The Oura Ring Gen 4, or just ‘Ring 4’ as it’s officially known, has been unveiled and will take on the likes of Samsung, Ultrahuman and others in the increasingly competitive smart ring market.
The new wearable comes almost three years after the popular Oura Ring Gen 3 and features a new all-titanium design in more sizes, ‘breakthrough sensing technology’ called Smart Sensing, recessed sensors for a more comfortable fit and other upgrades.
Samsung’s Galaxy Ring currently sits at the top of our best smart rings list so does the Oura Ring 4 have enough to topple it? Let’s take a look.
When is the Oura Ring 4 release date?
The Oura Ring 4 is available to pre-order now and will go on sale 15 October.
How much does the Oura Ring 4 cost?
Oura has confirmed the Ring 4 price starts at £349/$349. The price jumps to £399/$399 or £499/$499 depending on the colour you choose (full details below).
You can buy it from the official store as well as Amazon, Best Buy, and Target in the US and John Lewis in the UK.
You get a free month of Oura Membership which then costs £5.99/$5.99 per month or £69.99/$69.99 annually.
For sizing, Oura recommends you use the official Ring 4 sizing kit – even if you have a Ring Gen 3 as you may need a different size to the one you already have. The sizing kit is available online and in-store from the official store and select retailers.
Furthermore, the Oura Ring Gen 3 remains on sale while stocks last, with a price reduction on certain models.
Find out how the Oura Ring 4 compares to the Gen 3.
What are the Oura Ring 4 specs and new features?
There are a number of changes to the Ring 4 when it comes to design, specs and features so let’s break them down.
Design & Sizes
This year, the Ring 4 comes in more sizes than its predecessor. You can get it in twelve sizes (4-15).
It’s Oura’s first fully titanium ring and there are six colours to choose from with different prices:
- Black – £349/$349
- Silver – £349/$349
- Brushed Silver – £399/$399
- Stealth – $399/$399
- Gold – £499/$499
- Rose Gold – £499/$499
The Black option gets a new glossy, tungsten PVD coating which Oura says looks ‘deeper’ in colour and offers improved durability.
Looking at the spec sheet, all other colours have the same PVD coating apart from Stealth which has a DLC (diamond like carbon) coating. The inner shell is uncoated titanium.
“The lightweight, all-titanium design of Oura Ring 4 features recessed sensors for a smooth interior shape and thinner profile, making it more comfortable for 24/7 wear.” said Oura.
Oura has made sure the sensors only stick out by 0.3mm making them ‘barely noticeable’ according to the firm.
The Ring 4 comes in at 7.9mm wide, 2.88mm thick and weighs 3.3-5.2g depending on which size you choose.
The choice between Horizon and Heritage shapes has gone so it’s just a fully round Horizon style now.
Smart Sensing
The biggest upgrade to the Oura Ring 4 is Smart Sensing which the firm says “provides an unparalleled degree of accuracy, comfort, and personalisation,”
It’s a combination of the sensors fitted to the smart ring and an algortithm so it can respond to each user’s finger. The sensors, which now have 18 signal pathways compared to eight, automatically adapt to find the best path resulting in continuous and accurate tracking.
Oura says there are various ways in which the Ring 4 is better than the Gen 3 due to the new technology (which won’t be upgraded with the feature):
- 120% improvement in signal quality for blood oxygen sensing (SpO2)
- Translating to a 30% increase in accuracy in average overnight SpO2 measurement
- 15% more accurate breathing disturbance index (BDI) thanks to the higher signal fidelity
- 7% fewer gaps in the daytime heart rate
- 31% fewer gaps in the nighttime heart rate
New Oura app
Oura has overhauled its app to improve the user experience and it’s available to all Oura Members, not exclusive to the Ring 4.
The redesign makes it “simpler and faster for Oura Members to navigate the bigger picture of their health while also making it easy to dive into the details when they’re ready.”
It’s now organised into three core sections: Today, Vitals, and My Health.
Today is where you’ll find Score Shortcuts to check things like Readiness, Sleep and Stress at a glance. Vitals gives you more in-depth information about those scores while the My Health tab is where you’ll find bigger picture metrics like Cardiovascular Age and Sleep Trends.
The new Oura app, available on Android and iOS, starts rolling out today and will be available for all Oura Members in the ‘coming weeks’.
Oura’s Membership subscription service is also getting additional features including Activity, Stress and Women’s Health.
The main upgrade here is Automatic Activity Detection (AAD) which can automatically detect more than 40 different activities and trigger heart rate tracking and heart rate zones for those sessions. No more manual logging.
Battery life
The main remaining update regards battery life as the Oura Ring 4 can last up to eight days, one more than the Gen 3.
That’s behind the RingConn Gen 2 but beats the Samsung Galaxy Ring by a day. However, unlike those rivals, you get a charging base rather than a portable case.
Elsewhere, things largely stay the same with 100m water resistance (not suitable for diving) and Bluetooth LE.
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