The Oura Ring 4 was introduced in South Africa in October 2025 exclusively via Discovery. After reviewing it, I bought one, which probably tells you more about it than any list of specs could.
A year later, the Oura Ring 5 has landed for review. At 40% slimmer, it resembles a wedding band and is far less conspicuous than Ring 4, which prompted some questions.
Despite being lighter, battery life is longer. I’m getting almost a week of battery life on the smallest band, a size 6, depending on how active I am. Sizes range from 6 to 13; the larger the size, the bigger the battery.
Oura says Ring 5’s redesigned sensors are stronger for added accuracy. It includes heart rate and SpO₂ sensors that use triple LEDs plus two photodetectors alongside a temperature and motion sensor.
The app’s core features are still there: it provides a daily readiness score, sleep data, activity, heart rate and stress levels. It learns your baseline metrics and alerts you to anomalies or pattern changes. It also has a symptom warning, categorised by minor or major signs, which lets you know if you’re coming down with something.
I’ve used the major signs to cancel events to stay home and prioritise rest or skip a cardio workout I had planned. It is not a medical device, and it cannot tell you what’s wrong, but it can give you a nudge that your body is behaving differently.
I check my readiness score every morning. It uses factors such as sleep, rest, recovery and activity to give me an indication of how prepared I am for the day. If I slept badly, I usually know before opening the app. The sleep score is key to Discovery offering the device in South Africa as it is used to calculate the Vitality Sleep score based on regularity, duration and quality.
If you meet your weekly goals, the device pays for itself, for example, with its existing Apple Watch offering. You pay for the weeks your goal isn’t met.
I found the stress indicators insightful. I recall feeling cold at a restaurant but didn’t want to use the outside bathrooms. The ring said it caused physiological stress.
I activated the AI Oura Advisor, which detected a minor change in my resting heart rate. I also asked it to analyse my latest blood test, which was easier to understand than the original report.
The improved sensors pick up workouts better than Ring 4, but I don’t trust it enough for this data. I say this as an Apple Watch user. Case in point: it picked up that I was dancing or doing yoga when I was in fact doing housework and a different workout.
Apart from its slim design, the Oura Ring 5’s value lies in bodily awareness and knowing when to rest. That’s why it’s popular among athletes. It’s not about chasing scores and it isn’t reliable for exercise. You also need to be comfortable sharing your data with Discovery.
Cool factor: 5/5
Usability: 4.5/5
Value for money: 4/5
