At this point in the smart ring race, everyone is trying to beat Oura. But the Oura Ring 4 proves that the smart ring pioneer's position isn't wavering anytime soon. While most smart rings simply provide you with collected health data, the Oura Ring 4 tells you the story and the context behind that data for greater information on your health.
Why we like it: What separates the Oura Ring 4 from its competition is its commitment to helpful and actionable health insights that can change or encourage healthy behaviors. As someone who has used the Oura Ring 3 and Oura Ring 4 for over a year, I can attest to the smart ring's health and sleep data illustrations and recommendations that have changed my habits for the better. It doesn't just tell me my sleep or readiness score - it tells me why I got a poor sleep score by showing a graph of when my heart rate dropped that night, and how that drop in heart rate led to a low or high score. Then, it explains how factors like alcohol, exercise, or meal timing influence sleep timing, and thus, sleep and readiness scores.
The Oura Ring app's data illustrations provide the right amount of information about my night's sleep, yesterday's activities, and overall stress patterns - and supplement this daily data with long-term trends that can paint a fuller picture of my overall health. Still, the data rarely feels overwhelming, and even on nights when I've gone to bed too late or on days when I'm inactive, the smart ring's nudges and summaries never skew demanding or judgmental.
Who's it for: Unlike other smart rings that focus on day-to-day health, the Oura Ring is for people who want to assess both their short-term and long-term overall health. This could be someone managing a health condition or an aging person who wants to detect early signs of strain. For example, its daytime stress data that it collects translates into a long-term resilience status that illustrates how quickly an Oura wearer bounces back from high stress. Through its daily activity information it monitors, you can learn about your long-term cardio capacity and cardiovascular age to get a sense of general heart health.
Oura's smart ring (and subsequent monthly subscription) tends to cost more than its competitors because of the constant research and product development, as well as the features that go beyond daily monitoring. So the smart ring will also be best for people who are willing to pay that expensive starting price of $350 (plus the $72 annual subscription).
If I could paint the Oura Ring's ideal customer, it would be one who is willing to splurge on a sleep and health-tracking device to regularly check their health data and who is looking for data-driven suggestions and innovative features to improve their overall wellness. It's also got the smallest and largest ring sizes out of all the smart rings on this list, so if a customer hasn't found the right fit in other smart rings, they will probably find a good fit with the Oura Ring.
Who should look elsewhere: I'd recommend the Ultrahuman Ring Air if you want similarly innovative health features without the added subscription cost. If you don't need innovative health features to understand your long-term health and just want to check your sleep and readiness score, I'd recommend the Galaxy Ring, which costs a similar price of $350, or the RingConn Gen 2 Air, which costs $200, the cheapest price on this list.
Oura Ring Gen 4 tech specs: Material: Lightweight titanium with non-allergenic, non-metallic inner molding | Battery life: Up to 8 days | Charging: Full charge in 20 to 80 minutes | Compatibility: iOS and Android | Durability: Water-resistant up to 328 feet | Sizing: 4 to 15 | FSA and HSA eligible