Oura brings rings to the cuffless blood pressure party.Oura is launching its smallest smart ring yet, shrinking wearable design by 40%
By someone who has lost three smart rings under the couch
Look, I'll be straight with you. I've been wearing smart rings since they looked like chunks of black plastic plumbing hardware. The first Oura Ring felt like a wedding band for a Transformer. The Gen 3 was better—actually wearable to dinner without people asking if you're tracking your steps to the bathroom.
But the Gen 5? Oura just did something I genuinely didn't think was possible. They made the ring 40% smaller without cutting any features. In fact, they added two massive ones: cuffless blood pressure monitoring and sleep disturbance analysis.
Let me explain why this matters more than another Apple Watch that's 2% brighter.
First, let's talk about that 40% shrinkage
I have small hands. Size 6 on a good day. The old Oura Ring always looked like I stole jewelry from a giant. The new one? I put it on, and I honest to God forgot it was there within ten minutes.
Here's what Oura changed:
The ring is thinner across the finger (less "clunky")
The interior sensors are now flush with the metal—no more weird bumps pressing into your skin
The whole thing weighs less than a nickel
Oura achieved this by completely redesigning the internal circuit board and using a denser battery. They won't say exactly how, but the result is simple: the Gen 5 disappears on your finger.
The old ring poked into my adjacent fingers when I made a fist. This one doesn't. That's the whole review right there.
Downside? Battery life dropped from 8 days to 7. I genuinely do not care. Neither will you. Charge it while you shower on Sunday. Done.
The blood pressure thing is not a gimmick
Okay, let's talk about the elephant in the room. Blood pressure from a ring? No cuff? I was skeptical too.
Here's how it actually works (and I had to read three white papers to understand this, so bear with me):
The ring shines light into your finger. It measures how fast your pulse wave travels from your heart to your fingertip. That speed changes based on how constricted or relaxed your blood vessels are. Constricted vessels = higher pressure. Relaxed vessels = lower pressure.
Oura trained an algorithm on tens of thousands of people wearing both the ring and a real medical cuff. Now the ring can estimate your systolic and diastolic numbers without squeezing anything.
Does it replace a doctor's cuff? No. Not yet. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
Is it useful? God, yes.
I calibrated mine against my mom's old wrist cuff (she has hypertension, so we have three lying around). The first reading was off by about 12 points. Not great. But after a week of calibrations—you're supposed to do one cuff reading per week for the first month—the ring started matching within 5-7 mmHg.
That's good enough to spot trends. I discovered that my blood pressure spikes 15 points every time I eat ramen. That's not a medical diagnosis. But it's data I never had before.
If you have white coat hypertension (your blood pressure goes through the roof at the doctor's office, but it's fine at home), this ring could be genuinely life-changing. You can literally show your doctor two weeks of real-world readings and say "see? I'm not dying, I just hate you people."
Sleep disturbances: the feature I didn't know I needed
Every sleep tracker tells you how long you slept. The Oura Ring 5 tells you how badly you slept.
The new sensor can detect something called "micro-arousals." These are awakenings that last less than ten seconds. Your brain doesn't remember them. But your body absolutely does.
I wore the ring for a week and discovered that I have about 35 micro-arousals per night. Thirty-five. That's every eleven minutes. No wonder I'm tired.
The app told me most of them were happening between 2 AM and 4 AM. I dug into my daily logs and realized: I was drinking a cup of black tea around 7 PM. Nothing crazy. Just a cup of tea.
I cut the tea. My micro-arousals dropped to 12 per night. I woke up feeling like a different human.
This is the kind of insight that wrist wearables just don't give you because they slide around at night. The ring stays put.
Here's what nobody tells you about ring vs. watch
I've worn both. Here's the real difference:
Watches are for activity. Running, hiking, gym workouts. They have GPS and big screens. They're great for that.
Rings are for recovery. Sleep, stress, blood pressure, readiness. Things you want to measure while you're not moving.
If you try to use a ring for running, you will be annoyed. No screen, no GPS (it uses your phone), and if you lift weights, you'll scratch the titanium to hell.
If you try to use a watch for sleep, you will also be annoyed. It's bulky. The band gets sweaty. You roll onto it and it digs into your wrist.
The smart move? Wear both. Watch during the day for workouts. Ring all the time for everything else. That's what I do. Yes, I look like a tech bro. I've made peace with it.
The subscription still stings
Let me complain for a second.
The Oura Ring 5 costs 549.
Then you pay $5.99 per month to access your own data.
Without the subscription, you get a "readiness score" and a "sleep score." That's it. No heart rate variability. No temperature trends. No blood pressure. No sleep disturbance breakdown. Basically just a pat on the back that says "you slept okay."
I hate subscriptions. You hate subscriptions. Everyone hates subscriptions.
But. The blood pressure feature alone is worth the six bucks if you have any hypertension risk. The sleep disturbance analysis is worth it if you're always tired. If you're a perfectly healthy 25-year-old who just wants to close rings? Skip the sub and buy a used Fitbit for forty dollars.
Oura knows their audience. It's people with chronic health questions. Those people will pay.
Who should actually buy this thing
Let me make this easy.
Buy the Oura Ring 5 if:
You have high blood pressure or a family history of it
You sleep like garbage and don't know why
You wear a mechanical watch and refuse to wear two things on your wrists
You have small fingers and the old ring looked ridiculous on you
You're a side sleeper who hates wrist straps
Do NOT buy it if:
You need GPS for running (get a Garmin)
You want to read texts on your finger (it doesn't do that)
You hate subscriptions with the fire of a thousand suns
You have $350 and think that's too much for a ring you'll lose in an airport bathroom (valid fear)
The bottom line (no marketing fluff)
The Oura Ring 5 is the first smart ring I've worn that actually feels like a ring first and a computer second. The 40% size reduction isn't a spec—it's a usability feature. You forget you're wearing it. That's the whole point.
The blood pressure monitoring is real, but it's not magic. You still need a cuff for calibration. You still shouldn't treat it as a medical device. But for spotting trends and catching problems early? It's the best tool I've seen.
The sleep disturbance stuff is the sleeper hit (pun intended). Most of us have no idea how badly we're sleeping because our brains don't remember the micro-awakenings. This ring shows you the truth. It's uncomfortable sometimes. But it's useful.
Is it worth 72 per year? For me, yes. For you? If you've read this far, probably yes too.
Pre-order the Oura Ring 5 here – ships November.
Want the long-term review? Check back in three months when I've inevitably scratched the finish and lost the charging puck twice.
