On September 3, Oura filed for an initial public offering, at a time when the Finnish company appears to be in a strong position within the smart-ring market. Its revenue nearly doubled to $1.21 billion during the nine months ended June 30, and it said it had sold 3.6 million rings over the past year and had approximately 5 million paying members. The IPO move came after the launch of the Oura Ring 5, which the company described as its thinnest and lightest ring to date.
But Oura’s strength does not mean the market will stop at the model it established. Competitors are testing different ways to stand out, and some are not limiting themselves to improving sleep and health measurements; they are adding interactive functions that make the ring more like a miniature electronic device worn on the finger.
Competitors Bet on Different Functions
Ultrahuman is moving toward combining a new design with local processing. The Indian company plans to begin shipping the $479 Ring Pro in the United States in mid-September. The ring includes a redesigned heart-rate sensing system intended to improve signal quality during sleep, along with a dual-core processor that enables more accurate data collection and greater on-device processing.
The move follows disruption to Ultrahuman’s business in the United States after a ruling issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission in October 2025 in Oura’s favor in a patent dispute. The ruling barred the import of new inventory of Ultrahuman rings into the United States, prompting the company to develop the Ring Pro with a redesigned structure to work around Oura’s patent, according to the article.
France’s Circular, meanwhile, plans to launch the Ring 3 series, consisting of the Pro and Slim versions, early next year. Both versions will contain an NFC chip for contactless payments, in addition to vibrations on the finger that can be used for silent alerts, wake-ups, reminders, and important health notifications. The Ring 3 Pro adds an electrocardiogram authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to detect atrial fibrillation, along with tracking of blood-pressure and glucose trends, sleep analysis, and comprehensive vital-sign monitoring. Prices have not yet been announced.
China’s RingConn launched the Gen 3 in May, with a starting price of $349. The ring provides vascular-health insights based on sensor data to assess changes in vascular strain over time, after calibration against externally measured blood-pressure values. It also tracks heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, sleep, activity, and stress, and provides vibration alerts when it detects health changes, periods of inactivity, or a low battery level.
Device Ecosystems and Interactive Functions
Samsung remains an important competitor for users already within the company’s ecosystem. The South Korean company was the first major technology company to launch a smart ring in 2024, and the Galaxy Ring costs approximately $399. However, according to the comparison in the article, the ring is less advanced in some health and sleep functions than competing products; it does not offer the sleep-apnea detection available in RingConn, Oura, and Ultrahuman, or the atrial-fibrillation detection available in Circular and RingConn rings.
Dreame, a newer entrant to the market, is attempting to expand the ring’s role through haptic alerts for calls, messages, and alarms, as well as a small touch panel that enables users to skip music tracks or take a photo with their phone. It is also said to provide heart-rate tracking, blood-oxygen monitoring, heart-rate-variability insights, and sleep analysis. The company has not announced the price or availability date.
What Is Changing in Practice?
This competition reveals a shift in the standard for competition. Smart rings initially attracted users mainly because of their ability to provide less intrusive health tracking than smartwatches and phones, while keeping users away from a screen. The new direction adds payments, vibrations, touch controls, phone control, and potentially software processing on the ring itself.
According to certi.news’s analysis, the real challenge is not simply the number of features, but how well they fit the idea of the ring as a small, unobtrusive device. Adding more functions may increase a product’s usefulness for some users, but it could make the category more complicated and move it away from the original reason people bought it. The comparison between products is also not yet complete: the price or availability date of some devices has not been announced, and health capabilities differ from one product to another and from one market to another.
Therefore, the current competition does not point to a clear winner, but rather to a potential split in the market between rings focused on health and sleep and others seeking to become a daily interaction interface with the phone. The success of each approach will remain tied to companies’ ability to deliver reliable measurements and a simple experience, not merely to cram smartphone functions into a titanium ring.