The time has come: the Oura Ring 4 has officially been upstaged by the hotly anticipated Oura Ring 5, and there are plenty of changes to the ring you should know about if you’re deciding whether or not to invest.
I have been wearing my Oura Ring since its 2021 release, graduating from the Oura Ring Gen 3 to the latest 5 model, and I’m convinced it’s still the best smart ring on the market, despite stiff competition emerging.
Launched on May 28 2026, the Ring 5 is now the “world’s smallest smart ring,” but what else can you expect? Oura announced new features that will roll out to the Oura Ring Gen3, Oura Ring 4, and Oura Ring 4 Ceramic. These include live workout tracking, more women’s health features and a brand new way to find your ring or charging case if you lose it.
Read on to find out more about the Oura Ring 5 vs Oura Ring 4, whether we think it’s worth upgrading and a sneak peek at the new design.
The Oura Ring 5 is available for preorder (it will ship June 4), and comes in six finishes. It’s thinner and lighter, and lasts up to nine days on a charge.
Oura Ring 4 starts at $349 and is available in six different metal finishes: Rose Gold, Gold, Silver, Brushed Titanium, Black, and Stealth. It features a smooth interior and up to 8 days of battery life.
Oura Ring 5 vs. Oura Ring 4: Specs compared
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Oura Ring 4 | Oura Ring 5 |
|---|---|---|
Starting price | $349 | $399 |
Sizes | 4-15 | 6-13 |
Colors | Gold, Rose Gold, Silver, Brushed Titanium, Black, Stealth | Gold, Stealth, Brushed Silver, Deep Rose, Silver, Black |
Sensors | PPG (heart rate + SpO2), skin temperature, accelerometer | PPG (heart rate + SpO2), skin temperature, accelerometer |
Weight | 3.3-5.2 grams | 2-2.69 grams |
Thickness | 2.88 mm | 2.28 mm |
Battery life | Up to 8 days | Up to 9 days |
Subscription | $5.99/month | $5.99/month |
Oura Ring 5 vs. Oura Ring 4: Price and availability
The Oura Ring 5 launched on May 28 and is now available for pre-order directly with Oura and other retailers including Amazon and Best Buy.
Shipping is due to begin June 4, while the Oura Ring 4 and ceramic will continue to be available.
As for pricing, the Oura Ring 4 starts at $349, while the Ring 5 begins at $399, with premium finishes (Gold, Stealth, Brushed Silver and Deep Rose) coming in at $499. Each purchase comes with a charger, but you can buy Oura’s Ring 5 charging case, which is now available for pre-order at $99.
You’ll get a one-year protection plan, plus a free month’s trial of the Oura membership, which costs $5.99 a month thereafter.
Oura Ring 5 vs. Oura Ring 4: Design
There have been some pretty significant changes to the newer version’s design, and the most notable is that the Ring 5 is 40% smaller than its predecessor, making it more wearable for your everyday life; it’s now the world’s smallest smart ring.
Like the Oura Ring 4, the Ring 5’s sensors are recessed. However, the 5’s sensor domes provide better skin contact, more powerful LEDS (for clearer readings) and 12 stronger signal pathways for better accuracy across finger types and skin tones.
Oura also redesigned the mechanical, electrical, optical, battery and sensing architectures to ensure the quality of the ring isn’t compromised by the smaller size. The rings are made from non-allergenic titanium, but the 5 features an extra-strong physical vapor deposition coating that enhances scratch resistance. It’s also dust and waterproof to 100 meters (IP68), rather than waster resistant.
While the Oura Ring 4 comes in sizes 4 through 15, the Ring 5 comes in sizes 6 to 13. Oura strongly recommends confirming your best fit with a sizing kit; the new design means your ring size might change.
Oura Ring 5 vs. Oura Ring 4: Fitness tracking features
The Oura Ring 4 introduced smart sensing, which meant your ring could create up to 18 sensing paths to read through your finger. As mentioned, Oura redesigned the ring from the ground up, creating smaller but more powerful LEDS repositioned for accuracy, and 12 refined but stronger signal pathways.
Gen 3, 4 and Ring 5 users can benefit from Oura’s large bounty of health metrics and integrations, like sleep tracking, activity tracking, automatic workout detection, heart rate readings, readiness scores, stress tracking, menstrual cycle predictions, resilience estimates and long-term health trend insights, to name a few.
The Oura app is still split into three tabs, Today, Vitals and My Health, in an effort to keep all your information organized.
Oura has now introduced live activity tracking that lets members start a workout and follow their key metrics in real time from their phone. You can start a workout in the Oura App and track pace and distance during activities like running, cycling and strength training.
Members can also connect third-party heart rate monitors and supported devices, which gives access to heart rate in real time, including lock screen widgets for metrics. This feature becomes globally live on June 4. Automatic Activity Detection will also be more accurate, especially for low-motion activities like Pilates or yoga.
Oura Ring 5 vs. Oura Ring 4: Battery life and charging
The Ring 4 can last up to 8 days, though we’ve found it typically lasts around 5-6 days, which declines gradually over time. The Ring 5 is expected to add a day of battery life, lasting up to 9 days. How this fares is down to testing, so we will include our results in our Oura Ring 5 review.
With one-touch multiring support, members can pair and switch among multiple Oura Ring 4 and Oura Ring 5 devices on a single account at no further cost.
A sandblasted anodized aluminum case stores one month of battery and, unlike the 4, the Oura Ring 5 charging case supports wireless charging. There’s also a dedicated action button to check charging status and quickly pair the device. This will cost $99 and is available for pre-order.
Oura also introduced Locate, which helps you find your case and ring more easily, available for Oura Ring 4 and 5. You can support multiple devices and use the search mode in the app.
Oura Ring 4 vs Oura 5: Women’s Health & Privacy settings
Menopause Insights
Menopause Insights asks you structured questions about sleep, mood, cognition and daily functioning, helping your Oura ring understand how strongly perimenopause may affect your daily life. After the symptom assessment, Oura members will access a personalized dashboard that translates these symptoms into an overall impact level.
Thankfully, it’ll be easy to follow at a glance, and you can learn how lifestyle changes, stress and interventions can change this data using your My Health view. Members can also save and share results with clinicians.
This update will be available to anyone with the app.
Hormonal Birth Control
Also rolling out is Oura’s new Hormonal Birth Control feature, which adapts Cycle Insights for members using pills, patches, IUDs, implants and other hormonal methods. You can gain insight into how contraception influences your wellbeing, and how your hormone fluctuations impact your body.
This is an update to the ring’s current Cycle Insights tool.
Lab Uploads
Oura users will now be able to import lab and blood work results directly into the Oura App, placing blood biomarkers alongside the data Oura collects. This will be available globally from June 30, 2026.
Privacy and Data Control
Finally, Oura will now make it possible for all members to erase data stored in the Oura App by choosing a specific time window. This will still preserve the account and longitudinal history but allows members to decide what data is stored without impacting the value of long-term trends.
Oura Ring 5 vs. Oura Ring 4: Should you upgrade?
Although the in-app features will be available across both devices, there are some pretty big changes to the design of the 5 that could make it worth the upgrade, given the price isn’t enormously different.
However, if you’re not ready to invest in the 5, we suspect the Oura Ring 4 will be on sale, so you could pick up a bargain.
If you’re an avid Oura Ring user and want to be on the cutting edge of the company’s latest hardware, I think you can purchase a new one knowing it won’t be replaced for a while.
And if the size of the current ring feels off-putting, I can confirm that I’ve worn the Oura Ring 5 and it is super tiny, much easier to wear, and comes in beautiful colorways that blend into my everyday. Think sleek and chic.
We’ll be testing the Oura Ring 5 here at Tom’s Guide, so look out for our full, in-depth review coming soon.
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