Oura Ring 5 Review: What’s New and Why I Upgraded

GOOD GEAR RATING — 9/10 STARS

Summary: After three months of testing, including throughout my pregnancy, we highly recommend the Oura Ring as a discreet, comprehensive wearable for tracking sleep, activity, recovery, and other health trends throughout the day.

PROS

• Comfortable, discreet, and easy to wear all day and night, with a long battery life that makes consistent tracking feel genuinely effortless
• Tracks 50+ health and wellness metrics, from sleep and activity to heart rate, HRV, temperature, stress, and blood oxygen, with integrations that allow you to bring in data from other health tools
• A thoughtfully designed wearable that gives you a lot of health insight without a screen, buzzing notifications, or another device constantly competing for your attention
• Oura’s combination of detailed data and simple guidance makes it useful whether you want a quick snapshot of your day or a deeper look at how your habits may be affecting your health

CONS

• The $399+ upfront cost plus an ongoing membership makes Oura a significant investment, and while HSA/FSA eligibility can help, the price may still put it out of reach for some people

I didn’t wear my Oura Ring during my first pregnancy. My fingers swelled so much that by the end, even my silicone wedding band was uncomfortable. But when I got pregnant again this year, I was curious whether the latest release—the Oura Ring 5—would be a better option. It has a slimmer, lighter design, plus new upgrades and data features that set it apart in a crowded tech market.

Here’s my honest review of the Oura Ring 5 after wearing it this summer during my first and second trimester.

About the Oura Ring 5

Oura was founded in 2013 in Finland; the founders wanted to create a wearable that could help people better understand their health and well-being. Today, the company is headquartered in San Francisco, but that Finnish influence is still part of the brand’s identity, and it has made itself known worldwide (the brand is global).

Oura describes its approach as rooted in Nordic wellness principles, emphasizing balance rather than burnout. That philosophy comes through in one of Oura’s central ideas: “giving every body a voice.” The idea is that your body is constantly sending signals in the background, many of which are hard to notice in everyday life. The ring hopes to turn some of those signals into clearer, more actionable insights for feeling well—not simply living longer.

But the actual ring. The Oura Ring 5 isn’t so much a reinvention as a refinement of previous generations. For one, it’s 40 percent smaller than the Ring 4, with a redesigned sensing system underneath. It’s 6.09mm wide, 2.28mm thick, made with a seamless titanium interior and titanium exterior, waterproof up to 100 meters, and comes in six finishes. Battery life is now 6–9 days depending on size and use.

That unobtrusive design is really the point. Oura’s philosophy is to make a wearable you’ll actually wear—and, importantly, one you’ll want to sleep in. There’s no screen competing for your attention, and the ring is designed to blend into your life rather than constantly asking you to interact with it. According to the company, members actually wear their rings for an average of 23.5 hours a day! That feels like a pretty good measure of whether that philosophy is working.

One note: even if you’re upgrading from an older Oura, use the sizing kit before ordering. The Ring 5 fits differently enough that I wouldn’t assume your old size will carry over. I wore the sizing ring for several days before settling on mine, which gave me a much clearer sense of what would actually feel comfortable overnight.

How Much Does the Oura Ring 5 Cost?

The Oura Ring 5 starts at $399 for the Silver and Black finishes, while Gold, Stealth, Brushed Silver, and Deep Rose are $499. A membership is also required to access Oura’s full suite of health insights and features, and costs $5.99 per month or $69.99 per year in the U.S.

One thing that makes the price a little easier to swallow: Oura says the Ring 5 and membership are HSA/FSA eligible in the U.S. You can use an HSA or FSA card at checkout, or pay out of pocket and submit the receipt to your provider for reimbursement. Eligibility ultimately depends on your individual plan, so it’s worth checking with your HSA or FSA provider first.

What Does Oura Track?

Oura has spent years expanding past sleep and activity, and the app now covers stress, heart health, women’s health, metabolic health, and nutrition, with more personalized guidance and upcoming AI integrations. The updated ring tracks more than 50 health and wellness metrics, including blood oxygen, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, temperature trends, sleep, activity, stress, and more. Oura also emphasizes sensing from the finger rather than the wrist, explaining that the arteries in the finger provide a 50–100x stronger pulse signal than typical wrist-based wearables, giving the sensors a stronger signal to work with.

What I really appreciate is that the brand takes the science behind that sensing seriously—and I would hope so, considering the steep investment. Oura has more than 50 MDs and PhDs working across its science and research efforts, alongside more than 130 peer-reviewed publications and more than 200 active research collaborations. They also report 99 percent heart rate accuracy and 98 percent heart rate variability accuracy when compared with ECG.

Other things I love: the app reminders have become a necessity for me. I work from home, have pregnancy sciatica, and it’s easy to sit still for too long without noticing. Oura’s nudges to get up are occasional enough that I haven’t wanted to turn them off, unlike more aggressive notifications on other devices. The “bedtime approaching” notifications are also a great reminder to start shutting things down and get off my phone.

For women specifically, that new ring expansion includes cycle insights, fertile window and ovulation estimates, pregnancy insights, and now menopause-related features alongside the sleep and recovery data Oura built its name on. Then there’s meal tracking, metabolic health tools, continuous glucose integrations, and an AI Oura Advisor.

I’m not using all of that in this season, but that’s what makes me so excited about this ring. Right now, pregnant and parenting a toddler, simple is what works. Mostly, I still use my ring to track sleep and steps. Oura has always been good at offering simple data, plus more complex analysis for those who want it. I can choose what I want to focus on during overwhelming seasons of life. I imagine once I’m postpartum and more focused on fitness goals, I’ll use more of this data to understand my health. For now, it’s nice to get insights into my sleep, heart rate, activity, and stress levels. And it’s good to know there’s more to explore when I want it.

Final Thoughts:

Oura has gone from a discreet sleep tracker to a much broader health platform. The ring has gotten smaller and less noticeable even as the amount of data it collects has grown. I expect that trend to continue, with less emphasis on generating new numbers and more on helping people understand what those numbers mean. Oura Advisor is an early sign of that shift, and the push into metabolic health and outside data integrations points the same way.

That’s also where I’ll be watching most closely. There’s a fine line between having a fuller picture of your health and having so much information that you start monitoring yourself instead of living. So far, Oura’s stayed on the right side of it. I can still put the ring on (stay tuned for updates from third trimester!), go about my day, and check in when I want to know more.