Wearable devices have split into two broad categories: Those with screens and those without.
The former is a constant companion, sending you notifications and allowing you to keep track of your steps and fitness goals throughout the day. Anyone who’s ever checked their wrist expecting an urgent message only to find a blurry photo of someone from LinkedIn can attest to just how annoying they can be.
The latter, meanwhile, is far more unobtrusive. Taking the form of wristbands, like WHOOP, or rings, such as the Oura, you have to actively seek out your insights on a paired app.
With a single charge lasting multiple days, and no haptics to disturb you, you’re far more likely to wear them day and night.
That constant monitoring is an incredibly powerful tool for healthcare, Oura Ring’s CEO Tom Hale told Euronews Next at Web Summit Qatar.
‘Your health changes all the time, and a biometric wearable unlocks that’
First launched in 2013, the Finnish healthcare company started by focusing on sleep before expanding into tracking other metrics such as stress and recovery, fitness, metabolic health, women’s cycles, and more.
“We started with sleep because it was sort of like a Trojan horse. If you could get people to wear it during the nighttime, you'd be able to see their body at rest and be able to make interesting insights over time, and that really unlocks a lot of things for health,” said Hale.
“All these dimensions of your health are starting to be understood from a single biometric wearable. That's a really powerful place to be because people's health changes all the time. Your health will change over your life, and if you're a woman, your health changes every 30 days.”
Sitting on the boundary between wellness and clinical, the Oura Ring isn’t currently classified as a medical device – though it is being used by those doing research in the healthcare space.
To date, Oura Rings have been used in more than 200 studies, the best-known being TemPredict, which was used to examine early indicators for COVID-19 infections before the onset of symptoms.
In late 2024, the company rolled out Symptom Radar, which checks for signs of strain on your body by looking for subtle (or not so subtle) changes in your data. Users armed with this knowledge can then lower their activity levels to improve their immune system’s response.
“We’re thinking a lot about the power of being able to make predictions about your health in the short term and the long term,” Hale adds.
“In the short-term, it might be, hey, you're getting sick in a couple of days, but in the long-term, it might be, hey, you have a higher risk of hypertension. You have a high risk of a heart attack. You have a higher risk of diabetes.
“If we can make those kinds of long-term predictions, I think that we can have a really big impact on the world of health.”
What’s next for health tracking
The Oura Ring already offers users plenty of data, but the next big metric for tracking will be blood pressure.
Around 100,000 Oura Ring users are currently enrolled in a blood pressure profile study, which will test how accurate its blood pressure measurements are compared to the current gold standard, the arm cuff. The study looks at both those in the normal range, as well as those who are hypotensive or hypertensive.
“This is the silent killer. Blood pressure and hypertension can lead to stroke. They could be precursors to heart attacks, and we want to make sure that we're providing the best, most accurate data,” said Hale.
“We already track temperature, respiration, and heart rate, and with the addition of blood pressure, we’ll have completed the four vitals, and that’s a really good picture for someone’s health.”
How AI keeps insights simple
Unless you’re a biohacker, the sheer amount of data the Oura Ring collects could be considered overwhelming.
That’s where artificial intelligence (AI) comes in.
While the app starts by offering compound scores, which are numbers that reflect how well you slept, your activity rate, and your readiness, Oura has also been using large language models (LLMs) to generate simple insights.
“One thing we hear a lot from people is that they just want to be told the meaning. They don't want the data, they want the insight,” Hale said.
“Instead of saying, hey, here are all your numbers, and you can figure out that you're getting sick from that, instead, we have the symptom radar saying there are major signs you are getting sick. AI is a very powerful tool because one of the things that generative AI, in particular, is good at is making those numbers understandable. That’s really been a game changer in the last couple of years.”
The future of wearables
For the foreseeable future, the Oura Ring is staying firmly on our fingers.
When asked about what the wearables of the future will look like at a Web Summit Qatar talk, Hale said he doubted the technology would become implanted any time soon.
“Today, the ring is an incredible form factor. This is the most accurate insight on the human body to measure,” he said.
“When you go to the hospital, where do they put the sensor? on the back of your wrist? No, they put it on the tip of your finger. There's lots of reasons for that.”
Instead, he believes there is space for a “cloud of wearables”.
Alongside rings, fabrics could become sensors to track electrodermal activity, and improved biosensors will be able to measure ketones and other hormones.
“This cloud of wearables will give us a richer set of data and will enable us to make better predictions about your health,” Hale said.
