Source: Internet
Internet of Things think tank collation and release
Guide
While everyone is imagining and arguing about whether the next generation of smart terminals is VR or other devices, a humble small hardware device has quietly reached millions of sales.
In 2019, Amazon brought 15 new products in one go at the autumn hardware conference, and the most eye-catching thing was the echo loop of the smart ring in the finale. Nicknamed the Lord of the Rings at the time, the wrench-like smart ring features a built-in haptic engine and two microphones that vibrate to alert new messages, the wearer can voice interact with the voice assistant Alexa, and even dial the phone by double-taping.
However, after a brief appearance at the conference, this smart ring has been tepid, and then there has been no follow-up.
Among the many wearable smart device categories, smart rings should be considered niche products, but a Finnish company, Oura, continues to receive capital attention in this area:
In March 2020, Oura announced the completion of a $28 million Series B funding round; in May 2021, Oura raised $100 million in Series C financing, raising a total of $150 million; and in April this year, Oura completed another multi-million dollar financing with a valuation of more than 2.5 billion.
Founded in 2013, the company has always wanted to shape a healthier lifestyle through sophisticated and intelligent data monitoring and small and flexible wearing methods, and its main products are smart rings and corresponding apps. Initially, Oura's products stood out among many wearable devices because of the unique shape of the ring, and in the second generation of products launched in 2018, oura Ring implements sleep monitoring based on built-in sensors.
Oura CEO Harpreet Singh Rai has said publicly: "Wearables are transitioning from activity trackers to health platforms that can improve people's lives, Oura first focuses on sleep, because sleep is a daily habit and is closely related to health conditions, sleep deprivation can cause diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer's, cancer, mental illness." ”
By May last year, Oura had sold more than 500,000 smart rings.
Built-in 7 sensors, from "Sleep Coach" to "Health Coach"
The second generation of oura Ring can measure the volume pulse of the palmar artery of the finger through infrared optical pulse measurement sensors; use a three-dimensional accelerometer and gyroscope to detect the direction and intensity of body movement; and measure the user's body temperature through three NTC temperature sensors.
At the same time, Oura Ring 2 can be connected with the app developed by itself, displaying specific sleep data in the app, such as sleep duration, deep sleep, shallow sleep, rapid eye movement period and other data, and can also analyze the user's sleep habits and patterns, score the sleep quality, and put forward suggestions for improvement, helping users prevent diseases caused by long-term lack of sleep, etc., like a real personal sleep coach.
However, these function points can also be done by many other types of wearable devices, but when collecting physiological data from the human body, the arteries on the fingers are stronger than the signals emitted by the veins on the wrist, so smart rings can be monitored more accurately than smart watches, bracelets and other devices.
In addition, because smart rings need to meet both small size and long battery life, as well as ensure data calculations, secure connections, etc., it is natural to design low power consumption. Oura uses the low-power architecture of PSoC 6, the first microcontroller architecture designed specifically for IoT low-power products, with low power consumption, high flexibility, high integration and other characteristics, seamless integration of key hardware security and connectivity functions of IoT terminal applications.
In October last year, Oura once again launched the third generation of smart rings, which integrate 7 sensors inside, and are more extensive than the second generation, adding pedometer, motion detection, menstrual forecasting, blood oxygen monitoring and real-time heart rate tracking; battery life can reach 1 week; waterproof depth of 100 meters; and can also connect with Apple Health and Google Fit.
From tepid to millions of sales, the epidemic has played a role in boosting
In May last year, oura ring sales just exceeded 500,000 pieces, and as of March 22 this year, its smart ring sales have exceeded 1 million, and the sales of the third generation of rings have exceeded the sum of the previous two generations of products, and have accumulated more than 2.5 billion hours of sleep record data.
The more eye-catching sales data of Oura rings in recent years may be inseparable from the epidemic:
During the pandemic, a user from Finland once said on his social media page that Oura Ring alerted him to the possibility of COVID-19 without symptoms, and later test results confirmed that he was indeed infected.
UCSF Medical Center and Zuckerberg San Francisco Hospital are also working with Oura to use the ring to monitor body temperature, sleep patterns and heart rate activity levels. Thousands of healthcare workers in San Francisco are already using Oura Ring to track their temperature so that the symptoms of COVID-19 can be noticed as early as possible.
In late 2020, Nature published a study titled "The Feasibility of Using Wearable Devices for Continuous Fever Monitoring," which also highlighted how Oura's devices can be used to detect changes in body temperature and how to detect possible COVID-19 infections at an early stage.
In this case, in order to gain more exposure, the third-generation Oura Ring also cooperated with the NBA to apply it to scenarios such as temperature and heart rate monitoring of NBA players, which can be adjusted to the best level of play by tracking the sleep patterns of the players.
In addition to increasing its publicity for COVID-19 monitoring, in October last year, Oura also launched a $5.99 monthly subscription fee model, which can provide daily health reports, personalized recommendations, and some educational videos and audio, making Oura achieve a new breakthrough in revenue in software services in addition to hardware revenue. According to Oura's announcement, after completing the latest round of financing, the funds received will also be used for personalized and instructive content in addition to hardware product research and development.
The final winner of the "Lord of the Rings" battle is unknown
Although from the perspective of sales, At present, Oura is the only company that has truly gained a firm foothold in the smart ring market, but the final winner is still inconclusive than the development path of smart phones and other fields.
Recently, OPPO exposed a patent called "Smart Ring", and from the exposure information, the design of this device is very similar to Oura's smart ring.
However, unlike the Oura Ring, OPPO's "smart ring" design may have a display that can interact like a smart watch, and the screen can be stretched, similar to the "scroll screen" concept introduced in mobile phones.
Coincidentally, Apple and Google have also exposed patents related to smart rings in 2020.
At that time, Apple's patent showed that the external part of the ring integrated various sensors such as force sensors, ultrasonic sensors, and inertial measurement units to collect the user's input information. At the same time, this smart ring can also be used to change the volume and even unlock devices such as Mac computers.
The difference in Google's patent is that a miniature camera has also been added to the smart ring, which can be used to adjust the aperture and take pictures.
In addition to OPPO, Google, and Apple, at this year's CES, health technology company Movano announced the launch of Movano Ring, which can provide almost the same functions as Oura Ring, and hopes to help users detect chronic diseases in the future, but the price is cheaper, waiting for final approval by the FDA before it can be listed.
Write at the end
In the VR field, the general consensus that has been formed is that shipments of 10 million will become an inflection point. Due to the small overall market volume of smart rings and the fact that there are not many players involved, the sales of Oura's single product exceeding 1 million is already a very good result.
Traditional rings usually represent the transmission of emotions, and now smart rings are given more functionality, which can be decoration, health detectors, or device controllers. Although limited by size, compared with smart watches, the number of functions that can be achieved will inevitably be reduced, but this completely insensible wearing, as well as the recognition of gesture operations, may bring more different gameplay in the future, and other wearable devices such as smart watches complement each other.
Resources:
1. "OPPO smart ring patent authorization, the display can be stretched", I&T Digital
2. "The smart ring Oura spawned by the epidemic only sells for $300, how to prevent disease?" " Encyclopedia of Fools
3. "Smart Ring Oura Completes $100 Million Series C Financing", Investment Community
4. "Development of smart rings for sleep monitoring, Finland 'Oura' receives $28 million Series B financing," 36Kr
5. "Google plans to develop wearable selfie ring with built-in camera", cnBeta
6. "Another Smart Ring Is Coming, Movano Ring's Idea Is Unique", Shenzhen Bay
April 22, online
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