Why you can trust Live Science
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best ones for you. Find out more about how we test.
We named the Oura Ring Gen 4 as the best option overall in our guide to the best smart rings on the market, and for a good reason. Not only is it the most size-inclusive and customizable model we have tested, but it is also exceptionally accurate and brimming with useful health-tracking features. It comes with a beautifully designed app, too, and thanks to its easy-to-understand health advice, it works well for both beginners and fitness professionals. The Oura Ring Gen 4 is a fabulous fitness tracker, but is it actually worth it in the long term?
We will not beat around the bush here — it is one of the most expensive smart rings out there. The Oura Ring Gen 4 costs anywhere from $349 for the basic silver, all the way up to a whopping $499 for the gold and ceramic versions. Unlike the vast majority of its competitors, it also requires a monthly subscription for full access to its features. The Oura membership costs $5.99 USD per month or $69.99 USD per year, nearly as much as Garmin Connect+ and other premium fitness platforms. It is quite a steep investment, even when compared to many top-shelf smartwatches.
DON'T MISS
Oura Ring Gen 4 long-term review
Oura Ring Gen 4: Comfort and durability
- Heavy and chunky
- Withstands water and harsh temperatures
- Minor scratches only, no scuffs or dents
The Oura Ring Gen 4 is one of the heaviest smart rings we have tested. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
If there is one thing in which the Oura Ring Gen 4 consistently outshines its competitors, it is the durability. This smart ring has graced our hand daily for four months straight, including when we were training in the gym, hiking outdoors and swimming in the sea, and it has never succumbed to accidental damage or design-related issues that blighted some of the other smart rings we tested. True, our Oura Ring Gen 4 did end up suffering a few scratches here and there, but they are so minor we can barely see them anyway. Not to mention, these scratches are definitely less visible than the ones sustained by our Ultrahuman Ring AIR (we managed to severely bruise the surface of this smart ring by simply holding a glass water bottle, and after just two weeks of testing).
That is not all — the Oura Ring Gen 4 also impressed us with its high resistance to temperature changes. Smart rings are relatively tiny and therefore generally prone to overheating when exposed to blazing sunshine or hot water. The Amazfit Helio ring, for example, would regularly overheat and shut down on us when we wore it while exercising outdoors during the scorching months of June and July. The Oura Ring Gen 4, on the other hand, has never malfunctioned in that way.
Chunky and cumbersome, the Oura Ring Gen 4 can be quite uncomfortable to wear. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
All in all, this smart ring is a tough cookie. However, that does not mean that it is also comfortable to wear. The Oura Ring Gen 4 is significantly heavier and chunkier than most other smart rings. Even after nearly five months of wearing it, we still can’t fully get used to its sheer size and weight. We always feel its presence, cumbersome and in the way, which can be particularly disruptive when exercising or clenching a fist. This is not something we experienced with other smart rings we tested; quite the opposite. With the Amazfit Helio and Ultrahuman Ring AIR, for example, we could easily forget about their existence regardless of what we were doing.
Oura Ring Gen 4: Performance and accuracy
- Consistent battery life
- No major connectivity issues
- Very good stat accuracy
The Oura Ring Gen 4 has served us well for the past four months. Most notably, we have not experienced any major connectivity issues, and this is our pet peeve when it comes to smart rings. Poor app connectivity and patchy data transfer often undermined our experience with these devices in the past (to put it lightly), so it was quite refreshing to see that it is not the case with the Oura Ring Gen 4. True, this smart ring may take a good few seconds to analyze your stress and sleep data when you open the app first thing in the morning, but it does not lag or disconnect for no apparent reason.
Battery life is another plus point. According to the brand, the Oura Ring Gen 4 lasts up to eight days on a single charge, and that is largely true in our experience. More importantly, it stays that way over time — after nearly five months of testing, its battery life is still as good as it was on day one (and that is not something we see often in fitness trackers in general). Of course, the eight-day threshold is not set in stone, and certain activities, such as tracking exercise sessions, will inevitably speed up the battery drain. However, it does not do it anywhere near as much as it does in other smart rings we tested. Looking back, we have never had to charge our Oura Ring Gen 4 more than once per week.
The Oura Ring Gen 4 boasts up to eight days of battery life. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
Last, but not least, the tracking accuracy. The Oura Ring Gen 4 does a particularly good job of measuring heart rate, stress and sleep quality, and has been largely spot-on with detecting when we fall asleep and when we wake up. This stat accuracy then feeds into the tailored sleep and recovery advice, helping to make it genuinely useful and helpful for the user. Speaking of these personalized tips and guidelines, they get even better with time, and that is because the Oura Ring Gen 4 is actively ‘learning’ how your body works and what your lifestyle typically looks like. This machine learning prowess proved to be particularly useful for our menstrual cycle predictions — they got scarily accurate after just three months of using this smart ring.
The Oura Ring Gen 4 has some of the best sleep-tracking features on the market. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
We are not fans of the activity detection feature, though. In theory, the Oura Ring Gen 4 should automatically pick up on the type and duration of your activities, and then allow you to accept or amend these logs in the app. All in the bid to save time. In practice, it is way more hassle than it needs to be. The activity detection feature can be quite overzealous, either logging minor movements as workouts (my personal favorite is when our Oura Ring Gen 4 thought we had a dancing workout when in reality we took a quick shower), or mislabeling our activities (cycling instead of running, etc.). Correcting all those little mistakes can be quite time-consuming, and even downright annoying in the long term. So, let us warn you: If you end up buying the Oura Ring Gen 4, be prepared to spend a few minutes each day cleaning up your activity logs.
Is the Oura Ring Gen 4 worth it in the long term?
All in all, the Oura Ring Gen 4 has stood the test of time, consistently providing us with a great user experience over the past five months. However, the question here is not about the quality of this smart ring, but rather about its overall functionality and value for money. This is where things get slightly more nuanced.
If stress management and maintaining good quality sleep are at the very top of your priority list, the Oura Ring Gen 4 is a worthy investment. Hands down, it is the best sleep tracker we have tested, and you would be hard-pressed to find a wearable with a better combination of build quality, tracking accuracy and customizable features. We found the Oura Ring Gen 4 genuinely helpful in establishing our sleep-wake cycle, spotting patterns in our stress levels or monitoring our post-exercise recovery, and we are confident it could do that for you, too.
The Oura Ring Gen 4 can help manage your stress better. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
However, a worthy investment does not automatically mean the best possible option. We have tried and tested enough fitness wearables to know that even models on the more affordable end of the spectrum are now getting increasingly better at assessing sleep quality and stress levels. The Amazfit Balance smartwatch is a good example here — this Chinese-made alternative to Garmin watches is subscription-free and costs only $149, yet it provides some impressive sleep-focused tracking tools and genuinely helpful features for managing stress. It may still fall slightly behind the Oura Ring Gen 4 in terms of the depth and detail of its metrics, but for those who do not need or want science-grade precision, the Amazfit Balance can provide just as much value.
All in all, it all comes down to whether you are willing to pay for the subscription. Personally, we really like our Oura Ring Gen 4, even though its chunky design can drive us crazy at times, and we will continue to use it for the foreseeable future. However, we can easily imagine a life without this smart ring.
The Oura Ring Gen 4 is an excellent piece of kit, but it is quite expensive in the long term, too. (Image credit: Anna Gora)
✅ Buy it if: You want an accurate and detailed sleep tracker that does not compromise on durability, app connectivity or battery life. The Oura Ring Gen 4 is the best-performing smart ring we have tested, and its sleep-tracking features are some of the best we have seen.
❌ Do not buy it if: You are on a budget. The Oura Ring Gen 4 is a great piece of kit, but, in all fairness, you can get a very similar user experience with some of the subscription-free smartwatches.
Oura Ring 4: Price Comparison
