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Oura adds new fitness metrics to show how workouts impact your body | TechCrunch. 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 VO[2] 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 VO[2] 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 VO[2] max typically required a lab test or a six-minute walking test. Oura can now estimate it passively using GPS-enabled workouts. After completing five qualifying activities, users receive an initial VO2 Max estimate. Within the My Health Heart Hub, they can view their current VO2 Max estimate in ml/kg/min, their fitness category (Low, Fair, High, or Peak), how their estimate has changed over time, and when it was last updated. Users also receive insights highlighting meaningful changes in their VO2 Max or indicating when their estimate remains consistent. VO[2] Max is launching in Oura Labs, the company's hub for experimental features, for members with Gen3 and newer Oura Ring devices. Oura says these two new features are designed to work together to show users how hard they're working and how that effort is adding up over time. When you purchase through links in its articles, Egerin Inc. may earn a small commission. This doesn't affect its editorial independence. Aisha is a consumer news reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining the publication in 2021, she was a telecom reporter at MobileSyrup. Aisha holds an honours bachelor's degree from University of Toronto and a master's degree in journalism from Western University. You can contact or verify outreach from Aisha by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at aisha_malik.01 on Signal.

Beyond the period tracker: how wearables are finally getting hormones right, and who does it best. From temperature-sensing smart rings to menopause tracking on your wrist, wearables are finally taking hormonal health seriously 11 October 2026 / 18:50 BST For years, women's health on a fitness tracker meant a glorified period calendar. You logged your flow manually (requiring you to remember to do so), and you'd get a vague prediction for the following month (only helpful for those with regular cycles). That was about it. The same device would happily tell you your VO2 Max to two decimal places, but when it came to correlating your energy score with your cycle phase, you'd be out of luck. That's finally starting to change (albeit slowly). It hasn't happened because of a single breakthrough, but because several pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. Wearable sensors can now detect subtle overnight temperature shifts, and companies are using AI models trained specifically on reproductive health data rather than treating female health tracking as an afterthought. There's still work to do, but wearables are moving in the right direction for tracking female health and hormonal changes. Here are the leaders and what they offer. Oura. For any woman who has used the Natural Cycles app, it will likely come as no surprise that Oura is one of the companies setting the pace in female cycle tracking. It was the first wearable to partner with the FDA-cleared birth control app, allowing users to wear its smart rings for temperature input instead of using a basal thermometer every morning before getting out of bed. Other wearables also now support Natural Cycles integration, but Oura pipped them all to the post in 2022. This year, ahead of the Oura Ring 5 launch, the Finnish company introduced Menopause Insights. It centres on the Menopause Impact Scale, a questionnaire developed by Oura to measure how 22 symptoms affect quality of life and daily functioning. Oura combines your answers with your long-term biometric data to explain your results, show how symptoms correlate with trends such as HRV and sleep disturbances, and track changes over time. For cycle tracking, Oura also released an AI model trained specifically on reproductive health data and added the option to tell the app which birth control method you are using (hormonal or non-hormonal), if any. By entering this information, the app takes it into account to deliver more accurate and relevant insights. Oura uses temperature data to predict ovulation, helping not only to tell you what stage of your cycle you are in and what that might mean for metrics like your heart rate and HRV, but also to identify which days you're most likely to conceive. It also has an AI-powered advisor, allowing users to ask questions about their data and cycle to help them make sense of the information being presented to them. Ultrahuman. Ultrahuman takes a similar approach to Oura, continuously tracking temperature with its smart rings - Ring Air and Ring Pro - to provide insights into the female cycle. Unlike Oura, which has a monthly subscription, Ultrahuman doesn't require one. However, there is the option to add paid PowerPlugs, including the Cycle & Ovulation Pro, which costs $3.99 a month. The free cycle tracking included with Ultrahuman uses temperature to predict ovulation and determine your cycle phase, with helpful insights to explain what that might mean. The Cycle & Ovulation Pro PowerPlug takes this several steps further. It uses the same sensors as the free version but, following the company's acquisition of viO HealthTech (a medical device company behind the OvuSense fertility monitor), adapts viO's temperature-sensing algorithm, developed over 15 years and trained on more than 260,000 cycles collected with medical-grade sensors. Ultrahuman says Pro confirms ovulation with more than 90 per cent accuracy, based on its own testing against LH and progesterone rises. It's aimed at people whose cycles don't follow the textbook 28-day cycle, including those with PCOS or endometriosis, though it isn't FDA-cleared or intended for contraception. Another notable feature is Cycle Flags, which analyses temperature data for patterns rather than making single-cycle predictions: for example, consistently early or late ovulation, a shortened luteal phase, or cycles where ovulation doesn't appear to occur at all. None of that is diagnostic - Ultrahuman is explicit that Pro is a wellness tool, not a substitute for clinical testing - but surfacing a recurring pattern over several months could be a helpful piece of information to bring to a doctor, rather than something you'd notice from period-diary logging alone. Whoop. Historically the most performance-obsessed of the bunch, Whoop leans more on lab work than its rivals. Its Hormonal Symptom Insights and Predictions, announced in March of this year, build a personalised model of your cycle from your physiological data and history. The model adapts over time, widening or narrowing its forecast as it learns how variable your cycles are. Whoop says it accounts for irregular cycles, perimenopause and hormonal birth control. Whoop Advanced Labs adds a Women's Health panel of 81 biomarkers, including 11 female-specific ones: AMH, progesterone, prolactin, thyroid markers, leptin, B12, folate, magnesium and phosphorus. Testing is conducted at Quest Diagnostics locations, with results reviewed by a licensed clinician. The panel is sold separately and is US-only, so unfortunately for anyone this side of the pond, you can't benefit from it just yet. For those in the US, results are tied back to your cycle, with reference ranges matched to your cycle phase and sorted into optimal, sufficient or out of range. Whoop says this helps with perimenopause, thyroid function and nutrient levels, which it says standard testing often under-measures. It has published a white paper on its modelling, so if you fancy some bedtime reading. Apple Watch. Apple takes a slightly more cautious approach than the others I've mentioned so far. Its Cycle Tracking app (also in the Health app on iPhone) logs periods, symptoms, spotting and basal body temperature, then predicts your next period and a six-day fertile window. Predictions rely on what you log, and the fertile window uses the traditional calendar method. Heart rate data from the Watch, enabled by default, further refines predictions, and on compatible models, overnight wrist temperature is used to estimate ovulation retrospectively, improving predictions. Menopause support has also been introduced with the latest software - iOS 27 and watchOS 27. For users aged 40 and over, Cycle Tracking can notify you when your logged cycles suggest perimenopause. In the Health app on iPhone, you can then log perimenopause or menopause and track symptoms such as hot flushes, night sweats and sleep changes. Once menopause is logged, predictions and fertile window estimates are disabled. None of the devices mentioned above measure hormones directly. They infer hormone levels from temperature, heart rate and HRV, and illness, alcohol, travel or a bad night's sleep can all muddy the signal. A wearable can't always distinguish ovulation from a rough night, which is why pretty much every brand stresses that its features are for wellness, not diagnosis. The next step may be dedicated hormone monitoring. Clair Health is developing a wearable that it says reads hormone patterns from more than 130 physiological signals, using machine learning trained on paired hormone data. That's still inference rather than direct measurement, and it isn't on sale yet, with devices due in January 2027. For now, then, what's above is what is available. They might not be perfect, but it's a lot better than what it was even a couple of years ago, so Stuff is on the right track. Britta O'Boyle About. Britta has covered the consumer tech industry since 2012. Her specialties include smartphones, smart home, speakers and wearables.