Early adopter experience
Long-time Oura user here, and honestly I’m a bit torn.
I got my ring about 4.5–5 years ago and genuinely loved it. After a while, I started noticing big battery drops, and over a year ago it completely died. So realistically, it lasted around 3.5 years before becoming unusable.
That’s the frustrating part. I really enjoyed the ring. I talked about it all the time with friends, family, and even customers at work when they asked about it. It was a great conversation starter, especially around sleep and health tracking.
But now the ring won’t charge, won’t connect, and because the battery is sealed and non-replaceable, the whole thing is basically expensive e-waste.
Oura support offered a partial contribution toward a new Gen 4. I do appreciate in that, but from Australia it still leaves me paying hundreds of dollars again. And with newer generations, many of the features are now tied to a paid membership too. To be fair, they have added new features, but it still changes the long-term ownership cost quite a bit.
I get that batteries degrade. I’m not expecting tech to last forever. But for a premium wearable with a non-replaceable battery, around 3.5 years before the whole product dies feels pretty disappointing.
It also makes it hard to keep recommending Oura when the ownership model feels like: battery dies, buy a whole new ring, then pay for the app as well. Rinse and repeat…
I’m in Australia, where products are expected to be reasonably durable under consumer law. I’m not asking for a brand-new Gen 4 for free, but I do think a refurbished replacement, older-generation replacement, better support pathway, or battery-failure program would be much fairer.
Has anyone in Australia had any success pushing this further with Oura or consumer protection?
Cheers