As competition in the smart ring market escalates , Oura is introducing two new features to give people more insight into their workouts and how they impact their bodies. The company announced on Tuesday it’s rolling out Cardio Effort and VO₂ max metrics to expand workout tracking beyond exercise duration and heart rate zones.
While Oura has largely dominated the smart ring market for years, rivals like RingConn and Ultrahuman are emerging to dethrone it, putting pressure on the company to keep innovating. By launching more advanced workout metrics, Oura is looking to differentiate itself from competitors.
With Cardio Effort, users will be able to see how much a workout taxes their cardiovascular system. This measurement is aggregated over the week relative to each user’s individual baseline to provide more insights. Oura explained that this metric shifts users’ focus from “How many minutes did I move?” to “Am I maintaining my fitness, building it, or overdoing it?”
Since Cardio Effort accounts for both intensity and duration, a shorter, more intense workout can yield a similar score to a longer, less intense one, the company says.
Oura notes that the metric has two components: Workout Cardio Effort and Weekly Cardio Effort. The first metric evaluates the impact of an individual workout, while the latter aggregates effort into a weekly total, categorized as “Light,” “Fair,” “Maintaining,” “Building,” or “Reaching.”
Oura measures elevated heart rate relative to each member’s long-term resting heart rate, avoiding the variability associated with maximum-heart-rate estimates. Weekly effort levels are then determined using personalized ranges based on recent activity patterns.
Cardio Effort is rolling out to Oura Ring Gen3 and later models.
As for VO₂ max, the metric shows how workouts contribute to long-term fitness. It measures how effectively the heart, lungs, and muscles work together to deliver and use oxygen during exercise. Previously, measuring VO₂ max typically required a lab test or a six-minute walking test. Oura can now estimate it passively using GPS-enabled workouts.