The actual Oura Ring is only half of the Oura experience. The companion app, which underwent it's biggest refresh in years as of October 2024, is your dashboard for all the information your ring and behaviors can imply about your health. It costs $5.99 / £5.99 per month or $72 / £72 per year, which is important to know up front.

Its best new features — including, finally, workable automatic activity detection — are coming to the last-gen Oura Ring, too, via software updates. But that Oura Ring Gen 3 owners won't feel pressured to upgrade hardly seems like a downside to me.