Oura smart ring.

Oura

Oura has had a patent published that fixes one of the key issues in smart ring design, of battery longevity.

The patent outlines how a smart ring could be made with a removable and replaceable battery. This is no small endeavour when working at this scale.

Diagrams show how this would work. Half of the ring’s outer is a battery, while the other half is home to the sensors and core electronics.

In general use the two are kept together using magnets, while a direct physical connection lets the battery power the other side. There remains a skeleton of, presumably, metal, so the removable part is not structurally critical.

This Oura concept comes with a whole host of questions that are not really answered by the detail in the filing.

How do you make this design water resistant not just at the point of purchase, but after the battery has ben removed and put back a whole bunch of times?

There’s also a push-and-pull here between making the battery easy to remove, and keeping it securely attached so it doesn’t end up flying off if the ring is dropped on the floor.

A modular design like this may also add significant chunkiness to the smart ring, which is something Oura has always avoided in its previous iterations.

There would be some real potential benefits to such a style, though, allowing for lower e-waste, greater smart ring longevity and a far greater adherence to the spirit of the legislation the EU is implementing. Recent moves have called for much improved repairability in consumer tech.

This also sees Oura claiming technological ground, which could work to its benefit even if Oura has no serious plans to work this technology into a finished, mass produced product.

Like many of the top consumer electronics companies, Oura has proved to be pretty litigious. It accused Ultrahuman and Ringconn of copying elements of its smart ring design, which led to Ultrahuman Air rings being banned in the U.S., and Ringconn entering a license agreement with Oura.

It’s important here to recognize the context of these patent filings, though. Tech companies like Oura publish all sorts of concepts and ideas in patent form, and it’s no guarantee work is being done on what’s described beyond the patent itself.