There are many reasons you should choose one of the best smart rings over a conventional fitness tracker. And when it comes to smart rings, Oura is the undisputed leader of the pack for me. I've been wearing an Oura Ring 3 for the last couple of years, and it sounds like my natural next upgrade could be right around the corner.
According to a leaked internal document, posted on Reddit, the upcoming Oura Ring 5 could break cover as soon as this week. While Oura itself hasn't commented on the leak, it shows a "launch timeline" that claims the Oura Ring 5 will be announced tomorrow, May 28, 2026.
The leak also says that pre-orders will begin the same day, and the new smart ring will get an official launch and start shipping on June 5, 2026.
What can we expect from the Oura Ring 5? Well, the leaked documentation states that the Oura Ring 5 will be, "Oura's newest, smaller, and more comfortable ring, designed to keep the same health-tracking capabilities and membership features members know from the Oura Ring 4."
Oura gen 5 from r/ouraring
The Oura Ring 4 was a real step-up over the Oura Ring 3, offering an all-titanium design, recessed sensors, more size options, and an extra full day of battery life. If you've never used an Oura Ring before, it tracks all the necessary metrics: steps, calories, sleep, and can also provide you with advanced features like stress measurement and cardiovascular age. The Oura Ring 4 is up to 120% more accurate in certain respects than the Oura Ring 3 as well.
We'll seemingly need to wait until later this week to find out if there are more improvements to come with the Oura Ring 5. But it seems like the company is focusing on getting its wearable to be smaller and less obtrusive — trying to lighten the (size-dependent) 3.3 to 5.2 grams of the Oura Ring 4.
Battery is my big concern
After using an Oura Ring myself for roughly two years, and while I love the wearable, there's one major concern I have with it. It's not the $5.99 / £5.99 per month (or $72 / £72 per year membership), it's the battery life.
Screenless fitness trackers like the Oura Ring (and the recently-launched Fitbit Air) can offer up several days' worth of battery life compared to something like the Apple Watch Series 11. Apple's smartwatch is infinitely more capable, but it's likely to be dead within 70 hours. In my first year with the Oura Ring, it would easily go for five or six days without needing a charge. Sadly, that's no longer the case.
After two years, the tiny battery in my Oura Ring 3 now can't manage a full 24 hours without needing to be charged. And, honestly, after the third or fourth time of waking up to find the ring had died on me overnight, I stopped wearing it.
I appreciate that it's very hard to battle battery degradation on a device this small, but for a $299 starting price plus the monthly membership, I had hoped for a wearable that would last me longer than two years.
With the Oura Ring 5 supposedly smaller and thinner, I'm concerned about the impact on long-term battery life. My sincere hope is that Oura has made efficiency savings inside the Ring 5 that mean anyone buying one in 2026 can still expect reasonable performance and longevity from it in 2028 and 2029.
Here's what my colleague Kate Kozuch thought after wearing an Oura Ring 4 for an entire year.
