The news: Oura rolled out various new health features for its smart rings, available for paid members on generation 3 models and newer, including the newly released generation 5.

• Blood pressure signals: The ring can track biometrics associated with rising blood pressure, while another feature monitors overnight blood pressure patterns.
• Medical record uploads: Members can connect data from select providers to import diagnoses, medications, and lab results into a personal health record.
• Clinician access: Members can ask questions, get medical advice, and connect with providers in the Oura app via a tie-up with online healthcare company Counsel Health.
• GLP-1 insights: Patients on these medications can track dosing schedules, weight and body changes, along with biometric data collected by their ring.

Why it matters: Health wearable devices are becoming a bigger part of both preventive care and disease management.

Half of Oura users use data from the smart ring to help manage a chronic condition, according to the company’s chief medical officer who was cited in a recent MedCity News story. Other wearable players like Whoop, Google Health/Fitbit, and Samsung are pushing deeper into health services with new features ranging from in-app clinician video consultations to AI-powered medical guidance and even blood pressure estimates.

Wearable companies are responding to growing interest in advanced health-tracking capabilities across smartwatches, smart rings, and fitness bands. But they’re also benefiting from relaxed—or in some cases nonexistent—regulations around turning their devices into bona fide health tools that manage care. Updated FDA guidance from January clarifies that the agency does not intend to actively regulate “low-risk products” solely intended for wellness, such as wearables. For context, some features in health wearables are FDA-cleared, even when the wearable product itself is not FDA-cleared as a whole. Meanwhile, there’s no single, comprehensive regulatory framework governing consumer tech products or chatbots offering AI-driven medical guidance.

Implications for health wearable companies: Expanding into health services beyond basic activity tracking opens new partnership opportunities with health insurers and healthcare providers. While those organizations have historically shown limited interest in using wearable data to assess risk or manage patient care, these devices are rapidly evolving into health management platforms worn on the wrist or finger. Insurer and physician partnerships should also boost consumer adoption of wearables; we estimate that roughly one-quarter of US consumers use a health-related smart wearable.

At the same time, there is increased risk that consumers may receive faulty health guidance or act on data from unregulated products. Wearable companies should clearly communicate what their products are designed to do, without overstating the accuracy of outputs in ways that imply medical-grade capabilities.