I dislike the idea of tracking my health metrics 24/7, but the Oura Ring 4 changed my mind. I’ve been wearing it for almost two months now, and just when I thought I couldn’t get past the monthly subscription price, Oura’s app showed me why it is better than other wearables I’ve used in the past.
Before I get to that, I have to mention why I don’t like to wear health trackers. First, I travel frequently, so I don’t want yet another device to charge frequently. Second, most wearables throw a bunch of numbers at me without any contextualization. I know I slept poorly; I don’t need a device to tell me that. Third, my skin isn’t fond of these sensors. I have gotten rashes from every smart ring and smartwatch I’ve worn so far. The Oura Ring 4 (nearly) solved all of these issues and this might be the first wearable that I’ll continue wearing after the initial review period.
The Oura Ring 4 Is Sleeker And Stealthier
The Oura Ring 4 is slimmer and more comfortable to wear than before. It has a recessed interior, as opposed to the raised domes present inside the Ring Gen 3 to house its sensors.
Oura’s new flat housing includes a digital temperature sensor, red and infrared LEDs for blood oxygen, green and red LEDs for heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep respiration, and an accelerometer. They are asymmetrically positioned, so the measurements are taken at a variety of tissue penetration depths, allowing the readings to be more accurate. The new Smart Sensing algorithm works together with 18 signal pathways (up from 8) to take the best measurements at all times.
For the first time, Oura is offering its ring in 12 different sizes from 4 to 15. Their weight ranges from 3.2g to 5.2g, depending on the size (vs. Gen 3’s weight range of 4g to 6g). It also comes in more finishes than before. You can buy the Oura Ring 4 in silver, black, brushed silver, stealth, gold, and rose gold. All models have a tiny dimple, which can be used to align the ring on its charger and your finger. The dimple should ideally be facing the inner side of your hand for the best measurements.
The Oura Ring 4 has a full titanium build, including the inner lining, which is made from non-allergenic uncoated titanium. Most other smart rings use transparent resin for the inner lining. I think this is one of the reasons why I haven’t had any skin rashes from wearing the new Oura Ring. I didn’t notice a major thickness difference in daily wear, as compared to the Ultrahuman Ring Air and RingConn Smart Ring Gen 2, but it is the most comfortable of the lot. You can wear it for workouts but not for heavy weight training.
It is water resistant up to 100m and suitable for daily wear and watersports, but not diving. Like all other smart rings, I take it off whenever I wash my hands and mistakenly left it in my pants pocket one day – only to realize later that it survived a 45-minute washing machine session. It is durable but I don’t recommend wearing it while bathing or for underwater activity.
Your Ring 4’s battery life depends on the size you order, but it can last up to eight days on a single charge, according to Oura. I have size 10 and it lasts me an entire week with ease. I’m so confident in the battery life that I don’t carry its charger on any trip that’s up to five days long. However, I wish there was a tracking chip inside Oura’s charger. In my two months of wearing this ring, I’ve misplaced the charger multiple times and thought I had lost it twice. Fortunately, the ring itself has the ability to be located on a map within the app should you happen to misplace it.
Oura Made A Wellness Device That’s Not Just Another Fitness Tracker
Oura’s app is the best part of the Ring 4 experience. It sits behind a paywall but the feature-rich, easy-to-understand contextual data really makes the Oura Ring 4 what it is. The data is organized into three tabs: Today, Vitals, and My Health, alongside a “+” sign for more features. You can use it to add Log a meal, access the AI advisor and add an activity, among other things.
The Today tab consists of your most important daily metrics, which are lined up in a timeline based on the priorities you chose during the setup process, the time of the day, and other factors. I like that I don’t have to scroll through everything to check the metrics that are important to me.
The Vitals tab consists of your scores for Readiness, Sleep, Activity, Heart Health, Metabolic Health, and Core Metrics. You can dive into specific sections to get more data or swipe right to get the metrics from previous days. As for My Health, it consists of long-term trends and shareable reports.
I love Oura’s proactive approach. It doesn’t throw numbers at me. Instead, it helps make sense of that data and surfaces the important metrics just when I need them. Most wearables give you a rigid dashboard with too many numbers but Oura’s app is dynamic and adds explanations to those numbers without being overwhelming.
For example, I want to check my sleep data in the morning or nap time after waking up, and activity details after playing badminton. The app automatically surfaces this data on top. So, whenever I open the app, it usually has the metric I’m looking for. I’m greeted with a note explaining how I slept and how it can affect my day. Other times, it tells me if my sleep was enough to restore my energy levels. For naps and activities, I just need to tap “confirm” to add them to my timeline, which shows my activity for the day.
This approach is much more useful than seeing the number of steps I walked or how many calories I burned in a workout. While the ring detects how many hours I spent in different stages of sleep, the app explains them with simple sentences and easy-to-understand graphs. It also dynamically adjusts your target calorie burn for the day.
I really like the immersive nature of the Oura app. For instance, when you press and hold your heart rate graph, it uses the phone’s haptic sensors to deliver feedback. So, you can experience what a slow or fast heart rate feels like.
Oura says its latest-generation smart ring is comparable to research-grade sensors. In my briefing, the company mentioned its Oura Ring 4 can measure heart rate with 99% accuracy; resting heart rate and variability score with 98% accuracy, while the temperature sensor can detect baseline deviations as low as 0.13℃ with 92% accuracy. It is also claimed to be 79% accurate with sleep measurements (where medical-grade devices go up to 83% accuracy).
I don’t have the devices to test those claims for myself but the Oura Ring 4 has delivered more accurate results as compared to my Ultrahuman Ring Air.
The new-gen Oura Ring can autodetect workouts and sports. However, you need to manually tag them as weight training, running, swimming, and more once you’re done. It managed to detect my badminton session but also tagged a day out playing cricket as badminton. But I could edit it within seconds before logging the activity, so it wasn’t an issue.
Then there’s an AI Advisor, which is a health-oriented chatbot. It can help interpret your health data or give you advice if you have any questions. I used it sparingly, but I like its presence. Last week, I had my chronic pain flare-up but the Oura app had no way to register it and showed a good Readiness score, which didn’t reflect how I actually felt. I asked the AI Advisor about it and it nudged me in the right direction.
However, wearables (including the Oura Ring 4) remain a work in progress for people with chronic illness. I can add a tag within the Oura app but there’s no way to predict a Trigeminal Neuralgia pain attack (unlike sickness due to a rise in body temperature) or automatically consider it in my Readiness or Sleep scores.
Oura Ring 4 Price
The Oura Ring 4 remains one of the best at monitoring your activity, sleep, and stress without an overwhelming feed of data. However, its ownership is expensive but the proactive app is worth it. Oura’s latest smart ring starts at $349 or INR 28,900 for the Silver and Black versions, while the app subscription costs an additional $6 or INR 599 per month. On the other hand, the Stealth and Brushed Silver models cost $399, whereas the Gold and Rose Gold variants are priced at $499.
