Oura Ring 4 review: The best smart ring right now

Price When Reviewed

From £349

Best Prices Today: Oura Ring 4

£349

The Oura Ring 4 is arguably Oura’s most important smart ring because there are more rivals than ever before.

That increased competition led by the Samsung Galaxy Ring along with the likes of Ultrahuman, RingConn and Circular shows that Oura is not the only smart ring in town.

To keep ahead of the pack, Oura has improved its ring design, promises more accurate tracking, new metrics to help make better decisions about your day (and night) and delivered a better battery life than the Ring Gen 3.

As a long-term Oura Ring Gen 3 user and having also tested pretty much all other smart rings available, the Ring 4 is a reminder that there are things Oura gets right that its rivals haven’t quite cracked yet.

Design & Build

• Available in six colour finishes
• Now includes more titanium in design
• Sensor platform sits more discreetly

The Oura Ring’s appeal is partly down to how good it looks and that doesn’t change with the Ring 4. There are six finish options in total. That’s silver (pictured), black, brushed silver, stealth, gold and rose gold. The silver and black options are the cheapest to go for with gold and rose gold models coming in the most expensive.

Mike Sawh

One of the most notable changes is the etching on the outside of the ring to serve as a visual reminder that the ring needs to be worn with the sensors sat against the inside of your finger. It’s something that Samsung does on its Galaxy Ring smart ring as well, which is useful but breaks up an otherwise sleek ring.

Those sensors hidden on the underside of that etching now sit more flush with an interior that’s now fully encased in titanium. It makes wearing the ring less noticeable and a bit more comfortable to wear than the Oura Ring Gen 3.

Mike Sawh

There’s now just a fully circular version available that does keep it in line with the look of rival smart rings. Oura’s Ring still looks different enough and has a generally nicer finish to help it stand out from other rings – Oura users will be happy with the changes.

It still picks up scratches, which Oura has now mentioned on its website will happen with regular wear. It’s not been as bad as the very scratch-friendly Ultrahuman smart ring, but Samsung’s Galaxy Ring does a better job of fending off those visible signs of wear.

In terms of sizing, I was recommended to get a sizing kit as the design changes with the Ring 4 could mean a change in fit from the Ring Gen 3. I ended up going with the same size, though that’s not necessarily going to be the case for all, since there have been some alterations to the hardware and design.

The Ring 4 also offers a wider range of sizes than the previous iteration. You can opt for four through to 15 – the Gen 3 is only available in sizes six to 13. Oura recommends users wear a test ring for at least 24 hours, as fingers can change sizes throughout the day and night.

Fitness & Tracking 

• Tracks sleep, steps, stress and heart health
• Improved sensor setup
• Membership required for full access

In essence, the Oura Ring 4 monitors and tracks a lot of the same things the Oura Ring Gen 3 and other smart rings can… but you’ll need to pay for a monthly or annual subscription to access all of those insights.

Mike Sawh

There’s some new metrics added and perhaps more crucially, a new optical sensor platform that opens up more signal pathways than the previous Oura Ring to improve tracking accuracy. Oura also promises to improve monitoring for different skin tones, finger shapes and when the ring moves around your finger.

It will track your steps, monitor sleep, stress, temperature, daily heart rate and it’s all geared towards powering Oura’s Readiness metric that will tell you whether you’re in tip-top shape to take on a strenuous day or you should consider taking things easy.

That Readiness metric is only as good as the data that powers it. So making sure you’re getting accurate heart rate, sleep and exercise data to make sure that Readiness number can be useful.

The biggest issues on the Oura Ring Gen 3 lay with the heart rate and its ability to factor in exercise data, two things Oura has made improvements with, especially on tracking heart rate, during exercise and better compensating for when the sensors might not be sitting in the optimal place. 

Mike Sawh

For exercise, Oura appears to accept its limitations to some degree and while it can automatically detect exercises in a pretty reliable fashion and does give you the ability to record heart rate from workouts when prompted in the app, I still don’t trust it enough to track all of my exercise heart rate more reliably than a dedicated heart rate monitor chest strap. I got some good data, particularly when using it for steady paced workouts, so if you’re not doing all-out HIIT classes, you might just get the good heart rate data you crave.

That support puts a bigger emphasis on the ability to connect to Strava where I still tracked my workouts from a Garmin or Apple Watch and helped to provide more reliable data points for Readiness metrics, which told me a similar story to the Training Readiness insights on a Garmin and the Energy scores on a Samsung Galaxy Ring.

Sleep tracking is still a strength for Oura and remains one of the biggest reasons to buy this ring. When I compared core sleep data like total sleep, resting heart rate and sleep stage breakdowns with the Samsung Galaxy Ring and Garmin’s, the data looked strong, reliable and insightful.

Mike Sawh

Oura will also pay attention to your daytime stress and resilience, so I could clearly see from the app where I was veering to more stressful periods of my day with useful explanations provided why it can sometimes be on the rise at certain parts of the day.

There are a bunch of other features here to encourage good habits or provide more insights. You can take on an experiment to reduce caffeine intake, see your cardiovascular age and make use of the symptom radar, which came in handy when testing it out first with the Oura Ring Gen 3.

Cycle tracking is included in the app, though Oura is currently the only smart ring manufacturer to be supported for the FDA-approved app Natural Cycles, which may be a key swing for many buyers.

Oura’s companion smartphone app has certainly become a lot busier than when it first launched. Crucially, it still makes those features glanceable and engaging, which is where some other smart ring makers slightly falter.

Battery Life & Charging

• Up to 8 days battery life 
• Uses charging cradle
• Fully charges in 90 minutes

Other smart rings are bettering Oura for battery performance. The RingConn Gen 2 stands out in front with 12 days with the Samsung Galaxy Ring promising a week between charges.

Mike Sawh

You can enjoy up to eight days of battery life with the Ring 4, though that number can depend on ring size and the monitoring features in use.

My size eight is one of the smaller ring sizes available, and that seems to mirror the type of battery life I enjoyed. Typically, it was closer to five days than eight days, with a nightly drop-off of 14-15%, showing you how much data crunching it does overnight. 

If you turn on the blood oxygen sensing, there’s a more dramatic drop in battery life. If you can live without that, you’ll enjoy significantly more battery between charges.

That is an improvement on the Ring Gen 3, which in the same size lasted typically lasted just a couple of days. Things are going in the right direction, it’s just not the leader on battery front.

When it’s time to charge, you still have a charging cradle that you can drop the ring onto. Depending on how low you are on battery, charging can take anywhere from 20-80 minutes. That’s the same as the Oura Ring Gen 3.

The look of the cradle is a bit more high grade than the previous one, though I do think the portable charging cases available with the Galaxy Ring and RingConn Gen 2 make for better smart ring charging setups.

Price & Availability

The Oura Ring 4 is available directly from Oura’s website, though one Tech Advisor editor experienced shipping delays with the Gen 3 model due to it coming from overseas.

If you don’t want to risk that, you can get it from John Lewis in the UK, and Amazon and Best Buy in the US.

The Oura Ring 4 is one of the most expensive smart rings you can buy outright and with the addition of the monthly or annual subscription. Pricing for the silver and black rings is £349/$349 and jumps to £399/$399 for the brushed silver and stealth finishes. The gold and rose gold versions are the priciest at £499/$499. Add in either $5.99 a month or $69.99 annual subscription and things start to add up.

So, how does that compare to the competition? The Samsung Galaxy Ring is Oura’s most high-profile smart ring rival and comes subscription-free with a one-off price of $399.99. Other subscription-free options include the Ultrahuman Ring Air (£329/$349), the Circular Smart Ring Slim (£226/$264) and the RingCon Gen 2 ($299/around £225).

The Oura Ring Gen 3 is still around and can be picked up for £249/$249, making it the cheaper Oura Ring buy without factoring in the subscription.

Should you buy the Oura Ring 4?

If you want a smart ring that looks good, feels comfortable to wear day and night and presents data in an engaging way, the Oura Ring 4 is the standout smart ring.

If you own an Oura Ring Gen 3, the biggest wins are the improved battery life, a boost in heart rate tracking and a more comfortable fit where those sensors feel less prominent. It should also be supported for longer, as it’s a newer model.

The Oura Ring 4 doesn’t beat other smart rings in all departments though. The RingConn Gen 2 will get you more battery and there are other rings that won’t make you pay for some of the metrics the the Oura can punch out.

It’s all about the package and while the Oura Ring 4 isn’t perfect in all areas, it’s strong enough in most to make it the best smart ring you can put on your finger.

Specs:

• Up to 8 days battery life
• Works with Android and iOS
• Requires monthly or annual subscription
• Weighs 3.3g-5.2g
• 2.88mm thickness
• Tracks blood oxygen levels
• Water resistant up to 100 metres
• Tracks steps and sleep
• Six colour finishes
• Available in sizes four through 15