<\/p>\n
By Lisa Eadicicco, celebrity.land<\/p>\n
(celebrity.land) \u2014 <\/b>One of the Apple Watch\u2019s biggest threats has no screen, weighs about a fifth of an ounce and charges a monthly subscription for most of its features. Yet Oura is on pace for $1 billion in sales this year, boosted by its presence on the fingers of celebrities including Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Dell.<\/p>\n
The health-tracking ring that measures sleep, physical <\/strong>activity and other biometrics from your finger is having a moment, growing from a relatively obscure Finnish startup to a smartwatch alternative favored by CEOs, sports players and movie stars.<\/p>\n But Big Tech has taken notice. Once an upstart competitor, Oura now has competition of its own. Like technology past, it now needs to evolve \u2013 or risk fading out.<\/p>\n CEO Tom Hale says he has a plan.<\/p>\n Ten years after launching its first ring, Oura expects to reach $1 billion in sales in 2025, doubling its 2024 revenue. And consumers bought <\/strong>more than half of the 5.5 million total Oura Rings ever sold in <\/strong>the last year alone.<\/p>\n But rivals like Google, Samsung and Apple are <\/strong>ramping up their health offerings, launching new health-related <\/strong>wearables and AI services.<\/p>\n Apple<\/a>, Samsung<\/a> and the Google-owned Fitbit <\/a>have all introduced wellness or sleep-oriented features similar to Oura\u2019s in recent years.<\/p>\n Oura\u2019s strategy to stay ahead? Hale sees a future in which Oura Rings may connect to even more devices around the body. He also thinks there\u2019s a lot more to be done with the device we already carry around every day: the smartphone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe phone is a super powerful processing and sensing device. Like, how do we take advantage of that?\u201d Hale said in an interview with celebrity.land.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason Oura has stuck with rings instead of expanding to more popular devices like smartwatches. The company has long claimed that the finger is more accurate than the wrist for tracking health data.<\/p>\n That approach has worked in Oura\u2019s favor as consumers increasingly seek discrete distraction-free tech without screens, according to Jitesh Ubrani, a research manager covering the wearables industry for the International Data Corporation.<\/p>\n But the company hasn\u2019t ruled out taking health measurements from other body parts. Hale said he\u2019s been interested in measuring brainwaves through the ears and core body temperature and heart data from the torso.<\/p>\n Just don\u2019t expect Oura to make those devices. When asked whether Oura would consider developing devices other than rings, Hale said the company would consider partnering \u201cwith other wearables that do special things that are unique and different.\u201d<\/p>\n Oura already works with glucose maker Dexcom to combine ring-measured <\/strong>metrics, like physical activity, heart rate and sleep, with glucose data. The company is more likely to partner with medical tech companies rather than consumer gadget makers in future collaborations to ensure accuracy, Hale said.<\/p>\n He also sees opportunity to use <\/strong>smartphones to capture <\/strong>health signals, saying that he\u2019s seen prototypes that can analyze a person\u2019s cough or measure their stress by the sound of their voice. It\u2019s not a new idea; services such as Canary Speech<\/a> and Together by Renee<\/a> have claimed to deduce mood signals from a user\u2019s voice. Amazon\u2019s now-defunct Halo health app also analyzed tone of voice to read emotions.<\/p>\n But more broadly, Hale expects AI to eventually help combine individuals\u2019 data from wearables with medical records so we can better understand our own health.<\/p>\n Combining insights from wearable devices with clinical data could help providers understand patients\u2019 overall health more, said Arielle Trzcinski, a principal analyst covering health care at Forrester.<\/p>\n \u201cFolks don\u2019t want to be going to the doctor all the time,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the clinician also needs to have a better picture of what\u2019s happening with this person outside of just sitting in my exam room for five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n Oura\u2019s competition is heating up. Google now has an AI health coach<\/a> similar to Oura\u2019s, and Apple added hypertension alerts to the Apple Watch and heart rate monitoring to AirPods this year. Samsung last year launched its first health tracking ring, which directly competes with Oura, and is also working on an AI-powered health chatbot.<\/a><\/p>\n Companies like Google and Meta have built their wearables businesses through acquisitions and partnerships. But when asked whether Oura would ever sell to a Big Tech competitor, Hale cited Oura\u2019s independence as a benefit.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s an advantage for us that maybe we might lose should someone come knocking, because people might lose some trust,\u201d he said. \u201cI think health uniquely has a lot to do with trust. I actually think that\u2019s one of the things that Oura has really gotten right.\u201d<\/p>\n Health care systems have also told the company they appreciate that Oura works with both iPhone and Android, said Hale, a perk that could change if Oura were to ever get acquired.<\/p>\n Oura, like many tech companies, is navigating the new world of AI. People are increasingly turning to ChatGPT for questions about health and wellness, and Oura will soon have to compete with new types of wearables, like Meta\u2019s smart glasses, for consumers\u2019 dollars and attention. While Meta\u2019s glasses aren\u2019t meant to be health trackers, the company launched a sports-oriented Oakley-branded model earlier this year.<\/p>\n Oura will need to continue improving its health tech and software to stand out, said Grace Harmon, a tech and AI analyst for eMarketer. That\u2019s especially true considering its devices don\u2019t come cheap; the ring itself starts at $349 and requires a $6 monthly subscription to unlock most of its features. Apple and Samsung don\u2019t require subscriptions for their smartwatches, although many of Google\u2019s more detailed health analytics are paywalled behind Fitbit Premium.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real differentiation is going to come from software, especially the quality of recovery, stress and insights that a device can deliver,\u201d Harmon said. For example, Oura launched an AI-powered assistant earlier this year that can answer questions about a user\u2019s sleep and other metrics.<\/p>\n Hale thinks wearables could play an important role in helping people with difficult-to-treat chronic illnesses manage their symptoms, but that requires further tailoring Oura\u2019s apps and readings for individual needs. People with chronic fatigue syndrome might want to make sure they\u2019re getting enough rest, while someone with lupus might want to look for early signs of flare-ups.<\/p>\n \u201cHow do I sense it coming quickly so I can intervene quickly?\u201d Hale said. \u201cI think that\u2019s game changing.\u201d<\/p>\n The-celebrity.land-Wire \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source keyt.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Lisa Eadicicco, celebrity.land (celebrity.land) \u2014 One of the Apple Watch\u2019s biggest threats has no screen, weighs about a fifth of an ounce and charges a monthly subscription for most of its features. Yet Oura is on pace for $1 billion in sales this year, boosted by its presence on the fingers of celebrities including […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1966607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2203323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Itsy-Bitsy-Teenie-Weenie-This-is-the-latest-celebrity-favorite-bikini.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2203323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2203324,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2203323\/revisions\/2203324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1966607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2203323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2203323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2203323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More than just rings<\/h2>\n
The competition gets tougher<\/h2>\n
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