Smart rings: causing more harm than good?

Woman checking her phone while wearing a smart ring

Health-tracking devices have been ‘taking over our fingers and wrists’ for the past decade

(Image credit: Alena Frolova / Getty Images)

In a world of endless information, how much do you need to know about your own health?

The company behind the best-known smart ring, Oura Health Oy sold 5.5 million pieces in 2025 and its valuation was around $11 billion (£8.2 billion) last September. The device records everything from “steps to sleep to hormonal health to heart-rate variability”, said Sarah Rappaport in Bloomberg. Based on a survey of 699 Oura members after using the Oura Ring for 30 days, Oura Health Oy said 88% saw their health improve.

Health-tracking devices have been “taking over our fingers and wrists” for the past decade. While wearing one is intended to be “motivational” in the way it prompts you to be healthier, it can also feel like you’re being fed a “real-time deluge of negative data”. These devices can be viewed as taking a “proactive approach” to health but their “data overload” can result in a “host of new stressors”, which work against the main goal of wearing them.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

‘Terrifyingly accurate’

Seeing a constant “litany of metrics” can lead to “hyper fixation” on health stats.

These “wedding rings for the wellness era” are “terrifyingly accurate” in their biometric measurement when you first put one on, said Polly Vernon in The Gloss. After a few months of wearing the ring, “things started getting choppy.” Vernon noticed a drop in “sleep scores” despite making no changes “lifestyle-wise”. The “not-so-gentle” warnings about high stress levels induced even more stress to the point that she decided to booked in for a delayed MRI scan. Despite the scan revealing nothing was wrong, her scores remained low.

The “long-term impacts of incessant tracking” are yet to be seen but many are feeling the “health anxiety” that comes with it, said L’Oréal Blackett on Refinery29. It seems to be “fostering hypervigilance”, Dr Sophie Shotter, an aesthetics doctor and wellness specialist, told the site.

Interestingly, women are more prone to this kind of psychological strain as they have “greater physiological variability” than men, said Dr Shotter. For those with “fertility concerns”, perpetual access leads to “false expectations, obsessive use, and stress when tracking their ovulation and menstrual data”.

Devices like the Oura ring need to be mmonitored so tey don’t “take over our lives”, clinical psychologist Thea Gallagher told Bloomberg. As with scales, the problem isn’t the gadget but the mental state of the user. “Some people don’t mind weighing themselves” while others tend to “hyperfocus on their weight in an unhealthy way”.

‘Different for everyone’

The key benefit of wearing a health tracker is learning about your heart rate variability (HRV). This metric helps users to note “the way in which their heart changes its rhythm with each beat,” said British Vogue. A high HRV shows good “resilience and longevity” and a lower rate means the body reacts less well to stress.

With a smart ring, you can “identify dips in your HRV, and then make lifestyle changes to bring it back up”. While it is normal for HRV to drop in a stressful situation such as during a hard workout or just before a big meeting, the concern arises when “low-level chronic stress” caused by “work-, money- or health-related anxieties” becomes a part of everyday life”. Wearing a tracker regularly can help get a “better idea” of how stressful your lifestyle really is.

Health tracking is not a trend that’s going to die down, especially as manufacturers move away from “health trackers that are worn somewhere other than the wrist”, said Adrienne So in Wired. Compared to a Fitbit or an Apple Watch, smart rings are “lightweight and more energy efficient, and they don’t have distracting screens.”

The device can also be “lifesaving” at times, particularly for detecting irregular cardiac rhythms that need investigation, said Sarah Rappaport in Bloomberg. It is a tricky balancing act when wearing them and the outcome is “different for everyone”. It “inspires” a healthier lifestyle when you’re feeling good but makes you “feel worse” when you’re already stressed.

When the data gets “too much”, you can “take a step back,” said Holly Shelton, Oura’s chief product officer. “Oura will be here when you’re ready.”

Deeya Sonalkar joined The Week as audience editor in 2025. She is in charge of The Week's social media platforms as well as providing audience insight and researching online trends.

Deeya started her career as a digital intern at Elle India in Mumbai, where she oversaw the title's social media and employed SEO tools to maximise its visibility, before moving to the UK to pursue a master's in marketing at Brunel University. She took up a role as social media assistant at MailOnline while doing her degree. After graduating, she jumped into the role of social media editor at London's The Standard, where she spent more than a year bringing news stories from the capital to audiences online. She is passionate about sociocultural issues and very enthusiastic about film and culinary arts.