Choosing between these two premium smart rings? Discover the key differences with this comparison guide
We’ve tested both of these rings extensively, and the real choice comes down to this: do you want the best health insights and software, or the most comfortable fit, longer battery life, and no subscription fee?
Oura Ring 4 offers better health insights: its app turns raw data into actionable advice, and it keeps improving every few months. RingConn Gen 2 is thinner, lighter, lasts longer on a charge, and doesn’t cost a penny beyond the upfront price. That subscription difference is worth flagging upfront: Oura requires $5.99/month or $69.99/year on top of a higher starting price, which meaningfully changes the long-term value equation.
Below, we break down the key differences—from comfort and battery life to health insights and long-term cost—so you can see which one fits you better.
Price, subscriptions, and value
Oura’s latest smart ring is the most expensive on the market, with prices starting at $349 and running up to $499 depending on the finish you select. You’ll also be required to pay $5.99 per month (or $69 per year) for the service.
RingConn’s Gen 2 is a snip cheaper, starting at $2999. For a more exclusive finish in rose gold, you would need to pay $399, which is still cheaper than the most expensive Oura ring. . Plus, there’s no monthly subscription fee to pay.
Over two years, Oura Ring 4 costs roughly $200 more than RingConn Gen 2 once you factor in the subscription. Whether that’s worth it depends on how much you value the depth of health insights and continuous software updates that are available with Oura. However, for most users, RingConn offers enough data.
Winner: RingConn Gen 2
Design and comfort
Titanium is the material of choice for RingConn and Oura, meaning you get a lightweight feel on the finger no matter which you pick here.
Both also come in similar finishes (black, silver, and gold), though Oura offers matte, brushed finishes and rose gold that flesh its choice out beyond what RingConn offers.
However, while similar in look, the comfort of RingConn’s Gen 2 ring is far superior.
Owing to its class-leading 2mm thickness, RingConn has got as close as any smart ring brand to replicating the feeling of an ‘actual’ ring. That reduced thickness compared to Oura Ring 4—around 2.8mm—also has a knock-on effect on the weight. Gen 2’s weight is 2-3g (depending on size), while Oura’s lags at 3.3g-5.2g despite its all-over titanium build.
We grade the thickness as the bigger consideration here, as it has a bigger effect on comfort. The image above is probably the best illustration of this difference—even though it’s actually of RingConn Gen 2 and Oura Ring 3 Horizon (a thinner design than the newer Ring 4).
The only major consideration here is the size range. Oura has the edge, offering US ring sizes 4-15 compared to RingConn’s 6-14, but neither brand offers half sizes.
Ultimately, both are within a good range of comfort, but RingConn’s design makes it a more unnoticeable experience. If this is your priority area, the only reason to choose Ring 4 is the wider range of finishes/sizes.
Winner: RingConn Gen 2
Health metrics and insights
This is the core area of each ring, and Oura is a clear winner in our estimation. It’s not that RingConn necessarily lags on metrics—as we covered in our review, there’s actually a huge amount of detail available in the app—but the presentation is severely lagging.
In truth, this is no major criticism of RingConn. Even wearable heavyweights like Apple, Garmin, and Whoop sit behind Oura’s platform. And we should also note that some may prefer RingConn’s graph-heavy, historical data approach.
But if your goal here is to help inform behavioral change, Oura has a suite of insights into health, sleep, and stress that excel at just that. Lists of metrics are amalgamated into scores for readiness and sleep gauged by your baselines. Stress tracking throughout the day is graded, summarized into restorative/stressed time, and even crossed against your recovery data with the Resilience feature.
Oura’s sleep tracking is also as good as any non-polysomnograph tracker when assessing stages. We still don’t put much stock into this area due to the lack of top-level accuracy, but other insights like chronotypes, sleep regularity, and blood oxygen data bolster this area.
Women’s health features are also solid, delivering cycle insights, predicting periods, and pregnancy tracking with gestational age, maternal physiology info, and weekly updates.
Aside from the Wellness Balance feature, RingConn’s hub of scores that are nowhere near as true to feel, the same kind of longitudinal data isn’t available on RingConn.
The tracking itself is very accurate; there are no hiccups for metrics like HRV or blood oxygen, sleep hours are logged correctly, and 0-100 stress summaries are solid enough. Yet, we’ve found it isn’t an app we feel compelled to check often, given that it’s caked with data requiring manual interpretation.
In our view, you get what you pay for here. As we’ve discussed plenty this year, subscription-free platforms aren’t necessarily better value if a monthly fee is what’s powering continued feature development.
Oura’s track record of rolling out new and innovative features every month or two is unrivaled in the industry. That doesn’t mean RingConn is inherently bad (as we say, there’s a lot tracked here), but there’s a clear gulf in insights as a result.
Winner: Oura Ring 4
Battery life
Like in the design and comfort, RingConn is peerless in battery life. Despite Gen 2 having a much smaller footprint than rivals like Oura Ring 4, our experience showed it lasted around 10 days in most charging cycles.
If you turn the sleep apnea feature on, this cuts considerably, to 5-6 days. Yet this is the best-case scenario for Oura Ring 4, with features like blood oxygen monitoring (traditionally a big battery drainer) turned on.
RingConn’s ring isn’t just capable of lasting longer—it’s also much easier to charge. The included charging case is good for 15 additional full recharges (much more than any rival), while Oura users can buy an additional charging case for $99 that provides up to 5 extra full recharges, offering just a modest boost.
To conclude, if battery life and charging convenience matter to you, RingConn Gen 2 is the easy pick here—it lasts longer, charges more flexibly, and doesn’t cost extra to do it.
Winner: RingConn Gen 2
Activity tracking
We’re not overly excited by having to pick a winner between these two when it comes to activity or workout tracking. Ultimately, you’re far better off with a smartwatch if you’re looking for anything more than rough ballpark figures on step counts or calorie burn.
That said, Oura is a better companion in this area. We didn’t necessarily experience all the touted benefits of the improved automatic activity tracking in our Oura Ring 4 testing, but it can still pick up the broad intensity of exercise.
Oura has interpretations for VO2 max (Cardio Capacity) and pulse wave velocity (Cardiovascular Age) that are contextualized and neatly presented as trends. It also boasts crucial third-party integrations with platforms like Strava (and tons of health and mental health partners).
If you wear another tracker, as we do, this takes tons of pressure off Ring 4 to be your main activity monitor. That isn’t the case on RingConn, we’ve found, which can only sync with Apple Health/Google Fit.
Our testing on exercise tracking showed the typical findings from a smart ring: passable in stationary activities like indoor cycling but pretty poor in hand-heavy movements like outdoor running.
Step tracking and calorie burn are within a helpful range, and we don’t mind the app’s focus on tracking inactivity. Yet, scoring and exercise suggestions are woeful compared to the reality of your training, which means it’s a limited fitness tracker.
Again, Oura isn’t perfect either, but it at least offers semi-functioning workout detection, better integrations, and more advanced metrics.
Winner: Oura Ring 4
Verdict: What we recommend
These are some of the best smart rings money can buy, yet they have quite distinctly different strengths and weaknesses. With that in mind, here’s what we recommend for those choosing between them.
- Choose Oura Ring 4 if:
You want the best smart ring on the market, and money is no object. Oura is unrivaled in how it translates raw data into actionable advice. Its ‘Readiness’ and ‘Sleep’ scores may be helpful, the women’s health features are best-in-class, and the app is a joy to use. If you are happy to pay a monthly subscription for a polished, constantly evolving platform, this is the superior choice.
- Choose RingConn Gen 2 if:
You prioritize comfort and value. RingConn Gen 2 is thinner, lighter, and lasts significantly longer on a charge than Oura (if you factor in the included charging case).
It captures almost all the same data but presents it in a rawer, graph-heavy format. If you refuse to pay a monthly subscription and want a set-and-forget tracker that disappears on your finger, this is the one to buy.
