GoKawiil
Tech News
Bloomberg reports Apple is building prototypes of a display-free wearable, described internally as a technology investigation, pairing a fabric strap with a sensor-and-computing unit focused on passive health monitoring. The project has backing from executives including Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, though Apple has not committed to shipping a product, and a launch could come as early as 2028.
Bloomberg reports Apple is building early prototypes of a screenless wearable with a thin fabric band and sensor-equipped module, aimed at competing with Whoop and Oura Ring. The project remains in an early technology-investigation stage and isn't expected to launch before 2028, if it ships at all. Executives including Eddy Cue and Tim Cook reportedly back the effort, with Cue pushing Apple's health team to borrow ideas from simpler, fitness-focused competitors since taking over health leadership last October.
Amazon is currently selling the Oura Ring 4 for $319.99, down 20% from its $399 list price, matching the lowest price seen since Prime Day. The smart ring tracks sleep, recovery, readiness, heart rate, temperature and stress, and offers roughly 5 to 8 days of battery life depending on size and settings.
Oura's upcoming IPO will offer 50 million shares priced between $40 and $44, but nearly two-thirds of those shares are being sold by existing shareholders rather than the company itself. Forerunner Ventures, an early backer since 2020, stands to collect roughly $1.2 billion by selling its entire stake, accounting for about 80% of shares sold by insiders. Oura itself expects to net around $532.6 million, most of which will go toward covering tax obligations tied to vesting employee shares.
Apple unveiled a Health Age feature for the Apple Watch, joining Whoop, Oura, Garmin, Withings and other companies in offering a metric that claims to estimate a user's physiological age based on fitness and health data. The Verge's Victoria Song tested several of these tools on herself and found wildly inconsistent results, with different devices estimating her age anywhere from 26 to 42 despite her actual age being 38.
A longtime Oura Ring wearer has stopped using smart rings after about a year, citing fit issues caused by weight loss and temperature swings, the need to remove the ring for weightlifting, and damage from frequent hand washing. The user says two devices broke over the period, partly due to inconsistent removal for water exposure and physical activity.
Apple unveiled the Watch Ultra 4, its top-tier smartwatch, featuring an S11 chip, upgraded heart-rate sensors, and battery life reaching 84 hours in low-power mode or 50 hours in normal use. The device introduces a daily readiness score, a VO2 Max test, and an AI-powered insights tab in the redesigned Health app, plus audio intelligence features for environmental sound alerts and conversation tracking.
Circular has released two new smart rings, the Ring 3 Pro and Ring 3 Slim, combining health tracking features with NFC-based contactless payment support and haptic feedback. The move puts Circular ahead of rival Oura in offering payment functionality directly on a smart ring.
Oura has acknowledged in SEC paperwork filed ahead of its IPO that some Ring 4 units suffered battery performance problems, which contributed to an $84.4 million rise in warranty expenses during fiscal 2025. The company replaced affected rings free of charge, sometimes even after the standard one-year warranty had lapsed. Oura has not specified which production batches were affected.
Sleep tracking devices like Oura and similar wearables often produce numbers that aren't precisely accurate, according to physicians. Despite this, doctors say the data can still help users identify personal patterns and trends in their sleep over time.
Oura officially filed for an IPO on September 3, reporting revenue nearly doubling to $1.21 billion over nine months and 3.6 million rings sold to about 5 million paid members. The filing comes just after the launch of its slimmer Oura Ring 5, even as competitors like Circular, RingConn, and Ultrahuman roll out rings with tap-to-pay, haptics, and onboard software.
Oura, the Finland-founded, San Francisco-based maker of health-tracking smart rings, has filed paperwork with the SEC to go public on Nasdaq. The company has built a leading position in the wearable ring market as it moves toward becoming a publicly traded stock.