New Fitness Tracking Features
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 it is rolling out Cardio Effort and VO₂ 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 challenge it, putting pressure on the company to keep innovating. By launching more advanced workout metrics, Oura is looking to differentiate itself from competitors.
Understanding Cardio Effort
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 simply tracking active minutes to evaluating whether they are maintaining their 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 session.
Image Credits:Oura /
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 across various effort levels.
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.
Passive VO2 Max Estimation
As for VO₂ max, the metric shows how workouts contribute to long-term fitness by measuring how effectively the heart, lungs, and muscles work together to deliver and use oxygen during exercise. Previously, measuring VO₂ max typically required a lab test or a structured walking test. Oura can now estimate it passively using GPS-enabled workouts.
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After completing five qualifying activities, users receive an initial VO2 Max estimate. Within the My Health Heart Hub, they can view their current estimate in ml/kg/min, their fitness category, how their estimate has changed over time, and when it was last updated.
VO₂ Max is launching in Oura Labs, the company’s hub for experimental features, for members with Gen3 and newer Oura Ring devices.
Oura states that these two new features are designed to work together to show users how hard they are working and how that cumulative effort adds up over time.
