Oura announces new smart ring with updated design and new sensors for $349

Oura unveiled its new smart ring, the Oura Ring 4, on Thursday, which is available starting at $349. 

The company's rings track sleep, exercise, stress, heart health and other metrics to help users understand their bodies and make healthier choices. The Oura Ring 4 has new sensors, a sleeker design and up to eight days of battery life. 

Oura said it developed a new "Smart Sensing" platform that uses an algorithm and updated sensors to capture more accurate readings for blood oxygen sensing, daytime and nighttime heart rate and breathing disturbances.

The sensors in Oura's third-generation ring are raised and feel like little bumps, but the sensors in the Oura Ring 4 are flat. The company said this will give the ring a smooth interior that's more comfortable to wear.

The Oura Ring 4 is available in twelve sizes and six colors, including a new black finish. It's available for preorder on Thursday and will begin shipping Oct. 15. 

In addition to the upfront cost, users will have to pay for a membership of $5.99 a month or $69.99 a year. The first month is free. Customers can use flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts to pay for the ring and the membership. 

A new look for the app

The company also announced a new design for its app, which is now rolling out to Oura members. Under the new layout, users' data will be organized into three tabs called Today, Vitals and My Health. 

The Today tab will highlight relevant information based on the time of day, and it includes shortcuts where people can quickly access information about their sleep, activity, readiness, stress, heart rate and menstrual cycles if applicable. Users can dive into more detail about their data in the Vitals tab and access longer-term metrics like sleep trends, cardiovascular age, sleep trends and stress resilience in the My Health tab. 

Oura said new features are coming to the app as well. 

While exercising, members won't have to manually log their heart rate or the kind of workout they complete. They'll also be able to see their activity and daily movement within their daytime stress data. Oura said this will help improve users' understanding of how their behaviors and habits can influence their stress. 

Oura is also updating its reproductive health offerings to include a feature called fertile window, which will help inform users about their chances of getting pregnant. The fertile window will give users an estimate of their fertile days, their likelihood of conception and their detected day of ovulation. Oura said this feature will roll out in the coming months, but members can sign up to join the waitlist for early access.   

Oura Labs, where users can test new features, is now available on Android devices. The feature was previously only offered on iPhones.