When Oura debuted its ring a decade ago, it was a first-of-its-kind wearable, breaking the mold of the standard wrist health tracker. And through every update, Oura has refined its design and technology, making the ring more stylish and advanced with each new generation.
The brand recently released the Oura Ring 5, the smallest and lightest ring yet, offering more health insights than ever before. I was already a fan of the Oura Ring Gen 4, and consider it to be one of the best sleep trackers out there right now. So I spent the last month wearing the Oura Ring 5 for workouts, sleep and so much more, to see how it compares with the previous model.
What’s the difference between Oura Ring 4 vs. 5?
Out of all the screen-free trackers I have tried (and I’ve tried many), I think the Oura Ring is the most stylish. And the Oura Ring 5 is even more so now with its thinner, sleeker design that could almost pass as a wedding or statement band.
It’s 40% smaller than the Oura Ring 4, making it the smallest smart ring on the market, according to the brand. The thinner and lighter design does make a difference — it’s less in the way than the previous version, and I don’t notice it as much when I’m lifting weights or carrying items in my hands (in fact, the lighter feel means I really don’t notice it much at all).
Oura also rebuilt the battery for the ring, giving it an extended life. While the brand promised around five to eight days of battery life with the Oura Ring 4, I typically got around five days of use. This one is said to last between six to nine days, but I’ve found that it tends to fall on the lower side of that range, dying after six or seven days.
The new rings are made from scratch-resistant titanium, which is said to be more durable than the Oura Ring 4. After using the previous model for months, the ring did have a fair amount of scratching on its surface. Because I’ve only been using this new version for around a month, it’s too early to tell how it will hold up over time. So far, though, I haven’t noticed any major scratches or signs of wear and tear.
With the new ring, the brand completely redesigned its sensor system. There are fewer sensors, but they are said to be more accurate. The Oura Ring 5 features two photodetectors and two triple LEDs, with red, green and infrared light, which track things like heart rate variation, blood oxygen levels, respiration rate and more. With the new sensors, the brand says that you’ll get improved accuracy, as compared to previous generations. I’ve already found the ring to be very accurate in many areas to begin with, so I can’t say I noticed much of a difference here.
What can the Oura Ring 5 do?
For those familiar with the Oura experience, you’ll find that the new ring provides you with all of that same data that users have come to love, including, among other things, the Sleep, Activity and Readiness scores, which all help you get a better idea of how prepared you are for the day.
The sleep tracking, as always, is where the ring really shines. It tracks patterns in your resting heart rate, breathing and more, and will notify you over time if it detects changes. On a night when I was tossing and turning and repeatedly waking up and looking at the clock, the ring accurately logged the moments when I had woken up. It’s also very good at distinguishing between the times when you’re lying in bed resting and when you’re actually sleeping, which is something that many other devices struggle with.
Oura already does a really good job of breaking down your complicated data into digestible tidbits, but in the app, there’s also an AI-powered advisor that can help you further understand patterns in your health and how they may affect you. Through its cycle tracking features, I asked the advisor to suggest workouts to try based on where I was in my menstrual cycle, and it came back with helpful suggestions based on the phase I was in, as well as my recent data.
I also received a notification from the advisor that my average resting heart rate had risen over the course of the month. I wasn’t surprised, given that I recently had logged more late workouts and had more nights out with friends than in the previous period, but it was a good reminder of how those things can affect my health and rest. The chatbot suggested that I start tracking behaviors, and it would help me compare the data from the next seven days to that of the previous month to see if there were any connections. So the feature may be helpful for those who want to make actionable changes based on their health data, but aren’t sure where to start.
On the flip side, workouts are really where Oura continues to struggle. Not all workouts automatically register, especially those when your heart rate is lower, like Pilates, yoga or lower-intensity weight training sessions. For those, I had to go in and manually log the workout. Though sometimes random things, like a short walk to the bathroom at the office, later automatically registered as a 30-minute walk.
During some kinds of sessions, particularly low-intensity strength training, where I would later have to manually log that I did a workout, I found that periods of heart rate data would be missing and I would get an error that said, “Data missing due to a lack of detected hand movement or other error during the activity.” Maybe the activity was too low intensity to pick up or the weights pressing against the ring affected the sensors; I’m not sure.
The previous version of the ring struggled with tracking the distance and route of runs and walks, but I found it has improved a lot. The brand also recently introduced live activity tracking, which allows you to start the workout on your phone and see your data, like your pace or heart rate. (In my opinion, that sort of defeats the purpose of a screen-free tracker, but I understand why people would want it.)
The biggest benefit of that feature is that you can pause your workouts. For the recent run seen below, I forgot to manually start my run and while it still tracked the route and my data, it listed my average pace as about a minute and a half slower than the pace on my running app, because I couldn’t pause it during stops at red lights or moments when we waited for my run group to catch up. When you start the live activity tracking, though, that’s no longer an issue.
Oura has long had its symptom radar, a feature I love that has multiple times predicted that I might be getting sick days before it actually happens. But the brand has expanded the technology to create its “health radar,” which adds two more sections: blood pressure signals and nighttime breathing. By constantly monitoring your metrics and comparing them to previous data, it can alert you when something may be off in those additional categories.
How does the Oura Ring 5 fit?
While I wore a size 7 for the previous generation, when I tried on that same size in the Oura Ring 5, it felt a little tight. Knowing how my fingers tend to swell during exercise or when it’s hot out, I opted for the next size up, an 8. I wear it on my middle finger, and it fits comfortably and stays in place.
Is the Oura Ring 5 worth it?
The truth is, it depends on what you’re looking for. If you already have the Oura Ring 4, it’s probably not worth it to upgrade. Many of the newer technologies, like live activity tracking, blood pressure signals, health radar and more, are available to those who use the Oura Ring 3, 4 or 5.
If you are thinking about trying the brand for the first time and are someone who needs extended sizing, the Oura Ring 4 comes in a larger range of sizes (it’s available in sizes 4 to 15, as compared to the Oura Ring 5’s 6 to 13 range).
However, if you are looking for one of the most discreet health trackers (in both look and feel) out there with the latest and greatest technology that will help you get a deeper look into your health data and give you the tools to understand it, it may be worth spending the extra $50 on the Oura Ring 5 versus the 4.
How we chose
At Shop TODAY, we are constantly on the lookout for the best new products to cover across all categories, from beauty to tech. Oura is a brand that has dominated the wellness space in the last few years, and we have previously written about other models of the ring.
Why trust Shop TODAY?
The Shop TODAY editors and writers search the internet to find the best products out there. We interview expert sources and use our own personal experiences with the product and brand to make shopping easier for our readers.
Emma Stessman is a writer for Shop TODAY. She has over a decade of experience in digital media, with nearly half of that time being focused on the health and wellness space. She has owned multiple fitness trackers from top brands over the years. At Shop TODAY, she has written about many health gadgets, including breaking down the popularity of the Oura Ring and reviewing trackers from Fitbit, Garmin and more.
