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

Oura on Thursday unveiled the fifth generation of its popular smart ring, starting at $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 the Ring 4 and seven months after the Ring 4 Ceramic. The Ring 5 is 40% smaller than its predecessor and comes with more accurate sensing and enhanced 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 roll out to the Oura Ring Gen3 and later.

The new smart ring is available for pre-order starting today and will start shipping on June 4. It’s available in sizes 6 to 13 and comes in six finishes, including a redesigned Gold with a truer gold tone, an updated Deep Rose with a copper-like look, plus Silver, Brushed Silver, Black, and Stealth. The Black and Silver retail for $399, while the rest cost $499. For comparison, the Ring 4 started at $349.

Maz Brumand, VP of Product at Oura, told TechCrunch that the company reduced the ring’s width by about two millimeters and its thickness by roughly 30%. Brumand noted that Oura members had been asking the company to make a ring that was smaller and thinner, prompting the shift toward a slimmer design. Oura achieved the new size by redesigning the mechanical, electrical, optical, battery, and sensing architectures, Brumand explained.

The new ring is designed to be desirable to a broader audience, especially people who have found smart rings too bulky in the past. Oura says the latest model is designed to look and feel like any other ring.

While Oura could previously get away with a bulkier design as the dominant player in the smart ring market, new products from subscription-free rivals 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 with the roughly three-year gap between the Ring 3 and Ring 4. It’s also worth noting that the announcement of the Ring 5 arrives a day before RingConn’s Gen 3 is set to start shipping.

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

Oura also says it has reengineered its sensors for better 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 the software updates, Oura is launching “Health Radar,” which is designed to monitor key biometric signals in the background to surface patterns members should pay attention to. Health Radar is launching with two foundational capabilities: Blood Pressure Signals and Nighttime Breathing.

Oura says it will continuously detect shifts and patterns that may indicate cardiovascular strain, alerting members when their biometrics suggest signs of increasing blood pressure. With Blood Pressure Signals, Oura tracks blood pressure patterns during sleep when the body’s cardiovascular patterns are most stable, since blood pressure should naturally dip overnight. When it doesn’t, it can signal potential cardiovascular risk that daytime readings may miss, Oura notes.

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

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

Oura is also moving beyond insights into offering actual care. The company is partnering with Counsel Health, an on-demand platform that combines AI with licensed physicians to bring care directly into the Oura app. Members will be able to ask health questions, receive personalized medical advice, and connect with licensed physicians in the U.S. To access this, members will have to pay an additional fee on top of the standard $5.99 monthly subscription, though Oura did not say how much the added service will cost.

Members in the U.S. 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’s taking a privacy-first approach to the records.

Additionally, Oura is adding a new live activity tracking experience that lets members start a workout and view key metrics in real time on their phone, such as pace and distance during activities like running and cycling. The company also updated its “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 heart rate in real time.

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, Oura is also attempting 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. Oura believes it will eventually be able to map how daily choices and recovery impact mental sharpness and long-term brain health.