Ernesto Ramirez

June 15, 2015

One June 18-20 we’re hosting ourQS15 Conference and Expo and we’re delighted that so many great toolmakers will be joining us to show off their devices, apps, and services. We’ve  asked each of our toolmakers to give us a bit more background information about their company and what they’re excited about. If you’d like to meet these innovative companies and the amazing people behind them then make sure to register today!

How do you describe Oura?
Ōura makes a self-tracking ring that helps you be your best in everyday life. By sensing your body’s physiological responses, it guides you to adjust sleeping behavior and activity level to improve your sleep quality and optimize mental and physical performance. We want to help people stay balanced, improve quality of life and overall mental and physical performance.

What’s the backstory? How did you get started?
Our passion comes from our own need to stay balanced and performing well in the middle of hectic business and family life and our desire to provide the same opportunity for others so that people can live up to true their potential.

Several members of our team have created consumer products, either medical, wellness, sports and/or mobile and/or embedded systems in different contexts. A few of us have done research and created algorithms, one for more than 17 years at Polar, the leading manufacturer of heart rate monitors. Several members of our team have monitored themselves for a long time in different ways. We knew that to get a long-term view on physiological changes in the body we had to find a unique way to access the data with high accuracy but in a very desirable comfortable design. We found the finger to be an optimum place for measurement and through years of extensive R&D and prototyping, eventually managed to fit a full featured computer into a small enough form. The ŌURA ring was born.

What impact has it had? What have you heard from users?
The ŌURA ring will be available for pre-orders in July-August, so extensive feedback from users/customers is yet to come. However, within a limited group of people and our own team, we have been using ŌURA rings – some of us wearing two of them continuously – for more than half a year. And with the earlier prototypes, we’ve collected data for much longer.

Since launching the product at Launch Festival in San Francisco in March 2015, we have met hundreds of people, showing them the ring and the App and sharing the science and technology. The feedback has been very positive. People love the design and especially appreciate our focus on providing the user with an understanding of how to improve sleep quality, adjust activity, and balance them to optimize their mental and physical performance.

What makes it different, sets it apart?
ŌURA ring amplifies the voice of the body. Through the App it gives an opportunity to better understand what choices are good for us. Since our lifestyles are unique and the physiological reactions of our bodies are unique, by listening to our own bodies we can adjust our behavior to stay balanced and perform well.

ŌURA ring is simple and effortless to use. There are no buttons or lights, it requires nothing from you. It just senses your body and its reactions when you wear it. It combines style and comfort with high-end technology, applying over three decades of research on human physiology and behavior.

What are you doing next? How do you see it evolving?
Over the few months, we are creating connections – our target audience and especially early adaptors – mostly in the USA, to deepen our understanding of how we can refine the benefits of using the ŌURA ring in every day life.

ŌURA will be evolving in many ways, based on the feedback and ideas coming from the backers of the early adaptors in the pre-order campaign as well as from those partnering with us to develop their own solutions and applications based on ŌURA ring.

How can people find out more about you?
Check out our website and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. And of course come see us in person at the QS15 Conference and Expo!