The Oura Ring 4 is the best smart ring you can get right now. It might not be the best deal (the Oura Ring Gen 3 is cheaper and very nearly as good), but having tried other rings from the likes of Ultrahuman and Samsung, I’m still on team Oura. The features, the activity tracking, the app — it’s all a cut above what the competition is offering. There’s just one area I wish Oura would take a page from the rest of the pack: charging.
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Review: The Oura Ring 4 finally addresses my biggest pain point with smart rings
Improved automatic tracking is a game-changer
Various smart rings not made by Oura, including the Samsung Galaxy Ring, the RingConn Smart Ring, and the Movano Evie, offer a serious convenience advantage over the Oura Ring 4: they each come with a charging case, similar to the ones you’ll get with wireless earbuds. When any of those rings runs low on battery, you have the option to pop it in its charging case to top up away from stationary power. Oura’s rings (and other rings that don’t have charging cases) come with puck-style chargers, which have to be plugged into USB power to charge.
With a charging case, you can go considerably longer without connecting your smart ring to a stationary power source. That’s useful for particularly long travel stints: the Galaxy Ring, for example, can run for weeks without ever seeing a USB cable. But it’s convenient in more pedestrian use cases, as well. Say you’re about to head out the door and notice your smart ring’s about to hit zero. With an Oura Ring, you can pop it on a charger and wait until it’s charged to leave, or you can go out without your ring. With a charging case, you’d be able to charge your ring while it’s in your pocket and pop it back on your finger whenever it’s ready.
I still stick with Oura because of the advantages I mentioned above and because Oura keeps introducing additional features (like the new Symptom Radar that can warn you when certain health metrics indicate you may be coming down with something). Smart ring battery life generally also makes a charging case a luxury: with battery life that can last up to a week, plugging in to charge isn’t all that onerous.
At the same time, though, Oura’s rings are undeniably luxury goods themselves. The Oura Ring 4 starts at $350, with finish upgrades pushing the price as high as $500 — and that doesn’t even factor in the monthly fee. At price points like these, I don’t think Oura can afford to skimp on nice-to-have features.
At least give us the option
It’s too late for the Oura Ring 4 to ship with a charging case; it’s been on the market for months. At this stage, I’d be pleased to see Oura build a charging case for its latest ring and offer it as an add-on purchase — ideally at an affordable price, or offered at a steep discount when purchased with the ring itself. If nothing else, my fingers are crossed that a future Oura Ring 5 takes cues from the increasingly stiff competition and ships with a charging case.
