As someone who tests products for a living at the Good Housekeeping Institute, I’ve come across my fair share of wearables and fitness trackers, from Garmins to Fitbits and Apple watches. Among the generations upon generations of gadgets that I’ve rotated through, the one that’s earned a permanent spot on my finger is the Oura Ring.

To my surprise, I’ve been wearing this smart ring for the better part of three years. Why exactly? Because most of the time, I forget that it’s even there. There’s no bright display or screen to distract me, no vibrations on my wrist. It’s one of the few pieces of tech that blends in seamlessly with my other jewelry. Best of all, within its sleek, discreet design is the ability to track key data and provide me with daily metrics on everything from how well I’ve slept to when I should expect my period.

When I heard that Oura was launching a new ring, the Oura Ring 4, I lined up to try it so I could find out exactly how it differentiates from my already beloved Oura Ring Gen3. After a few months of wearing it, I'll admit that Oura took an impressive product and made it even better. The new ring’s design is slimmer, more accurate and features better battery life.

Whether you’re new to Oura or you’ve been using one for years like myself, you’ll find everything you need to know about this latest smart ring and whether it’s right for you.

What is the Oura Ring?

OURA Ring 4

Ring 4

Pros

  • Slim, minimalist design
  • Tracks more than 30 health and wellness metrics
  • Easy to use app
  • Improved battery life over previous generations
  • Features Smart Sensing for more accurate data
  • Offers period tracking and ovulation estimates
  • Durable, titanium design
  • Features recessed sensors
  • Available in wide range of sizes and finishes
  • Compatible with Android and iOS

Cons

  • Pricey
  • Subscription required for access to all metrics
Battery lifeUp to 8 days
Sizes4-15
Weight3.3-5.2 grams
MaterialsTitanium
FinishesSilver, Black, Brushed Silver, Stealth, Gold, Rose Gold
Water resistanceUp to 100m

The Oura Ring is a smart ring that helps you build awareness around your health and overall wellbeing by tracking key metrics, from your resting heart rate to HRV (heart rate variability), body temperature, calories burned and much more. The brand describes it as a “wearable designed to paint a truly holistic picture of your health.” While the wearable itself is modest, the Oura app you use alongside the ring isn’t. It’s robust and full of data that’s broken down into three sections across the bottom of the home screen: Today, Vitals and My Health.

oura ring home page
Olivia Lipski / Good Housekeeping Institute
The Today tab on the Oura app’s home screen.
oura ring app
Olivia Lipski / Good Housekeeping Institute
The Vitals tab on the Oura app.

In the Today tab, you’ll find your current biometrics, with quick access to various scores: Readiness, Sleep, Activity, Cycle Day, Daytime Heart Rate and Stress. Your Readiness score gives you an idea of how well you’ve recovered — i.e., are you well rested and ready to tackle the day or do you need to sit back and take it easy? — while your sleep score indicates how well you slept and your Activity score measures how active you’ve been.

In addition to these three scores, which you’ll also find broken down under Vitals in the app, the Oura features Cycle Insights, which tracks your menstrual cycle, as well as your Daytime Stress, which is based on your heart rate, HRV, motion and temperature throughout the day. This feature is one of Oura’s latest, and it helps you assess how stressed or relaxed you are.

oura ring testing
Miguel Rivera

Within the Oura app you’ll also find other data under the My Health tab, including Resilience, Heart Health, Chronotype and more. These insights are slower-moving metrics that are gathered over time and enable you to take a deeper dive into your overall health. Resilience is a measurement of "your ability to withstand and recover from physiological stress over time," according to Oura, while Heart Health is broken down into two insights: Cardiovascular Age and Cardio Capacity. These help you get a general idea of your cardiovascular system's health. Lastly, Oura identifies your specific Chronotype, i.e., whether you're a night owl or a morning person, so you can adjust your sleep schedule to your body's ideal rhythm.

Though this may sound like an overwhelming amount of data, it doesn’t have to be. The app is created in such a way that makes it intuitive to find the metrics you’re looking for — you can get as detailed as graphs of your heart rate to a quick glimpse of your sleep score. What's important is that Oura's data is always accessible and available when you're ready to review it.

How much does the Oura Ring 4 cost?

The starting price for the Oura Ring 4 is $349, and from there it goes up depending on the finish you select. For instance, gold and rose gold finishes are $499. The price isn't cheap, and it's comparable to an Apple Watch Series 10 or a premium Garmin, so you'll have to weigh which wearable is better suited for what you're looking for and gives you the most value.

On top of the ring price, Oura does charge a monthly membership fee for full access to its data. For anything beyond your Readiness, Activity and Sleep scores (like in-depth sleep analysis, heart rate monitoring, body temperature readings and more), you'll need to pay $5.99 per month or $69.99 per year after a one-month free trial.

I'll admit that it's annoying to have to pay for another subscription, especially when most fitness trackers don't require one for full access to metrics. I'll also acknowledge that I can't imagine using my Oura Ring without access to the data that's behind my scores, so you'll likely be stuck paying for the membership. I check my detailed sleep analysis almost every morning upon waking up, and love seeing how long I slept for as well as how much time I spent in various sleep stages. Cycle Insights is another feature I frequent, and one that I'd hate to miss out on.

What's new about the Oura Ring 4?

oura ring testing
Olivia Lipski / Good Housekeeping Institute
Oura Ring Gen 3 (left) vs. Oura Ring 4 (right).

At a glance, the Oura Ring 4 might look a lot like the Oura Gen3, but when you take a closer look, you'll see a few notable upgrades to the new model.

Design

The Oura Ring 4 sports a new, all-titanium design and offers one new finish: A sleeker, deeper black. It's now available in more sizes (12, specifically), but what excites me most are the changes to the Oura Ring's sensors. The new ring features recessed interior sensors so the ring is smoother, slimmer and more comfortable when worn. For comparison, the previous Oura's sensors were housed in three interior domes that jutted out and rubbed against your finger. Though I eventually got used to these raised sensors, I certainly don't miss them and would choose the recessed design every time.

Sensors and Technology

Oura didn't just stop there when it comes to sensors. The brand also updated its technology with the launch of "Smart Sensing," which improves the accuracy of the data your ring collects. According to Oura, "The sensors automatically adapt to find the best signal path, ensuring continuous, accurate data, even if your ring shifts periodically out of ideal alignment — all while optimizing the battery life."

One area where I've noticed a huge improvement over my Oura Ring Gen3 is sleep tracking. The Oura Ring 4 does a significantly better job at detecting any naps I take during the day and updating my sleep score as a result, whereas naps were typically left unrecognized by my older ring. There are also a ton of improvements to activity tracking (which I'll go over below).

Aside from the technology and design, the Oura Ring still uses the same sensors, i.e., infrared, red and green LEDs to measure everything from blood oxygen to heart rate, HRV and more, while a digital sensor measures skin temperature variation and an accelerometer tracks movement. One thing to note: The LEDs seem a bit brighter than before and I notice them more in the middle of the night, but it could just be my perception.

Battery life

The Oura Ring's battery life has always been good, and it improved even further with the Oura Ring 4. The new ring's claimed battery life is eight days, which is significantly better than some wearables on the market. That being said, in my own use, my Oura Ring has consistently lasted about 6 days and 5 nights, which is a bit less than the claimed battery life, but still better than the previous generation. I also appreciate that now, even when the battery is on the cusp of dying, the ring is usually able to track how many hours I slept (even if it doesn't have enough juice to track details like my sleep cycles and other stats).

Charging the Oura Ring 4 takes anywhere between 20-80 minutes, according to the brand, depending on current battery levels. I find that my ring is usually ready to go in roughly 30-40 minutes, and like that even a quick 10-minute charge before bed usually gets me enough power for it to make it through the night.

Activity tracking

For avid fitness enthusiasts, I'd recommend investing in a smartwatch or fitness tracker over the Oura Ring for their ability to gather more metrics and in-depth analysis. Plus, a screen really comes in handy when you want to start, pause or stop a workout (or simply check in on how you're doing). If, however, you don't need quite as much fitness data, the Oura Ring is a perfect compromise. I, for one, appreciate that it counts my steps and lets me know roughly how much I've walked during the day.

Even though activity tracking isn't Oura's strongest feature, it did introduce Automatic Activity Detection and heart rate zones with the Oura Ring 4. Now, when I walk my dog or commute to the office, I don't have to manually log that activity. Instead, the Oura Ring tracks it for me, along with my heart rate, and asks me to confirm it later in the app. I have noticed that my walks are often mistaken for yoga, so the feature isn't perfect, but it is getting better. I also like that my running routes are tracked, and the ring can recognize up to more than 40 different activities. Before, my Oura Ring never tracked my laps in the pool, whereas now it logs all my swims without fail.

Women's health

oura ring testing
Miguel Rivera

Oura has always been supportive of women's health with features such as Cycle Insights, and in recent years, it's made even more strides to transform the Oura Ring into a tool for understanding everything from your period to your fertility. With the introduction of the Oura Ring 4, Oura announced Fertile Window, a new feature within Cycle Insights.

Now, in addition to tracking phases of your menstrual cycle and predicting the start of your period, the Oura Ring can determine the days you're most likely to conceive by predicting ovulation. Oura does stress that this feature shouldn't be used as a form of birth control (for hormone-free birth control, you can subscribe to a third-party app powered by Oura called Natural Cycles), but it can serve as a helpful tool for family planning.

I've actually been a longtime advocate of using the Oura Ring to pinpoint ovulation, and it's how I was able to get pregnant. At that time, the Oura app didn't yet have a Fertile Window feature so I relied solely on the Oura Ring's temperature reads to predict ovulation myself. With this new feature, there's no more guesswork necessary. I'm so excited to see how Fertile Window helps other users better understand their reproductive health, and I love that it's available across all Oura Rings and not just exclusive to the Oura Ring 4.

Oura also has other women's health features worth mentioning, like Pregnancy Insights. I was able to test this during my recent pregnancy, and liked that it tracked gestational age and offered some insights in the app. But overall, I found the feature lacking and turned to other pregnancy apps for educational resources and more information on the changes my body was going through. For instance, one thing that bothered me was that my Oura Ring was constantly alerting me of having an elevated heart rate, even though heart rate increases throughout pregnancy and the trend is totally normal.

Eventually, I'd also love to see more resources within the Oura app to support women in their postpartum recovery.

Daytime stress

oura ring daytime stress
Good Housekeeping / Olivia Lipski


Daytime Stress is another one of Oura's latest features, and it's the one that I'm least familiar with. The idea behind Daytime Stress is to pinpoint moments of physiological stress to help you better understand your stressors during the day and better focus on recovery and restorative time.

As a new mom and someone who commutes in and out of New York City multiple times a week, my day can have a few "stress" peaks (note: not all of these peaks are bad, according to Oura). While I'm not sure I love that my ring alerts me of how stressed I've been, I do appreciate that it's trying to bring me more awareness around when I need to relax and take better care of myself.

Bottom line: Is the Oura Ring 4 worth it?

oura ring testing
Olivia Lipski / Good Housekeeping Institute

The Oura Ring is absolutely worth it if you want to learn more about your health and wellness. Over the years, it's helped me become more aware of my sleep as well as times when I need to prioritize rest and recovery. While I do wish that access to all metrics came subscription-free, the simple fact that the Oura Ring collects so much useful data without making sacrifices to design makes it irreplaceable. It's by far my favorite smart ring on the market, and I love everything from its super intuitive app to how the ring suits my style, all while remaining comfortable 24/7.

If you already own an Oura Ring Gen3, I'd say that upgrading to the Oura Ring 4 isn't urgent quite yet. But if you're shopping for your first smart ring, I'd definitely recommend going ahead and paying a bit more for the Oura Ring 4 and its slimmer design, improved accuracy and better battery life.

Why trust Good Housekeeping?

GH Institute Senior Reviews Writer & Analyst Olivia Lipski oversees product testing and covers tech, travel, fitness, parenting, home and more. She's covered all types of smart watches for women and has reviewed the Oura Ring vs. Apple Watch as well as the Garmin vs. Apple Watch. Since 2022, she's been wearing an Oura Ring — from the Heritage and Horizon styles of the Gen3 to the most recent Oura Ring 4. It's become her go-to smart ring for tracking everything from her sleep habits to her overall wellness.

Headshot of Olivia Lipski
Olivia Lipski
Senior Reviews Writer & Analyst

Olivia (she/her) is a senior reviews writer and analyst at the Good Housekeeping Institute, where she tests and writes about tech, home, travel, fitness, parenting and health products. Since joining GH in 2021, she has continued to leverage her extensive product reviews experience by staying on top of the industry’s latest innovations and helping readers make better buying decisions. Olivia is a graduate of the George Washington University, with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, political science and French, and she holds a master’s degree in communications from Sciences Po Paris.