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Oura’s Fourth-Generation Ring Becomes Sleeker And Smarter
The Finnish tech company’s fourth-gen Ring offers a sleeker design, improved sensors, and smarter health insights, along with a revamped app.
Oura, the Finnish company known for pioneering smart rings, has just revealed its fourth-generation Ring. The updated version features a refined design, improved battery life, and upgraded sensors that provide more detailed health insights.
One of the biggest changes in the Ring 4 are the sensors, which now sit flush with the surface, making it smoother and sleeker. The improvements go beyond just aesthetics, with Oura stating that the Ring 4 now has 18 signal pathways, a significant increase from the 8 found in the previous generation.
The company claims that the updated sensors improve blood oxygen data accuracy by 30%, while gaps in nighttime heart rate are reduced by 31%, and daytime gaps are cut by 7%. Although the exact battery capacity hasn’t been revealed, the sensor optimizations should also allow the Ring 4 to last up to eight days on a single charge.
The Ring 4 is available in 12 sizes (4-15) and six colors: Silver, Brushed Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, Stealth, and Black. All options except Stealth are coated in titanium with a physical vapor deposition finish, while Stealth features a diamond-like carbon coating.
The Ring is also water-resistant up to 100 meters, making it suitable for swimming and sauna use, though not for dedicated deep-sea divers.
In addition to hardware upgrades, Oura is rolling out a redesigned mobile app. The app organizes health data into three sections: Today, Vitals, and My Health. These sections help wearers monitor their daily vital signs and long-term health metrics, such as cardiovascular age and sleep patterns. The app update is available for all users, regardless of which generation of Ring they own.
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As with the previous model, Oura continues to offer some features behind a membership paywall, priced at $5.99 per month or $70 per year. New to the Ring 4 are automatic activity and heart-rate detection for up to 40 different activities. The app will also now provide better insights for menstrual tracking, specifically around fertility windows.
The Oura Ring 4 is available for pre-order starting today, with prices beginning at $349. Shipping is expected to start on October 15, 2024.
News
YouTube Tests Conversational AI Search Tool
Google trials Ask YouTube, a feature blending AI summaries with video results to reshape search on the platform.
YouTube is testing a conversational AI search feature, the latest step in Google’s push to rework how users find content.
Called “Ask YouTube,” the tool is rolling out to Premium subscribers in the US aged 18 and over, available through June 8. It lets users type more detailed queries and get a mix of text summaries and relevant video clips, with the option to ask follow-up questions.
Google says the feature returns “comprehensive results that include video and text, then ask follow ups to dive deeper”.
The tool sits inside YouTube Labs. Once enabled, a new button appears in the search bar with suggested prompts, or users can enter their own. Some queries produce structured answers with timestamps pointing to key moments in videos. Others fall back to a standard list of clips.
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Early testing has exposed familiar problems. One query surfaced incorrect information, yet again highlighting the ongoing accuracy issues with AI-generated responses.
Google is steadily folding AI into all of its core products. On YouTube, the game plan is simple: make search faster, keep users watching longer. Whether viewers accept that trade-off is less certain.
