The Gen 4 Oura just dropped a few hours ago, and it’s a fresh take on the Gen 3. With a sleeker ring, better fit, additional sizes, and a new charger, a lot of things are new in Oura Ring Gen 4. The list really doesn’t end.
The Heritage Oura is officially discontinued, and only the Horizon, all-round Gen 4, will be available on the market from now on (after the last batch of Gen 3 rings is sold out). Let’s get you all the details about Gen 4 and what it brings that’s new to the Oura scene.
New Features in Oura Gen 4
Smart Sensing
With Gen 4, Oura is introducing a whole new upgraded sensor technology, which is far more than simply tracking the metrics with sensors. The Smart Sensing algorithms work with Gen 4’s sensors hand in hand to measure your metrics in the most accurate way for your finger.
All hands, skin tones, and finger structures are different. So Oura intuitively recognizes the distinct features and utilizes all of its 18 pathways of PPG sensors to adjust the sensing in a way that’s ideal for you.
Oura’s research states that because of Gen 4’s Smart Sensing,
- There are 31% less gaps in the nighttime HR graph.
- 7% less gaps in the daytime HR graph.
- 120% increase in improvement of signal quality specifically for SpO2, which in turn increases the accuracy of average overnight SpO2 to 30%.
- 15% improvement in the accuracy of BDI (Breathing Disturbance Index).
How reliable these numbers are can only be tested once I have the ring in my hands.
It’s important to note here that Oura hasn’t introduced any new sensors in Gen 4, thus no new metrics are tracked. While the types of sensors are the same in Gen 3 and Gen 4, the way the rings collect data has a drastic difference. I am really looking forward to getting my hands on the shiny new Gen 4.
More Sizes Targetting Younger Female Market
Oura recently shared that most of its recent buyers are young females in their 20s and so, expanding their size range is a smart decision here. Oura Gen 4 is available in sizes 4 to 15 giving a wide audience a better chance at fitting and tracking their vitals.
However, I still feel Oura should have introduced half-sizes as I personally struggle with a little loose size 8 and a lot tight size 7.
Also, the same 6 finishes are available- Silver, Black, Brushed Silver, Stealth, Gold and Rose Gold. From the pictures that I’ve seen, it looks like the Gold and Rose Gold is a little subtle than that of Gen 3 and I prefer it this way only.
Get Fertility Brakcet
Oura is introducing The Fertile Window for the very first time with Gen 4’s launch. Note that this feature inside the Oura app is not the same as that Natural Cycles offers in collaboration with Oura. Although, the nature of the feature is the same.
Oura finds your fertility window not by guesswork but by having at least 3 months of continuous data of cycles, temperature trends, respiratory rate, heart rate, and heart rate variability. Our bodies give us a lot of indications, but only if we are open to listening to the indicators. Lucky for us, Oura will do the hard work.
Oura makes sure to give us a disclaimer that Fertility Window is not meant to replace contraception. This is just Oura guessing when you are fertile or not. For the regular girlies, this is going to be as helpful as it can be. As for me, with PCOS, I can never guess when I am due next. How can an app know?
Contextual Daytime Stress
In an attempt to give a little clearer direction to the totally daytime stress, heavily criticized by the community over and over again, Oura has finally brought contexts into the picture.
In the same Daytime Stress graphs, now you will be able to see two new toggles for “Daily movement” and “Tags and activities”. Playing with these will show you how your activity and movement impacted your stress, and to be honest, it would actually explain a lot of things for me.
Experience AAD Like Never Before
In October, Oura is adding two new metrics to its set of 40+ automatically detected activities, average heart rate and heart rate zones. Heart rate zones (0-5) are six different levels differentiated on the basis of how much percentage of your max heart rate was elevated.
We don’t always need HIIT or Zone 5 Heart rate zonal activity, moderate-level activity also has long term benefits and this particular feature helps Oura pp specifically identify how much time you spend in which heart rate zone.
To be honest, I am not a fan of Oura’s automatic activity detection, but the automatic heart rate tracking surely excites me enough to give it a chance once more with my activity tracking.
Totally Redesigned Oura App
Starting today and before 20 October, all Gen 3 and Gen 4 Oura ring users will have the redesigned Oura app, and it is truly impressive for me. Instead of Home, Readiness, Sleep, Activity and Explore, the new app has all the different menus.
Today
The Today tab will have key insights that will help you throughout the day. There are Insta-like circles on the top for Readiness, Sleep, and Activity scores; along with Cycle day, Daytime HR and more.
Moreover, by Oct 16, Oura will begin to roll out an even more refined and personalized Today’s tab with health insights specially helpful to you that will be changing dynamically all day.
Vitals
Vitals tab has a summary of all your health metrics and scores at a glance. To find out more about these metrics, you can simply click on the metric name and see a detailed breakdown from Oura, that will help you understand how Oura landed up to these numbers. Things will begin to make much more sense.
My Health
My Health tab is where you get the reality checks, this is where you see where your daily habits and vitals land you on the longer run. Resilience, Cardiovascular Age, Cardio Capacity, Sleep Health, Chronotype etc are all clubbed here to give you a look of your overall health.
Now that I have seen this, I can’t imagine going back to the app’s previous interface.
Battery and Charging
Oura couldn’t bring a portable charging case and this is one of the biggest bummers I have with Oura Gen 4. However, it did being a new charging dock with a sleek shiny finish.
The battery also seems to be extended upto 8 days which was only 6 days in Gen 3. With increased sizes, the battery life per charge will also be increased as the bigger rings have more space for the battery.
Wrapping Up
How all these features truly stand up to the users can only be known after a few months. Till then it is quite evident Oura has made more than enough attempts to upgrade and personalize the whole experience.
Leading the race of smart rings, I think after Gen 4, it will be really challenging for Ultrahuman and Galaxy rings to come close to the accuracy levels of Gen 4.
