smart-ring scene since launching its first product in 2015. After raising more than $900 million in an October round led by Fidelity Management & Research, Oura had a valuation of $11 billion and said this month that it should have more than 5 million paid members by the end of this quarter.
The pressure’s on to keep up its pace after Oura confidentially filed last month for an IPO:
- Oura is launching its newest ring earlier in its product lifecycle than usual. While the gap between the Ring 3 and Ring 4 was three years, Oura halved that wait to about 1 and a half years for the Ring 5.
- Oura announced the Ring 5 a day before rival RingConn’s Gen 3 started heading to doorsteps. Ultrahuman’s Ring Pro, meanwhile, is set to start shipping in mid-July.
Protective Oura: Ultrahuman’s market share in the US more than doubled from 2024 to the second quarter of last year, IDC Research told TechCrunch. But its shares plummeted to single digits later in the year after Oura pursued a patent-infringement case against the India-based company that led to the US effectively banning shipments of Ultrahuman’s rings. This year, Ultrahuman plans to stage a comeback after US Customs and Border Protection cleared its new model.
