Smart rings: which startup is ahead?
In our wearable technology market deck, you will find everything you need to understand the market
SUMMARY
Oura is clearly ahead in smart rings. It has the largest customer base, the strongest product and app, the deepest research record, and a commercial lead that no independent rival is close to closing today.
The market is more concentrated than the crowded product shelves suggest. Omdia estimated that Oura captured 74% of global smart-ring shipments in the first half of 2025, while Ultrahuman and Samsung each held about 9% and RingConn about 5%.
Ultrahuman is the only independent challenger with enough growth to become genuinely dangerous. Its reported revenue rose 5.4 times to about $64 million, it remained profitable, and it built that position with roughly one-fifteenth of Oura's disclosed funding.
RingConn has secured third place by avoiding a direct feature-for-feature fight. Its long battery life, lower upfront price and lack of a compulsory subscription give buyers a clean reason to choose it even when Oura's software is better.
The category is splitting into two markets. Oura, Ultrahuman and RingConn compete for everyday health and recovery users, while Happy Health and Movano are trying to turn the ring into a regulated medical device and service.
Oura's advantage compounds. More users create more longitudinal health data, which improves algorithms and research credibility, which strengthens the app, the brand and the recurring membership business.
Battery claims need more caution than product pages suggest. Ultrahuman now advertises the highest maximum endurance, but RingConn has the more established long-battery reputation in real-world use, and Oura accepts shorter endurance for a smaller, more refined product.
The subscription debate hides a business-model divide. RingConn offers the best simple value, while Oura uses membership revenue to fund a denser stream of software features, health interpretation and integrations.
Manufacturing is one of Oura's least visible moats. Supporting millions of curved, size-specific devices across retailers and more than 150 countries is a much harder problem than launching one impressive generation through crowdfunding.
Samsung has proved that distribution alone is not enough to take the lead. Apple would be more threatening because of its health ecosystem, but neither scale nor brand can replace trusted sleep analysis and a product people keep wearing every night.
The ranking is therefore fairly clear: Oura first, Ultrahuman second, RingConn third, Happy Health fourth, Movano Health fifth and Circular sixth. The challengers each lead a narrower segment, but Oura still owns the overall market.
This market map, featured in our wearable technology market deck, highlights top companies and startups in the wearable technology market
Which smart-ring startups are really competing?
The serious smart-ring startup race currently comes down to Oura, Ultrahuman, RingConn, Happy Health, Movano Health and Circular.
We include companies that have developed their own health-monitoring ring and software, then reached either meaningful consumer distribution or an important medical milestone. We exclude payment rings, gesture-only rings and university prototypes because they solve different problems.
We also exclude Samsung, Zepp Health, Noise and boAt from the final startup ranking. These companies sell smart rings, but they are established electronics or wearable businesses rather than independent smart-ring startups.
Oura is already much larger than a typical startup, yet it still belongs in this comparison. It remains privately owned, and every independent company in the category is trying to take users, retailers or health partnerships away from it.
Ultrahuman and RingConn are the only independent challengers with visible global consumer scale. Happy Health and Movano are more medically focused. Circular remains relevant because it launched an unusually ambitious product, although weak execution and corporate disruption have pushed it behind the leading group.
Funding figures are less clean than they first appear. Oura has raised roughly $1.5 billion, including its recent $900 million financing. Ultrahuman has raised about $100 million. Happy Health has raised around $60 million. RingConn appears to have raised much less institutional capital, although public databases give incomplete figures. Circular's best-known funding number mainly comes from crowdfunding rather than venture investors.
| Startup | What it does | Approximate disclosed funding |
|---|---|---|
| Oura | Consumer ring for sleep, recovery, stress and preventive health | About $1.5B |
| Ultrahuman | Consumer ring connected with blood tests, glucose and broader health data | About $100M |
| RingConn | Subscription-free ring focused on sleep, recovery and battery life | Public estimates around $10M, with uncertainty |
| Happy Health | Clinically oriented ring used for continuous monitoring and sleep testing | About $60M |
| Movano Health | Women-focused consumer ring and medical monitoring platform | About $30M in tracked rounds |
| Circular | Consumer ring offering ECG and general health tracking | Institutional total unclear; about $4M from crowdfunding |
Is Oura already too far ahead in smart rings?
Oura is so far ahead in smart rings that the market has one clear leader rather than a close top three.
Omdia estimated that Oura accounted for 74% of global smart-ring shipments during the first half of 2025. Ultrahuman and Samsung each held roughly 9%, while RingConn had about 5%. Based on those estimates, Oura shipped more than eight rings for every Ultrahuman ring and nearly fifteen for every RingConn ring.
The installed-base comparison leads to the same conclusion. Oura said it had sold more than 5.5 million rings by the end of 2025. Ultrahuman later described a community of more than 500,000 users, while reports placed RingConn above 150,000.
Those figures are measured differently. Oura reports cumulative units sold, while rivals sometimes refer to users or customers. Even with that limitation, the gaps are too large to dismiss as a reporting issue. Oura appears to have around eleven times Ultrahuman's reported base and more than thirty times RingConn's.
Ultrahuman has separated itself from the smaller brands, and RingConn has become a credible third player. Neither is close enough to make the overall leadership debate genuinely tight.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.
As this chart shows, and as featured in our wearable technology market deck, search interest in smart rings has been increasing rapidly
Who has built the biggest smart-ring business?
Oura has turned smart rings into a business roughly fifteen times larger than Ultrahuman, its strongest independent challenger.
Oura generated about $500 million in revenue in 2024 and was reported to have reached approximately $1 billion in 2025. Ultrahuman disclosed around $64 million in operating revenue during its latest reported financial year.
The difference becomes clearer when we look at the amount of new revenue created. Oura appears to have added around $500 million in one year. That increase alone was almost eight times Ultrahuman's entire annual revenue.
Ultrahuman's result still stands out. The company reported positive net income alongside rapid growth, which is rare among hardware startups. It has built that business with roughly one-fifteenth of Oura's cumulative funding, suggesting that its growth has been relatively capital-efficient.
RingConn does not publish enough financial information for the same comparison. Its crowdfunding campaigns generated several million dollars, and its user base shows real demand, but neither figure tells us how much recurring retail revenue the company now produces.
Oura's funding advantage clearly helped, but capital alone does not explain the gap. The company converted that money into products, millions of customers, retail distribution, medical research, patents and recurring membership revenue.
Which smart-ring startup is growing fastest now?
Ultrahuman is growing faster in percentage terms, while Oura is adding far more revenue and users in absolute numbers.
Ultrahuman reported that annual revenue had increased 5.4 times to approximately $64 million. That implies a previous comparable figure of around $12 million. The company also reported a profit, which makes the growth more convincing than a surge driven entirely by discounts or unsustainable advertising.
Oura's percentage growth was lower, but its business appears to have doubled from around $500 million to approximately $1 billion. A 100% increase on that base created far more new revenue than Ultrahuman's faster percentage expansion.
Oura also said that more than half of all the rings it had ever sold were purchased during 2025. With cumulative sales above 5.5 million, that suggests at least 2.75 million units in a single year. Omdia's shipment estimate points to a similar order of magnitude, giving us two separate checks on the company's claimed acceleration.
RingConn has lately added retail distribution, new software features and more international customers. Public information still does not show anything close to Ultrahuman's financial growth rate.
Ultrahuman is the startup catching up fastest. Oura, though, continues to increase the distance in dollars, devices and distribution.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.
This chart, included in our wearable technology market deck, illustrates yearly VC funding for wearable technology startups
Which smart-ring startup has the most mature product?
Oura has the most mature smart ring because its hardware and software have already survived several product generations and millions of daily users.
The first Oura ring appeared in 2015. Since then, the company has redesigned its sensors, battery, shape and algorithms several times. Its latest ring is smaller than the previous generation, lasts up to nine days under ideal conditions and tracks more than fifty health-related measurements and trends.
Ultrahuman Ring AIR is already a fully commercial product, and Ring PRO marks another large hardware redesign. The company has moved well beyond the prototype stage. Ring PRO remains new enough, however, that its durability and 15-day battery claim have not been tested across years of everyday use.
RingConn Gen 2 is also mature enough for normal consumers. It has reached global customers, established a physical retail presence and earned a reputation for strong battery life. Its software still feels less developed than Oura's, particularly for exercise and long-term health interpretation.
Circular shows the difference between shipping and maturity. It managed to release an advanced ring with ECG functions, but independent reviewers repeatedly encountered slow syncing, unfinished software and unreliable features.
Happy Health sits in a different category. Its ring is part of a medical sleep service rather than a broad consumer wearable, so maturity is better judged through clinical use and regulatory progress than retail volume.
Which smart ring tracks sleep best?
Oura has the strongest evidence for smart-ring sleep tracking, with more independent validation than Ultrahuman or RingConn.
One peer-reviewed study compared Oura Gen 3 with multi-night polysomnography across 96 participants and 421,045 sleep epochs. Researchers have also compared Oura with other consumer wearables for four-stage sleep classification, where it performed particularly well.
That evidence does not make Oura equivalent to a hospital sleep study. It does show that its sleep stages and overnight signals have faced more serious outside testing than those of the other mainstream rings.
RingConn has promising research behind its sleep-apnea features. A study involving Shanghai Ruijin Hospital compared the ring with polysomnography, and the company has reported roughly 93% accuracy for sleep-apnea detection in a 230-person study. The results are encouraging, although much of the strongest interpretation still comes from RingConn itself.
Ultrahuman has participated in research on sleeping heart rate and overnight patterns. Its evidence base is growing, but fewer independent studies have directly tested its sleep-stage classifications against clinical equipment.
For everyday sleep and recovery tracking, Oura remains the safest choice today. RingConn is especially interesting for people worried about sleep apnea, while Ultrahuman offers strong wellness data without yet matching Oura's validation record.
This chart, included in our wearable technology market deck, shows why Whoop is leading in wearable technology
Who makes the best smart-ring hardware?
Oura makes the most polished all-round smart ring, RingConn offers the most dependable long-battery design, and Ultrahuman now claims the highest maximum battery life.
Ultrahuman says Ring PRO can last up to 15 days. RingConn Gen 2 claims between 10 and 12 days and comes with a portable charging case. Oura's latest ring promises between six and nine days.
The numbers alone favour Ultrahuman, although Ring PRO is still too new for us to treat its maximum battery figure as a settled real-world result. RingConn's battery performance has been reproduced more consistently in independent reviews.
Oura accepts a shorter battery life in exchange for a smaller, more refined product. Its latest design reduces the ring's volume, hides the sensor bumps and keeps the software experience tightly connected with the hardware.
RingConn is currently the easiest recommendation for someone who hates charging wearables. Ultrahuman takes that position if Ring PRO regularly gets close to its 15-day claim outside controlled testing.
| Product | Claimed battery life | Main hardware strength | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultrahuman Ring PRO | Up to 15 days | Highest battery claim | Still early in real-world use |
| RingConn Gen 2 | 10 to 12 days | Proven endurance and charging case | Less polished software |
| Oura | 6 to 9 days | Small, refined and thoroughly tested | Shorter battery than its rivals |
| Circular Ring 2 | 4 to 8 days | ECG and ambitious sensors | Reliability concerns |
| Evie Ring | Shorter than the leaders | Open design aimed at women | Weak battery and limited scale |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.
Which smart ring gives buyers the best value?
RingConn gives buyers the best simple value because it combines a low entry price, long battery life and no compulsory subscription.
RingConn Gen 2 starts at around $299, while the lighter Gen 2 Air costs about $199. Buyers continue receiving their core health data without a monthly payment.
Ultrahuman follows a similar subscription-free approach for its main ring features. Ring PRO costs considerably more, at roughly $479, but users do not need an ongoing membership to see their basic data. Optional health services and software modules can add recurring costs.
Oura's latest ring starts at approximately $399, and the complete experience requires a $5.99 monthly membership after the trial period. Over three years, the total cost reaches about $615. RingConn Gen 2 stays close to $299 over the same period.
Oura customers receive a better application, deeper health interpretation and frequent feature updates. First-year membership renewal has reportedly remained above 80%, which suggests that many users still see enough value to keep paying.
For someone who wants the most complete smart-ring experience, Oura can justify its higher cost. For someone mainly interested in sleep, recovery and overnight health trends, RingConn delivers most of the essential functions for around half the three-year price.
| Product | Approximate starting price | Compulsory subscription | Approximate three-year cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| RingConn Gen 2 Air | $199 | No | $199 |
| RingConn Gen 2 | $299 | No | $299 |
| Circular Ring 2 | $349 | No | $349 |
| Ultrahuman Ring PRO | $479 | No for core features | $479 |
| Oura | $399 | Yes for the full experience | About $615 |
This chart, included in our wearable technology market deck, illustrates yearly funding for wearable technology startups
Which smart-ring startup has the best app?
Oura has the clearest and most useful smart-ring app, while Ultrahuman is building a broader but more complicated health platform.
Oura takes a large amount of overnight data and turns it into a few understandable scores for sleep, readiness and activity. It then connects those scores with stress, cardiovascular fitness, illness warnings and women's-health patterns.
The app's strength comes from consistency. Users can quickly understand whether their sleep, recovery or stress is moving in the wrong direction without reading dozens of separate charts. Independent reviewers regularly describe the Oura experience as easier to understand than rival apps.
Ultrahuman wants to collect a much wider range of information. Its platform can connect the ring with continuous glucose monitors, blood tests, home environmental sensors, cycle data and optional software modules. Its newer AI system, Jade, is designed to find patterns across these different sources.
That wider approach could eventually become more powerful than a ring-centred app. Right now, it also creates more complexity. Many buyers simply want to know whether they slept well, recovered properly and should train hard today.
RingConn's app has improved through health alerts, sleep-regularity analysis, cycle tracking and fitness estimates. It remains easier to recommend for hardware value than for software depth. Circular's app continues to be its biggest weakness, with complaints about syncing, clutter and inconsistent functions.
Who leads women's health and medical smart rings?
Oura leads women's health among consumer smart rings, while Happy Health has moved furthest into medical sleep testing.
Oura combines overnight temperature data with cycle predictions, pregnancy insights and menopause-related features. Its integration with Natural Cycles also gives the ring a role in fertility awareness that most competitors cannot match at the same scale.
Ultrahuman has recently become a more serious challenger. It acquired viO HealthTech, launched Cycle and Ovulation Pro and partnered with Clue. These moves connect the ring with a wider set of reproductive-health tools rather than treating cycle tracking as a minor extra feature.
Happy Health leads the clinical side. The Happy Ring received FDA clearance for multi-night at-home testing related to obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia and other sleep conditions. It is used within a service that can involve physicians, diagnosis and treatment.
Movano also achieved FDA clearance for the EvieMED Ring's pulse-oximetry function. Its original Evie Ring was designed specifically around women's health, but limited sales and financial pressure have prevented the company from building a large consumer position.
The category has two different leaders. Oura reaches far more women in everyday life, while Happy Health has the strongest medical use case.
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.
This chart, included in our wearable technology market deck, compares the main business model options for wearable technology brands
Which smart-ring startup can actually manufacture at scale?
Oura is the only smart-ring startup that has proved it can manufacture and support millions of devices.
By the end of 2025, Oura said it had sold more than 5.5 million rings across more than 150 countries. Producing at that level requires much more than a factory. The company must manage multiple sizes, curved batteries, titanium bodies, replacements, charging equipment, sizing kits and retailer inventory across many markets.
Ultrahuman is building the clearest manufacturing challenge. Its Texas manufacturing partnership was designed to add capacity for about 200,000 rings per year, representing a potential $100 million in annual revenue.
That factory is meaningful for a growing company. It is still small beside the several million annual units implied by Oura's recent sales disclosures.
RingConn has shipped to customers in more than 80 countries and reportedly passed 150,000 users. Its expansion into Target should make the product easier to buy in the United States. The company reveals little about factory capacity, production yields or annual output, which makes its true ability to scale difficult to judge.
Oura's manufacturing advantage is now one of its strongest protections. Ultrahuman is investing in the right area, but the production gap remains several times larger than its planned U.S. capacity.
What can Oura do that other smart-ring startups cannot easily copy?
Oura has the strongest competitive protection in smart rings through patents, health data, research credibility, brand recognition and recurring software revenue.
Its patent portfolio has already changed the competitive landscape. The U.S. International Trade Commission found that Ultrahuman and RingConn infringed an Oura-controlled patent and issued orders affecting imports and sales.
RingConn later signed a multi-year patent-licensing agreement that allows it to keep selling in the United States while paying royalties. Circular and Omate have also licensed Oura technology. Ultrahuman returned with a redesigned product architecture.
A health ring is unusually difficult to redesign around patents. Every company must fit sensors, a battery, a processor and an antenna into a small curved object that remains comfortable, durable and water-resistant. Changing one internal element can affect the whole product.
Oura also has data from millions of rings worn across different ages, countries and lifestyles. That history helps the company test new algorithms and identify when a health pattern is genuinely unusual.
Its relationships strengthen the same advantage. The U.S. Department of Defense has become a major enterprise customer, Dexcom invested $75 million as part of a metabolic-health partnership, and hundreds of researchers and health organizations have used the platform.
Ultrahuman's strongest defence comes from combining ring data with glucose, blood tests, home data and specialist health programmes. RingConn mainly competes through price and battery life, which larger electronics manufacturers could copy more easily.
This chart, featured in our wearable technology market deck, illustrates how revenue is divided among customer segments in the wearable technology market
Could Samsung or Apple take the smart-ring lead from Oura?
A large electronics company could eventually threaten Oura, but Samsung has so far shown that distribution alone does not guarantee smart-ring leadership.
Samsung entered the category with global stores, smartphone integration and a huge marketing budget. Omdia still estimated its shipment share at roughly 9% during the first half of 2025, putting it level with Ultrahuman and far behind Oura.
The result shows how strongly the category depends on daily habits. People keep wearing a smart ring when they trust its sleep analysis, understand the app and feel that the insights improve over time. A familiar electronics brand does not automatically create that trust.
Apple would pose a more serious threat because it already controls a large health platform and hundreds of millions of active devices. Garmin would also arrive with deep credibility among athletes. Neither company currently sells a health ring.
Oura has lately moved beyond basic sleep tracking. It has expanded preventive-health features, acquired gesture-recognition technology, strengthened its U.S. manufacturing base and deepened healthcare partnerships.
The greatest threat would be a ring bundled cheaply into an existing smartphone or fitness ecosystem. Oura must keep offering enough independent value that customers will buy separate hardware and continue paying for its membership.
Does one startup lead every part of the smart-ring market?
Oura leads the overall smart-ring market, although Ultrahuman, RingConn and Happy Health each control a narrower area.
Oura is strongest when we combine commercial scale, sleep accuracy, software quality, research, brand trust and distribution. No other startup performs well enough across all six areas to challenge its overall position.
Ultrahuman leads the move toward a wider personal-health platform. Its ring can sit alongside glucose data, blood tests, environmental measurements and specialist health programmes.
RingConn has built the clearest subscription-free value proposition. Its long battery life and lower total cost make it attractive to buyers who want basic sleep and recovery information without joining another monthly service.
Happy Health leads medically cleared sleep testing. Its ring belongs to a clinical service, so it competes more directly with traditional home sleep tests than with Oura's readiness score.
| Smart-ring segment | Current leader | Why it leads |
|---|---|---|
| Overall consumer smart ring | Oura | Largest scale and strongest all-round product |
| Fast-growing independent challenger | Ultrahuman | Rapid revenue growth and a broader health platform |
| Subscription-free value | RingConn | Lower cost and long battery life |
| Maximum claimed battery | Ultrahuman | Ring PRO promises up to 15 days |
| Proven sleep tracking | Oura | Strongest independent validation record |
| Consumer sleep-apnea monitoring | RingConn | Dedicated monitoring and early clinical evidence |
| Medical sleep testing | Happy Health | FDA-cleared multi-night testing |
| Women's health at scale | Oura | Large user base and deeper cycle features |
This chart, included in our wearable technology market deck, shows how health monitoring wearable technology has evolved over time
Which smart-ring startups are actually ahead?
Oura is clearly ahead overall, Ultrahuman is the only broad challenger with enough growth to become dangerous, and RingConn has secured a strong third position.
We rank Oura first because it leads the measures that now decide this market: sales, revenue, product maturity, sleep evidence, software, manufacturing, distribution and competitive protection. The size of its advantage means another startup will need several years of exceptional growth rather than one successful product launch to catch it.
Ultrahuman takes second place. It is growing quickly, has reported a profit and is building a more ambitious health platform than any other independent challenger. Ring PRO could narrow the hardware gap if its battery life and durability hold up across a large customer base.
RingConn ranks third. It has found a clear reason for customers to choose it: long battery life, no subscription and a much lower total cost than Oura. Moving higher will require a better app, clearer financial disclosure and growth from hundreds of thousands of users toward millions.
Happy Health ranks fourth because FDA-cleared sleep testing gives the company a valuable position that consumer-ring brands have not matched. Movano follows because its regulatory progress has yet to produce a stable commercial business.
Circular remains last among the serious contenders. The company attempted difficult features, including ECG, but frequent software and reliability complaints damaged confidence in the product.
Oura's lead could shrink if Ultrahuman keeps growing rapidly, if RingConn builds a much better app, or if Apple turns smart rings into part of a larger health ecosystem. None of those possibilities has changed the ranking yet.
| Rank | Startup | Why it ranks here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Oura | Clear leader in commercial scale, product quality, evidence, software and distribution |
| 2 | Ultrahuman | Fastest serious challenger, with profitable growth and a broader health strategy |
| 3 | RingConn | Best subscription-free alternative, with strong battery life and credible traction |
| 4 | Happy Health | Strongest medical smart-ring company through FDA-cleared sleep testing |
| 5 | Movano Health | Useful medical and women's-health technology, held back by weak commercialization |
| 6 | Circular | Ambitious hardware weakened by reliability problems and corporate uncertainty |
If you want more recent data on this point, please see our latest wearable technology market report.
OUR METHODOLOGY
This analysis asks which smart-ring startup is ahead based on the evidence available today. We compare commercial scale, growth, product maturity, sleep validation, software quality, hardware value, medical progress, manufacturing capacity, distribution and competitive protection.
We prioritize direct and independently checkable evidence: company financial disclosures, third-party shipment estimates, regulatory records, peer-reviewed studies, official product specifications, pricing, patent decisions, manufacturing commitments and retail agreements. Company claims are used more cautiously when a feature, battery figure or accuracy result has not yet been tested at scale.
Scale figures are not always perfectly comparable. Oura reports cumulative rings sold, while rivals sometimes report users, customers or community members. Funding totals can also mix equity, grants, debt and crowdfunding. We keep those caveats visible rather than forcing false precision.
No single announcement determines the ranking. We look for convergence across several dimensions and give more weight to advantages that have already been demonstrated across large customer bases, multiple product generations or formal clinical and regulatory processes.
The final ranking separates overall leadership from narrower strengths. RingConn can lead on subscription-free value, Ultrahuman on percentage growth and maximum claimed battery life, and Happy Health on medical sleep testing without displacing Oura as the strongest overall company.
Key sources include Omdia's global smart-ring shipment estimates, Oura's company scale and cumulative sales disclosure, Oura's newsroom and financing updates, Ultrahuman's FY2025 revenue and profitability release, Ultrahuman's Ring PRO announcement, RingConn's Gen 2 pricing and battery specifications, Oura Ring 4 specifications and membership pricing, the PubMed study comparing Oura Gen 3 with polysomnography, the FDA clearance record for the Happy Health Home Sleep Test, the FDA clearance record for the Evie Med Ring, the USITC's final smart-wearable patent determination, Oura's Natural Cycles integration documentation, and Oura's women's-health feature documentation.
In our wearable technology market deck, we identify pain points entrepreneurs should prioritize
Related blog posts
- AI smart glasses: which startup is ahead?
