A ring is different. It disappears into your hand.
In a year crowded with spectacle — spatial computing, generative AI, flagship smartphones — the most meaningful consumer technology of 2024 turned out to be a ring. The Oura Ring 4 won ZDNET's Product of the Year not by dazzling, but by doing something quietly profound: translating the body's continuous signals into knowledge a person can actually use. Its victory marks a broader cultural turn, one in which the most intimate wearable is no longer the one strapped to your wrist, but the one that disappears into your hand.
- A once-niche category is accelerating fast — smart ring sales are on track to nearly quadruple from 880,000 units in 2023 to 3.2 million by 2025, drawing Samsung, Ultrahuman, and Movano into direct competition with Oura.
- Rather than racing rivals to market, Oura held back and refined — delivering the Ring 4 in October with repositioned sensors, 18 signal pathways, an 8-day battery, and expanded sizing, all at the same $349 price as its predecessor.
- The sharpest tension in the category is a $6 monthly subscription that Samsung's $399 Galaxy Ring doesn't require, forcing consumers to weigh ongoing cost against the depth and quality of Oura's software insights.
- Oura's companion app is where the hardware earns its keep — converting raw biometrics into personalized sleep scores, stress prompts, and readiness-adjusted activity guidance that competitors have yet to match.
- The Ring 4's ability to contextualize wellness, flag early illness signals, and improve continuously through software updates has landed it at the top of a category that is redefining what a health tool is expected to do.
The smart ring has crossed from curiosity to category. In 2023, roughly 880,000 were sold worldwide. This year that number is expected to nearly double, and by 2025 forecasters see 3.2 million units in circulation. Samsung's entry with the Galaxy Ring gave the form factor mainstream credibility, and Ultrahuman and Movano Evie added further competition. Yet among everything released in 2024, ZDNET chose the Oura Ring 4 as its product of the year — a recognition that the most meaningful innovation wasn't the loudest.
Oura's decision to wait proved wise. While rivals rushed to shelves, the company spent months refining its software — improving stress monitoring, women's health tracking, and heart rate variability detection. When the Ring 4 launched in early October, it brought real hardware gains: repositioned sensors, 18 signal pathways, an 8-day battery, expanded sizing for previously underserved hand sizes, and a more comfortable fit. The price held steady at $349.
What truly separates the Ring 4 is what happens after it's on your finger. The companion app turns biometric streams into personalized guidance — sleep scores with tailored recommendations, stress readings paired with timely mindfulness prompts, activity targets adjusted for how recovered your body actually is. It's the difference between a device that measures and one that helps you understand.
The one friction point is Oura's $6 monthly subscription, a cost Samsung's Galaxy Ring avoids entirely at $399. For some, that's a dealbreaker. For many others, the continuous software improvements and quality of insight make it feel earned. In a year of technological spectacle, a ring that sits quietly on your hand and turns data into wisdom made the strongest case for what health technology can be.
The smart ring has arrived as a genuine category. What was once a niche curiosity—a sliver of metal on your finger pretending to know your heart rate—has become something people actually want to wear. The numbers tell the story: 880,000 smart rings sold globally in 2023. This year, that figure is expected to nearly double to 1.7 million units. By 2025, forecasters predict 3.2 million. The wearables market is shifting. Fitness trackers and smartwatches still exist, but the burden of strapping something to your wrist is beginning to feel optional. A ring is different. It disappears into your hand.
This year's validation came from Samsung, which released its Galaxy Ring and lent the category the weight of a major tech vendor. Ultrahuman and Movano Evie arrived as well, each with their own pitch. But among all the products released in 2024—from Apple's Vision Pro to the latest AI breakthroughs—ZDNET has chosen the Oura Ring 4 as its product of the year. The choice reflects something worth understanding: in a year of flashy innovation, the most meaningful advancement was quiet, incremental, and focused on something as ordinary as knowing yourself better.
Oura's timing proved decisive. While Samsung and Ultrahuman rushed to market, Oura spent months refining what it already had. The company pushed software updates that improved stress monitoring, women's health tracking, and heart rate variability detection. When the Ring 4 finally launched in early October, it arrived with genuine hardware improvements. The internal sensors were repositioned for comfort. The ring came in more sizes—including 4, 5, 14, and 15—making it accessible to hands that previous versions had ignored. The new design packed 18 signal pathways, up from earlier iterations, allowing the ring to gather more granular health data. The battery stretched to eight days on a single charge. All of this came at $349, the same price as the previous generation.
But hardware alone doesn't win awards. The Oura Ring 4's real strength lies in what happens after you put it on. The companion app transforms raw biometric data into something a person can actually use. Sleep scores arrive with personalized recommendations tailored to your specific patterns. Stress data doesn't just appear as a number—it comes paired with mindfulness prompts designed for your moment. Activity tracking adjusts based on your readiness level, accounting for the fact that no two people recover the same way. The software is intuitive enough that you don't need to be a data scientist to understand what your body is telling you.
This integration of hardware and software, paired with the ability to predict illness, contextualize wellness, and provide data useful for diagnosis, is what separates the Oura Ring 4 from its competitors. It's the difference between a gadget that measures things and a tool that helps you live better. For many users, that distinction justifies the $6 monthly subscription fee that Oura charges on top of the hardware cost. Samsung's Galaxy Ring, by contrast, costs $399 and requires no ongoing subscription. That difference matters to some people. For others, the continuous software improvements, cross-device compatibility, and the sheer quality of the insights make the monthly fee feel reasonable.
The smart ring category itself reflects a larger shift in how we think about health. The awareness that monitoring your physical and mental well-being matters has never been higher. People want tools that are accessible, reliable, and actually useful—not just another screen to check. The Oura Ring 4 understands this. It sits on your finger, invisible until you need it, collecting data that becomes wisdom. In a year of technological spectacle, that quiet competence earned it the highest recognition.
Notable Quotes
Its ability to monitor vitals and use the data it collects to predict illness, contextualize wellness, and provide data used for a diagnosis puts the smart ring ahead of its many competitors.— Nina Raemont, ZDNET smart ring reviewer
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a smart ring win over something like the Vision Pro or the latest AI breakthrough? Those seem bigger.
Bigger isn't the same as better. The Vision Pro is impressive, but most people won't own one. The Oura Ring 4 is something you actually wear every day, and it changes how you understand your own body. That's more consequential for most lives.
But Samsung released the Galaxy Ring too. Why didn't that win?
Samsung got to market faster, but Oura had already spent months improving the software. When the Ring 4 launched, it came with 18 signal pathways instead of fewer, better battery life, and an app that actually makes sense of the data. Samsung's ring is good. Oura's ring is integrated into your life.
The subscription fee seems like a problem. Samsung doesn't charge one.
It is a problem for some people. But Oura keeps updating the software, keeps adding features. If you own a Ring 3, you get the new sleep algorithms and stress tools even without upgrading the hardware. That continuous improvement is what justifies the monthly charge for people who stay.
So it's really about the software, not the ring itself?
It's both. The hardware had to improve—better sensors, more sizes, longer battery. But the hardware only matters if the software knows what to do with the data. That's where Oura separated itself.
What does this say about where wearables are going?
Away from your wrist and toward your body. Rings are less intrusive than watches. They disappear. And as people get more serious about health monitoring, they want tools that don't feel like tools. They want something that just knows.