Oura unveils Ring 5 with a thinner, lighter design, starting at $399

On Thursday, Oura unveiled the fifth generation of its popular smart ring, with a starting price of $399. The Ring 5, which Oura describes as the world’s smallest smart ring, arrives just a year and a half after the company launched Episode 4 Seven months later Ring 4 ceramic. The Ring 5 is 40% smaller than its predecessor and comes with a more accurate sensor and improved battery life.

The Ring 5 is launching alongside new software updates that include blood pressure signals, live activity tracking, on-demand care, and other features that will also be rolled out to the Oura Ring Gen3 and later.

The new smart ring is available for pre-order starting today and will begin shipping on June 4. It’s available in sizes 6 to 13 and comes in six colors, including redesigned Gold with a more realistic gold hue, updated Deep Rose with a copper-like look, as well as Silver, Brushed Silver, Black, and Stealth. The black and silver variants retail for $399, while the rest cost $499. For comparison, the Ring 4 started at $349.

Maz Broumand, vice president of product at Oura, told TechCrunch that the company reduced the width of the ring by about 2 millimeters and its thickness by about 30%. Broumand noted that Oura members were asking the company to make a smaller, thinner ring, which prompted a shift toward a slimmer design. Broumand explained that Oura achieved the new size by redesigning the mechanical, electrical, optical, battery and sensor architectures.

The new ring is designed to be desirable to a wider audience, especially people who found smart rings too bulky in the past. Ora says the newer model is designed to look like any other ring.

While Oura could previously get away with a larger-scale design as the dominant player in the smart ring market, new products from subscription-free competitors like RingConn and Ultrahuman have increased the pressure to innovate. Increased competition also likely explains why Oura is launching a new Ring just a year and a half after the Ring 4, compared to the roughly three-year gap between the Ring 3 and Ring 4. It’s also worth noting that the announcement for the Ring 5 arrives a day earlier. RingConn Generation 3 It is set to start charging.

In terms of improved battery life, the Ring 5 can last between six to nine days, compared to five to eight days on the Ring 4.

Oura also says it has redesigned its sensors to improve skin contact and added more powerful LEDs in an effort to increase accuracy across a wider range of finger sizes and skin tones.

Software updates

As for software updates, Oura is launching “Health Radar,” which is designed to monitor key vital signs in the background for surface patterns members should pay attention to. Health Radar launches with two primary capabilities: blood pressure and nighttime breathing signals.

Ora says it will continually detect shifts and patterns that may indicate cardiovascular stress, and alert members when their biometrics indicate signs of increased blood pressure. Using blood pressure signals, Oura tracks blood pressure patterns during sleep when the body’s cardiovascular patterns are most stable, as blood pressure should naturally drop overnight. When that doesn’t happen, it can indicate a potential cardiovascular risk that readings may miss during the day, Ora points out.

Members will also be able to record actual blood pressure readings from the cuffs directly in the Oura app.

With Night Breathing, Oura wants to give users a better understanding of how sleep and breathing patterns impact their health. Members will receive a 30-day refresher view of sleep-related breathing patterns and disturbances, expanding on the nocturnal breathing regularity insights they already receive.

Oura also goes beyond insights into delivering actual care. The company is partnering with Counsel Health, an on-demand platform that combines artificial intelligence and licensed doctors to deliver care directly to the Oura app. Members will be able to ask health questions, get personalized medical advice, and connect with doctors licensed in the United States. To access this, members will have to pay an additional fee on top of the standard monthly subscription of $5.99, though Oura did not say how much the added service will cost.

Members in the US will also be able to import diagnosed conditions, medications, lab results and allergies into the app to get a fuller picture of their health. While some may be understandably wary of uploading their health data to the app, the company promises it takes a privacy-first approach to records.

Additionally, Oura is adding a new live activity tracking experience that allows members to start a workout and view key metrics in real-time on their phone, such as speed and distance during activities like running and cycling. The company has also updated Automatic Activity Detection to be more accurate for low-motion activities, like Pilates. Members can also connect third-party heart rate monitors to see their real-time heart rate.

Oura is also adding GLP-1 Insights that will give members a longitudinal view of their medication journey and track weight and body changes in one place.

For the first time, ORA is also trying to study brain health. Eligible members will be able to enroll in a brain health study that seeks to match short in-app tasks with long-term physiological trends. Ora believes she will eventually be able to map how daily choices and recovery impact mental acuity and brain health in the long term.