Oura Ring Generation 3 Review: Still the Best Sleep Tracker, But the New Features Aren't Ready Yet

Introduction

The Oura Ring Generation 3 is a wearable aimed primarily at sleep and recovery tracking. The ring format makes it more comfortable and unobtrusive than most wrist-based trackers, and it also tends to be more accurate at night. We have been wearing it daily for a few weeks to see whether the new sensors justify the upgrade.

Our short answer: the fundamentals remain excellent, but the headline new features are largely unfinished, and a new subscription changes the value equation.

Getting Started: Sizing and Baselines

A snug fit is key to the Oura Ring’s accuracy, so when you order you are sent a sizing kit full of plastic rings to find the right size. It takes a few weeks for the app to set your baselines, after which the sleep and readiness scores start to feel genuinely personal.

The design is largely unchanged from Generation 2. It is the same size, and the fit feels identical on the finger. You get four colours: gold, silver, a shiny black, and stealth, a matte black.

New Sensors and Features

Generation 3 adds a significant sensor refresh. The upgraded temperature sensor is joined by new LEDs: instead of infrared only, the ring now uses red, green and infrared LEDs. That enables 24/7 heart rate tracking and blood oxygen sensing.

Of the new features available at launch, the biggest is daytime heart rate. The idea is a graph of your whole day showing active and restorative periods, feeding into your recovery picture. In practice it has been underwhelming. For the first couple of weeks the graphs were patchy and sparse, and an update has improved things only somewhat. The app warns that if you are up and moving a lot, the ring will not collect daytime heart rate at all, so large parts of an active day simply go missing.

Other launch features include a live heart rate reading in the app, improved temperature sensing with seven sensors reading minute by minute, and a period prediction feature that forecasts your next period 30 days in advance with a notification six days before. Still to come: workout heart rate and heart rate recovery later in the year, around 50 videos and guided audio sessions in the app, improved sleep staging next year, and night-time blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) tracking next year.

What Works: Sleep Tracking and Recovery

Everything that made the Oura Ring great on Generation 2 is still great here. The sleep tracking is really good, consistently lining up with how your sleep actually felt, and offering useful insights like how long it takes you to fall asleep. The one exception in our testing was a single night where it reported good sleep that did not match reality, though another tracker made the same call that night.

The ring is also excellent at predicting when you are about to get ill. Resting heart rate creeps up and body temperature shifts a couple of days before real symptoms arrive, giving you a useful early warning. On one morning when we woke up feeling rough, the Oura Ring pushed us into rest mode with a low readiness score, while a Whoop 4.0 and a Fitbit Charge that had collected far less data only flagged slightly poor recovery, without the clear insight that you were clearly sick and needed to rest.

Battery Life and the Subscription Problem

Battery life is listed the same as before, but in real use we are getting about five to six days rather than the claimed seven, likely because the extra sensors draw more power. It is still easy to live with, but expect to recharge more often than once a week.

The bigger issue is the new subscription. The app, which used to be free with all the data included, now costs $6 per month. Without it you get a very basic experience: your readiness, sleep and activity scores, some basic profile information, and the ring’s battery level, but none of the deep stats. There is some good news: new buyers get six months free, and existing users who upgrade before the end of November get a lifetime free membership. Gen 2 users who already had the ring when the change happened appear to keep paying nothing.

We are not fans of paying a few hundred dollars for a device and then being asked for a monthly fee to unlock the data it collects about you. Even at a modest monthly rate, it adds up over a device you intend to wear for years.

Buying Advice

Price stays at $299, roughly £224 depending on exchange rate. Our early verdict is that the Generation 3 is a slight disappointment at this stage: many promised features are not available yet, the one that is live is not that useful yet, and the subscription feels like a step backwards.

If you already own a Gen 2 and use it happily, do not upgrade yet. If you upgrade before the end of November you would lock in a lifetime free subscription, so for some existing users that trade-off may make sense if you are willing to bet that Oura delivers the missing features over time. For new buyers, the ring is still arguably the best sleep and recovery tracker you can put on a finger, and six months of free subscription softens the blow, but go in knowing the paid tier is where the real value lives.

Conclusion

The Oura Ring Generation 3 is a lovely thing to wear and still does everything Oura did brilliantly before. But the new hardware has not yet translated into new value, and the subscription is hard to love. Hold off unless the lifetime membership offer matters to you, and keep an eye out for updates and a longer-term verdict once the promised features arrive.