Oura Ring users can now test upcoming health features for free. Here's how
Oura is allowing users to test and shape its app features before they're widely available with the launch of Oura Labs, the smart ring brand announced today.
Through the beta platform, members will have a more intimate involvement to test drive in-development features. Oura Labs users can turn on and off experimental features and even provide constructive feedback before they're officially released. Some features, categorized in the "discovery phase," may be removed, changed, or made permanent in the app based on the user feedback, Oura says.
Also: Oura Ring users can now sync data with Strava - here's how to turn it on
The first experimental product Oura Labs users can try is its Symptom Radar feature, now available on the iOS app. Symptom Radar will use biometric trends like temperature, respiratory rate, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability to detect changes in a person's wellness. Once Oura detects strain, it will notify members and prompt them to activate Rest Mode or encourage a lower activity goal for the day.
The smart ring brand has been ramping up its new features as of late, in an effort to seemingly compete with the many burgeoning smart ring brands hitting the market this year. Samsung is among that group, with the debut of its first smart ring, the Samsung Galaxy Ring, set for the latter half of 2024. Movano Health shipped the Evie Ring, a smart ring for women, earlier this year. Other smart ring brands, like Ultrahuman and RingConn, have debuted smart rings that rival the user interface and data collection of Oura.
Also: The best smart ring for fitness junkies beats the Oura in 4 major ways
The smart ring market size is expected to balloon to a $1 billion industry by 2032, according to a report by DataHorizzon Research. And as the smart ring market grows, Oura, the mainstay of the market, is offering more features and syncing with more popular apps, like Strava and Natural Cycles, to maintain its positioning.
Oura members can access Oura Labs and opt-in to test new features starting today.