Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
When I sat with Oura CEO Tom Hill in a quiet wooden booth on the outskirts of the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon, I noticed that he was wearing two smart rings. Does he analyze competitors? No, it turns out. Both rings are from his own company’s devices.
He explains that one of them is his personal ring, which contains all of his data from the past four years. The second is linked to his demo account and shows him what is coming in the next software update.
For Hill, wearing two rings to run two sets of programs allows him to communicate every little difference in the data. This kind of hyperfocus, essential to his job with the world’s leading smart ring manufacturer, enables him to understand Oura’s ever-evolving customer experience before they do.
But us being on high alert is not what he wants for the rest of us. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“Our philosophy is about being in the background,” Hill says. “We consider ourselves quiet technology.”
Don’t miss any of our unbiased technical content and lab reviews. Add CNET As Google’s preferred source.
The Quiet technology is a departure from the majority of other wearables on the market, and it seems to resonate. Over the past year, smart rings, which primarily measure activity and sleep, have surged in popularity, with sales doubling to 1.8 million units in 2024 and expected to reach about 4 million units this year, according to Omedia.
Many of us choose them over Best fitness trackers. Smart rings accounted for 75% of total fitness tracker revenue in the United States this year, compared to 46% the previous year, according to about.
Unlike standard fitness trackers, smart rings can’t deliver real-time feedback, stats, and workouts on your wrist. Instead, they record and collect your activity and sleep data to display on your phone later. This is enough for most people. The trade-off is especially worth it for those of us who want to foster a less anxious attachment style to our personal technology and prioritize focus on the real world.
The majority of other wearables on the market do not help this “negative” relationship. Smartwatches – and often smartglasses – are displays worn on the body, contributing to the increasingly ubiquitous information overload to which technology subjects us.
Relieve anxiety from health technology
Smart rings are, by nature, screen-free devices, and Ora wants to keep it that way. the Oura ring 4 It does not include any flashing lights and indicators (it has LEDs inside to measure your heart rate and blood oxygen). This decision was geared toward maintaining peace of mind, according to Hill.
“A lot of the most engaging and demanding apps are the ones that alert you and cause anxiety where they don’t need to be,” he says. “Oh, your heart rate is high. You’re dying.” Who needs that letter? I don’t need that letter.”
I don’t need it either. I’m not alone in feeling that unrestricted health tracking can go downhill quickly A disturbing nightmare Which causes more harm than good. It is known that the obsession with not getting enough sleep causes insomnia. Intense tracking of calories can lead people to ignore their body’s signals and ignore hunger signals.
This is what Ora seeks to avoid, Hill told me. When the company introduced meal tracking into its app earlier this year, it was careful about how it worded reviews, with an emphasis on “gentle” advice.
This feature allows you to upload a photo of your food and enter a brief description, before it is scanned by AI and given a rating: nutritious, good, fair or limited. I raise my eyebrows when you include “good” as a rating. It can be read as assigning moral value to the food you ate. But Oura chose not to include a “bad” rating, which takes some of the pain out of it.
Oura introduced food tracking this year.
Ora also tries to move people away from focusing on assigning a numerical value to their food, “which I think lends itself to kind of obsessive behaviors,” says Hill. You can see the calorie intake if you want, but Oura also provides a switch that lets you turn off any mention of calories.
“For some people, counting calories is very exciting,” Hill says. “We try to be very sensitive about that, because we don’t want to create an unhealthy relationship with it, and we don’t want to shame people.”
For Oura customers to get the most out of their ring and subscription, Hale’s No. 1 tip is to not place too much value on one health metric, but instead take a comprehensive approach to information to guide their actions. (Oura offers data on 40 different activities for a fee of $6/£6 per month. In contrast, the Samsung Ring offers limited but free tracking.)
Hill says the company isn’t focused on body measurement. “We are in the business of behavior change,” he says.
In the case of food, this might work by monitoring how your body reacts to what you eat and then examining how that reaction intersects with other factors, such as whether you’re rested, stressed, or exercised earlier that day.
Hill showed me a picture of a Portuguese pie he had eaten the night before while in Lisbon. “What a shock, look at my blood sugar,” he says.
There’s nothing wrong with having that cake — it certainly didn’t seem to subdue Hill, who was lively and full of energy throughout our conversation. But seeing the impact of a high-sugar meal late in the evening after a busy day at a tech event might help you understand how you’re feeling, or even prompt you to eat differently the next day to balance things out.
“It will be fine”
Oura’s goal is to build context around why your body is behaving a certain way and, increasingly, provide personalized, AI-generated support via an LLM-powered chatbot with which you can talk about injuries and offer personalized advice. This also can help relieve any stress you may feel about your health, Hill says.
“One of the things we try to do is create a supportive tone in the AI, to say, ‘I had a bad sleep, but it’s going to be okay,’” he says.
The AI Oura Advisor, which the company launched in summer 2024, could drive the kind of behavioral change Hill wants for Oura customers, such as suggesting you take a walk after eating a heavy meal to aid digestion. It even takes into account one often overlooked component of long-term health – social connection – and will encourage you to spend time with friends and family.
Oura Advisor will allow you to delve deeper into any health trends with the help of artificial intelligence.
Over the past few years, there has been An explosion in longevity culture With people investing their money in products and services, such as nutritional supplements and health services, that promise to prolong their lives and health.
The “moral hazard” of these products is a lack of accountability, Hill says. “If it works, great,” he says. “If it doesn’t work out, you won’t call me. Do you know why? Because you’re dead.”
Oura doesn’t completely exclude itself from the conversation about longevity. Last May, she released an ad that Hill called “cheeky,” featuring seniors wearing Oura rings and living their best lives. But it did not promise that we would all become centenarians.
“Our premise is not: Hey, buy our supplement because you want to live forever,” Hill says. “Our hypothesis is: Change your behavior today to make healthier choices, because you will live a better life.”
It’s a compelling idea, which might explain why Aura It has surpassed 5.5 million total episodes sold Back in September, putting it on track to achieve $1 billion in revenue for the first time this year. According to the latest statistics published by the International Data Corporation. Released in 2024the company boasted an 80% market share.
Last month, the company achieved a “decisive victory” in a patent infringement lawsuit against two of its competitors, Ringconn and Ultrahuman. So when Hill tells me he doesn’t test competitors’ rings “as much as he used to” because “they copy us,” I know it’s more than just bravery.
With its intellectual property and growing collections of health data that enable it to improve its software, Oura has a clear competitive advantage in this rapidly growing market.
“I’m not looking for other things that other people are doing,” Hill says. “I’m looking for things we should do that are really innovative.”
Disclosure: Katie Collins traveled to Lisbon as a guest of Web Summit to serve as a panel moderator. Her reporting on the event was independent of this role.