Oura has announced two new features for the Oura Ring Generation 3: Cardio Capacity, which is an estimation of your VO2 Max, and Cardiovascular Age.
According to CEO Tom Hale, the features are part of Oura’s plan to add the Ring’s software with ‘meaningful’ updates around once a quarter. In a sit-down interview with TechRadar, Hale says Oura’s strategy is “not necessarily about the generations of hardware", implying we won’t be seeing an Oura Ring Generation 4 troubling our best smart rings list any time soon.
“Our strategy has always been to release software features on a cadence of one a quarter, that are really meaningful – like Cardiovascular Age,” says Hale. “So it’s not necessarily about the generations of hardware.
“The biggest impact, and this has surprised us as well, is that [the Oura Ring Gen 3] is a three-year-old design, and yet we are seeing growth two times what we were experiencing a year ago, with a newer product [at the time]. It’s really the software that’s carrying water.
“When we think about our next-generation ring, there are new things that might be enabled, but it’s really about the software when it comes to experience, insight, guidance or coaching for a user.”
What are the two new features?
Cardiovascular Age is a feature that looks at your heart’s relative age in relation to your actual age, by using the Oura Ring’s array of sensors to estimate arterial stiffness. Arterial stiffness is a condition that precedes high blood pressure and is commonly associated with aging or unhealthy hearts.
Cardio Capacity, on the other hand, attempts to contextualize VO2 Max, which is a metric commonly used by sportspeople to determine how fit they are. It’s a measure of how much oxygen your body can turn into energy, and it’s a metric commonly found on the best smartwatches and best running watches. You can find out more in our guide all about what VO2 Max means on your smartwatch.
The features are said to be rolling out in late May 2024, and will be available on Oura Ring Gen 3 devices on both Android and iOS.
Analysis: Oura refuses to follow its rivals with regular hardware releases
In an era in which big tech brands such as Apple and Samsung are frequently criticized for bringing out generation after generation of wearables, and phones with bare-minimum incremental updates, it’s kind of refreshing to have a wearable device you know will be supported for a long time to come.
It wouldn’t have been unreasonable to expect the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Ring to have encouraged Oura to fast-track the development of an Oura Ring Generation 4, so it could do a splashy launch of a new piece of hardware to compete for headlines against Samsung. Instead, Oura has chosen to let its features do the talking, and continue to upgrade its perfectly good device with an increasing number of software features.
In fact, during a presentation of the new features, Hale joked that Samsung was making more people aware of the fact smart rings are a thing, implying not everyone interested in smart rings is going to have a Samsung phone – and should that be the case, they’re likely to turn to Oura instead. Until Apple decides to produce a smart ring – and we know the Apple team is at least mulling it over – Hale is probably right, and the Oura Gen 3 is about to become more popular than ever.
