Smart rings: which startup is ahead?

Smart rings: which startup is ahead? Last updated: 31 July 2026 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$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$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