The tiny piece of tech I never take off.
I already loved my Oura Ring 4, so the Oura Ring 5 had quite a lot to live up to. Somehow, though, the new generation has made me love Oura even more.
I have the Oura Ring 5 in gold, and one of my favourite things about it is simply how small and compact it is. I have never wanted another screen demanding my attention all day. I want something I can put on, forget about and then check when I actually want the information.
The Ring 5 is incredibly comfortable, and for something collecting so much information throughout the day and night, it is remarkably unobtrusive. I genuinely forget I am wearing it.
Perhaps the best endorsement of the new design, however, has come from my husband. He has an Oura Ring 4 in Stealth, the matte black finish, and is now extremely jealous of my gold Ring 5. He has already decided that if he upgrades, he wants the gold too. More importantly, he said he would happily replace his wedding band with the Ring 5 and wear it as his actual wedding ring.
I think that says a lot about how far the design has come. A smart ring needs to be something you genuinely want to have on your hand every single day, not something you tolerate wearing because you want the data. The Ring 5 is small and refined enough that it feels like a beautiful piece of jewellery that just happens to be packed with technology.
Considering a wedding ring is about as everyday as jewellery gets, I can’t think of a much better compliment.
One thing worth noting before ordering is sizing. Despite the Ring 5 being around 40 percent smaller than its predecessor, I actually stayed exactly the same Oura size as I wore in the Ring 4. That doesn’t mean everyone will. Some of my friends changed sizes when they switched to the 5. Oura recommends using its sizing kit before purchasing, and I would absolutely do that rather than assuming your Ring 4 size will automatically translate to the Ring 5. The overall design has changed, so even if you already own an Oura Ring, it is worth wearing the sizing ring and making sure you are still happy with the fit before ordering. In my case, same size, much smaller and more comfortable ring. A win all round.
This has always been one of Oura’s biggest appeals for me. I have used an Apple Watch and a Fitbit, and while there are plenty of things a smartwatch can do that a smart ring cannot, I increasingly prefer having my health and activity tracking packed into something much smaller. I don’t need calls, messages and notifications on my hand. I want the health information.
Interestingly, upgrading from the Ring 4 to the Ring 5 has also changed the way I use Oura.
With my Ring 4, I never really got into cycle tracking. I knew it was available, but I never explored it properly. With the Ring 5, I have started digging much deeper into what Oura can actually do, and cycle tracking has quickly become one of my favourite parts of the experience.
I love seeing that information alongside everything else my ring is monitoring. Rather than looking at activity, sleep, recovery, temperature trends and cycle information as completely separate things, Oura brings them together into a much broader picture.
That is where I think the Ring 5 becomes more than just a fitness tracker.
The Oura app is increasingly becoming a place where I can understand what is happening with my body, rather than a place I go to see how many steps I have done.
One feature that really pushes this further is the ability to bring lab results into Oura. Being able to upload blood test results and keep that health information in the same ecosystem as the data the ring collects makes a lot of sense to me.
It is an interesting direction for Oura because it starts shifting the experience from wearable technology towards something closer to a personal health hub. Your sleep, recovery, activity, cycle information and other health data aren’t necessarily sitting in completely separate places anymore.
Of course, I still use it for the everyday things too.
I use Activity tracking constantly, and I especially love Live Activity. When I am exercising, I can actively track the session while still having the ring as my main wearable. I get the information I care about without needing something larger strapped to my wrist all day.
And then there is my new favourite sport: competitive sleeping.
I have been adding all of my friends who own an Oura Ring to my Circle, which means something as basic as going to bed has somehow become competitive. Oura even puts a little crown on whoever has the highest score that day, so naturally I now want the crown.
It is ridiculous how motivating this tiny detail is. I am checking who has taken out the top spot across our scores and taking an entirely unreasonable amount of pride when that little crown belongs to me.
I once managed more than 13 hours of sleep in a single day.
Was this necessary? Probably not. Was it impressive? Absolutely. Have I been striving to reach those dizzying heights again ever since? Obviously.
Jokes aside, I genuinely love the Circles feature. Health data can feel incredibly serious, but this makes it social and fun. I am still paying attention to my sleep and recovery, but now there is also the deeply important matter of beating my friends and securing the crown.
Apparently, nothing motivates me to prioritise my sleep quite like the chance to win at it.
Then there is Locate. This sounds like a small feature until you own a tiny gold ring packed with technology and can’t remember where you put it.
Being able to locate the Ring 5 is one of those additions I now wouldn’t want to be without. A smart ring is designed to disappear into everyday life, but unfortunately that also makes it exceptionally easy to put down somewhere and immediately forget about it.
The battery life might be the feature that has impressed me most, though, and I inadvertently gave it a fairly decent real-world test. I travelled to Hong Kong for a week and didn’t take my charger. Normally, forgetting the charger for a wearable would be immediately annoying. Instead, my Oura Ring just kept going. I wore it throughout the trip, and it was perfect.
For me, that is exactly what wearable technology should be like.
I don’t want another device I have to constantly manage. I don’t want to be thinking about charging every night or deciding whether I can wear it to bed because the battery is running low. The whole point of something that monitors sleep, recovery, and activity is that you actually need to wear it.
Then comes the question that inevitably follows with Oura: is it worth the money, especially with a membership?
For me, yes. I actually think the Ring 5 itself offers value even without the subscription. It is beautifully made, incredibly comfortable and packs an extraordinary amount of technology into something that looks like a normal piece of jewellery.
Personally, though, I would buy the subscription because I actually use it.
Between cycle tracking, activity, Live Activity, sleep and recovery information, Circles and the wider health insights within the app, I don’t feel like I am paying for a huge collection of features that I never open. The more I have explored Oura, the more useful it has become.
There is also something refreshing about the lack of a screen. Wearable technology has spent years finding more ways to get our attention. Oura does almost the opposite. It collects the information quietly and waits for me to decide when I want to look at it.
I think that is ultimately why I love the Oura Ring 5 so much.
Yes, the hardware is fantastic. It is tiny, comfortable, beautiful to wear and has brilliant battery life. But the biggest change for me has actually been how much more engaged I have become with everything Oura offers.
I started with the Ring 4 largely using the features that interested me most. The Ring 5 has made me want to explore the entire ecosystem. The more information I bring into it, from activity and sleep through to cycle information and potentially even my blood test results, the more useful that overall picture becomes.
I’m not just wearing the ring anymore. I’m actually using what it tells me. And, apparently, using it to try to beat my friends at sleeping.
For something so tiny, the Oura Ring 5 has become a surprisingly big part of my everyday routine.
