Smart ring leader Oura is expanding its tracking ambitions with two metabolic health features: Meals and Glucose.
Touted as steps toward a more holistic, AI-guided approach to metabolic health, the move is anchored by its partnership with Dexcom—and is the first fruits of the $75m partnership announced last November.
The glucose monitoring giant’s FDA-approved Stelo—available in the US without a prescription—will play a big role in the new Glucose feature. It will integrate to allow users to see real-time glucose data from the biosensor alongside their usual sleep, stress, and activity metrics in the Oura app.
Users will see contextual graphs and insights into how their blood sugar levels are responding to their meals, sleep, and activity. However, making sense of this data will also depend on how much trust users are willing to place in Oura Advisor, the company’s AI-powered coaching system.
Advisor currently provides guidance in the Oura experience’s key areas: sleep, activity, readiness, and stress resilience (all with a neat ability to remember conversations for later context). Yet, it’s still early days for the AI tool in dietary and metabolic advice.
For those who integrate a Stela in the Oura app, there will also be a ‘Time Above Range’ metric to dive into. As the name would suggest, this refers to time spent above a target glucose range (and also includes AI-powered analysis of glucose trends for that day).
‘Meals’ makes it out of beta, but availability is limited
Meanwhile, the Meals feature is officially out of beta testing following this latest update. It still appears to work as before, letting users photograph or upload images of their meals to be scanned by AI for quick nutritional analysis. The app breaks meals down by protein, fiber, carbs, sugars, and even processing level, skipping calorie counts entirely.
Though I like the philosophy behind Meals, it wasn’t a feature I engaged with hugely during the beta phase—perhaps that will change with more information flooding in from Glucose alongside it.
At launch, both features are US-only—though the brand has stated that Meals will expand internationally later this year.
Also, it’s worth noting (in case it wasn’t clear initially) that Glucose will only be accessible for those who are using a Stelo biosensor. A 30-day supply costs an additional $99 (two sensors, each lasting 15 days), though both the ring and CGM are eligible for HSA/FSA reimbursement.
Whether users will find lasting value in these additions—or end up with more data than they can practically use—remains to be seen. However, we look forward to testing them out over the coming months.
