Oura Ring may get glucose monitoring thanks to new partnership
Oura and Dexcom have agreed on an investment that could see glucose monitoring come to your finger... eventually
🧑⚕️ Dexcom is investing $75 million into Oura
💍 This will give Oura Ring users access to glucose monitoring data from Dexcom monitors
📊 It also means glucose monitoring could come directly to the Oura Ring over time
📅 Expect to see data integration with Oura in the first half of 2025
The Oura Ring is one of the most popular fitness trackers on the market, and it looks like it’ll get even better in the future with glucose monitoring.
Oura just received a $75 million investment from Dexcom, a medical device firm that makes continuous glucose monitoring systems like the Stelo. As part of a Series D financing round, which valued Oura at upwards of $5 billion, Dexcom and Oura agree to begin sharing and integrating their respective data into their customer experiences, which means it’ll one day be easier than ever to track your glucose levels alongside the rest of your health stats.
As reported by Bloomberg, Oura sees this as a big opportunity to help users track their glucose levels who may have diabetes or are at risk of hypoglycemia. "The partnership is really about continuous glucose data making its way into the Oura context and making it an Oura experience to help people change their behaviors,” Oura CEO Tom Hale said.
The two companies see this as an opportunity to work together more in the future. “This is a mutually beneficial relationship,” said Matt Dolan, Dexcom’s head of corporate development.
Adding glucose information will help contextualize the rest of your health data collected by the Oura Ring, giving you a broader idea of your health. We’ve been hearing for a while now that companies like Apple and Samsung are working on ways to track your glucose levels without the need for an intrusive tracker, instead relying on sensors from watches and rings to collect the data. It’s unclear whether Oura plans to add glucose monitoring to the Oura Ring without the need for a dedicated monitor, but at least in the short-term, we know that you’ll need both for it to work.
It seems like a feature that’s in pretty high demand, too. Hale said that one in five Oura users have tried a glucose monitor, and more than half are interested in trying one. This sort of data could lead to a bundled package between an Oura Ring and Stelo monitor, but that’s purely speculation.
Right now, if you want an Oura Ring and Stelo glucose monitor, you’ll need to spend at least $249 on the former and $99 (per month) on the latter. That’s an expensive hobby, and it’s unclear whether the price will come down once both platforms are using each other’s data.
For now, both Oura and Dexcom see this as an opportunity not just to improve their customer experiences, but to sell more rings and monitors than ever before. We’ll see the fruits of that labor come the first half of 2025, when the two companies are expected to start sharing data in their apps.
Max Buondonno is a writer at The Shortcut. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop.