The issue is tied to firmware version 2.13.1 and is still marked as open. Oura has not said how many Ring 4 owners are affected, but it has published a simple workaround that may get the data moving again.

The problem appears after switching phones

According to Oura’s official known-issues page, some Ring 4 devices can stop syncing after installing firmware 2.13.1. The company says this may happen when the owner has moved to a new phone without completing a factory reset after the ring was originally set up.

The ring may remain out of sync for a day or two. That can leave recent sleep, recovery and activity information sitting on the ring instead of appearing in the app, although Oura has not said that the underlying data is deleted.

This does not look like a problem affecting every Ring 4. Oura has not identified a particular phone model or operating system, and its wording points to the device-transfer process as the main trigger.

The workaround is straightforward

The good news is that Oura’s suggested fix is pretty painless. Pop the Ring 4 on its charger, open the Oura app and give it a little time to reconnect and finish syncing.

Try that before digging into Bluetooth settings or reaching for the factory reset button. A full reset can wipe anything still sitting on the ring, so make sure your data is backed up if you do eventually need to go down that route.

Still no luck? Oura’s firmware troubleshooting guide suggests restarting your phone, checking that Bluetooth is working and making sure the ring has enough charge. Reinstalling the app and pairing everything again should be left until later, as there is no point creating more work for yourself unless the simpler fixes fail.

One slightly annoying detail is that automatic firmware updates are switched on by default. That means version 2.13.1 may land on your Ring 4 without you actively installing it. If you recently changed phones and the ring suddenly stops syncing, check the firmware version in the app’s software information section and try the charger trick first.

Oura has already dealt with a few software-related data problems this year, including missing Sleep and Readiness results that were fixed through an app update. This latest bug seems more limited and the workaround is much easier, but Ring 4 owners should still know about it while firmware 2.13.1 is making its way out.

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Oura announced on October 23 that it has filed a new complaint against Ultrahuman in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The company is seeking monetary damages and a permanent injunction that could stop Ultrahuman from selling the Ring Pro in the US.

The Ring Pro redesign did not end the patent fight

Ultrahuman’s new ring was built against a pretty awkward backdrop. Oura won an earlier case at the US International Trade Commission, leading to an import and sales ban on the Ring Air and forcing Ultrahuman to come up with a different design.

The Ring Pro was the answer. When Ultrahuman made it official in February, the company introduced redesigned internals, longer battery life and a new charging case, although the US was missing from the initial launch.

That redesign initially appeared to work. US Customs and Border Protection cleared the Ring Pro in March, allowing Ultrahuman to return to the market with a model that authorities considered outside the scope of the earlier exclusion order. We covered that development when the Ring Pro started moving towards its US return.

The important detail is that the Customs decision only addressed the patent involved in that earlier dispute. Oura’s latest complaint relies on two different patents, giving it another route to challenge the Ring Pro even after the redesign received clearance.

One is US design patent D804,471, which covers the ornamental design of a wearable computing device. The other is US patent 12,769,363, a newly issued utility patent describing a wearable ring with a curved battery, circuit board, charging magnets and optical, temperature and movement sensors. 

That second patent was issued on October 20, just two days before Oura filed its complaint. The timing makes it an unusually fresh addition to the dispute, although the issue of a patent does not by itself prove that Ultrahuman has infringed it.

Oura wants the Ring Pro off the US market

The complaint also names SVTronics, the Texas company that allegedly manufactures the Ring Pro at its facility in Plano. Oura claims Ultrahuman and SVTronics infringe its patents through the manufacture, importation and sale of the ring.

Ultrahuman is not backing away. CEO Mohit Kumar told TechCrunch that the company would defend its position and stressed that there is currently no court order affecting the Ring Pro. 

Oura has already shown that it is willing to use licensing agreements as well as court action. RingConn reached a multi-year deal with Oura that allowed it to continue selling its rings, while Ultrahuman has so far chosen to keep fighting.

For buyers, nothing changes today. The Ring Pro remains on sale, and there is no current court order preventing Ultrahuman from selling it. The longer-term picture is less settled.

Ultrahuman has sent us the following statement.

“We wanted to share some context directly regarding the patent complaint recently filed by Oura in the United States.

Ultrahuman remains confident in Ring PRO, the innovation behind it, and our continued growth in the smart ring category.

Ring PRO represents a substantially redesigned generation of our technology. Importantly, that redesign has already been through independent review in the United States: following an earlier patent proceeding, U.S. Customs and Border Protection determined that Ring PRO did not infringe the Oura patent considered in that proceeding.

Oura has now filed a new lawsuit asserting two different patents, one of which was issued on October 20, 2026, just two days before the lawsuit was filed. These newly asserted claims have not been adjudicated by a court.

The filing itself does not restrict the manufacture, distribution or sale of Ring PRO, and no injunction has been entered against Ring PRO as a result of this lawsuit. There is no change to our current retail plans or operations.

We respect legitimate intellectual property and are proud of the substantial investment Ultrahuman has made in its own engineering, science, product architecture and intellectual property. We will address Oura’s newly asserted claims through the appropriate legal process and will defend our position vigorously.

Competition and intellectual-property disputes are a natural part of building an important new technology category. They do not change our ambition or our pace.

For our partners, the message is simple: we remain focused on growing the category, supporting our retail network and continuing to bring differentiated Ultrahuman products and technology to customers around the world. Thank you for your continued partnership and confidence in Ultrahuman.”

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How it would work

A US patent application published on October 15 shows how it could work. Instead of having to press your finger against a scanner, the ring would read your fingerprint as you put it on. So, in theory, something you’d be doing anyway could also double as a security check.

When you first set it up, the ring would take several scans and piece them together to get a complete picture of your fingerprint. After that, it wouldn’t need to do quite as much work. A single scan could be enough to check that it’s you wearing the ring.

Samsung has also thought about how to make this comfortable. The patent mentions tiny magnets and springs that would let the button move slightly as your finger passes over it. That way, the scanner can stay in contact with your skin without digging into your finger.

And because battery life is always a concern with something this small, the scanner wouldn’t need to stay switched on all the time. The button could wake it up when you put the ring on, so it’s only using power when needed.

There’s one other neat trick. The same button could tell when you’ve taken the ring off. Once your finger is no longer pressing against it, the button moves back into place, and the ring can let your phone or another connected device know it’s been removed.

A smart ring that could replace your fingerprint login

So what would you actually be able to do with a fingerprint-scanning ring? Samsung mentions a few possibilities, including unlocking your phone, logging into accounts and approving payments. Basically, the ring could become another way of proving that you are who you say you are.

For example, you could put the ring on in the morning, have it recognise your fingerprint and then use it to unlock your phone throughout the day. That would give smart rings a useful job beyond counting steps and tracking sleep.

There is one obvious catch, though. If the scanner only reads your fingerprint when you slide the ring on, would you have to take it off and put it back on every time you wanted to unlock something? That would get annoying pretty quickly, especially when your phone already has a fingerprint scanner.

Samsung may have a way around that. Because the ring can also tell when you’ve taken it off, it could potentially keep you authenticated for as long as you’re wearing it. Once you remove the ring, that trusted status could disappear.

Of course, getting all of this to work in a real product is another matter. There’s already very little room inside a smart ring, and Samsung would have to squeeze in the scanner and moving parts without making the ring uncomfortable.

As for whether we’ll actually see this in the Galaxy Ring 2, that’s anyone’s guess. Samsung hasn’t confirmed anything, and plenty of patented ideas never make it into products you can buy.

We do know that another Galaxy Ring is on the way. Earlier this year, Samsung’s head of digital health, Dr Hon Pak, confirmed that a successor is in development, although it may not arrive until 2027.

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That’s a pretty strong start for a company most people outside Japan probably haven’t heard of. But SOXAI isn’t some unknown startup showing off a few renders. It has been making smart rings since 2022 and already has a sizeable customer base in Japan.

The company says its products have attracted around 80,000 users to date. Its technology has also appeared in other products, including the Sharp Karada Mate Ring we covered earlier this year. So there is a bit more history here than you might expect.

A smaller ring without sacrificing too much battery life

The main selling point is the size. SOXAI Ring X measures just 5.19mm across the band, making it considerably narrower than most established smart rings. The company claims this makes it the world’s narrowest smart ring with vital-sign tracking.

That’s a fairly specific claim, but the dimensions are impressive regardless. SOXAI also quotes a thickness of 2.6mm for the finished product, with a titanium alloy construction, 100-metre water resistance and three colour options: brushed silver, matte black and gold.

What’s more surprising is the battery life. Despite the smaller dimensions, SOXAI claims up to 10 days between charges. That’s competitive with plenty of larger alternatives, including some of the devices featured in our best smart rings guide.

There is a catch, though. That maximum battery figure applies to the larger US sizes 10 to 13, and smaller versions will offer shorter endurance. The company’s own comparison chart also includes another ring measuring 5.2mm wide, just 0.01mm wider than Ring X. So the combination of narrow dimensions and battery life is arguably more impressive than the record-breaking claim itself.

As for tracking, the familiar features are all here. Ring X uses optical sensors for heart rate, HRV and blood oxygen monitoring, alongside skin temperature and movement sensors. The companion app provides sleep stages, sleep scores, activity tracking, stress information, chronotype insights and sleep-apnea tendency monitoring.

There’s no mandatory subscription, either. SOXAI says all app features, including those introduced through future updates, will remain free. That puts it closer to the approach taken by RingConn than Oura.

The international launch is the bigger story

Perhaps the most noteworthy part of this announcement is that SOXAI is finally making a serious attempt to sell beyond Japan. Unlike many crowdfunding brands, it already has several generations of hardware behind it, with product development, manufacturing and testing handled in Japan.

The Kickstarter campaign opened on October 2 and runs until October 10. Early-bird pledges start at approximately $279, with standard pledges around $319. SOXAI is targeting a future retail price of $399, although the device hasn’t been sold at that price yet.

There is also quite a wait involved. Deliveries are currently scheduled between May and July 2027, with sizing kits expected to reach backers by December 2026. The company already has a functioning prototype, but final design validation and production testing are still to come.

International availability is not completely settled, either. According to SOXAI’s Kickstarter FAQ, the company plans to obtain the necessary certifications for markets including the US, UK, EU, Canada and Australia. Those approvals are not all in place yet, and customers in unsupported regions will receive refunds rather than devices.

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That is a sudden change for a deal that had moved well beyond the early paperwork. When we first covered Oura’s plan to go public, there was no price range or share count. Those details arrived last week: 50 million shares at $40 to $44 each, with a proposed Nasdaq ticker of OURA.

Where the $2.2 billion would have gone

At the top of the range, the offering would have totaled $2.2 billion and implied a fully diluted valuation of about $15.6 billion. But that does not mean Oura itself was set to receive $2.2 billion. Its SEC filing says the company planned to issue 13.5 million new shares, while existing shareholders would sell the other 36.5 million. 

In other words, 73% of the shares in the base offering were being sold by existing holders. At $44 a share, Oura’s portion would have brought in $594 million before costs, while those shareholders would have received about $1.61 billion before deductions. That is a detail worth keeping in view as the company considers when to try again.

Oura has not said that the split contributed to the postponement. It has also given no indication of the price investors were prepared to pay, so its claim of strong demand does not settle the question of valuation. The company’s stated reason is market uncertainty; a more specific explanation would be speculation at this stage.

The delay does not come with a warning about weak sales. Oura says it now has 5.7 million paid members, describes the response to Oura Ring 5 as exceptionally strong and expects fiscal 2026 revenue to grow by around 90%. The prospectus reported $1.21 billion in revenue and $60.8 million in net income for the nine months ended June 30.

What happens now

CEO Tom Hale says an IPO is still part of Oura’s plans and that the company can choose when to return to the market. There is no new date or revised price range, and Oura has not said whether it would keep the same share count. Its registration statement has not been declared effective, so the proposed sale has not taken place.

For people already wearing an Oura ring, the announcement says nothing about changes to the product, app or membership. For anyone expecting to buy Oura shares this week, the wait is now open-ended. The next useful signal will be a revised SEC filing or a new announcement explaining when Oura intends to try again.

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And this one is a bit different. Only a couple of weeks ago, we covered another Oura patent that uses tiny electrical currents to create haptic sensations⁠. This latest idea takes a much more mechanical approach.

The inside of the ring would actually move

The filing, US 2026/0259613 A1 , describes what Oura calls “pressure-based haptic feedback”. The basic idea is to place a flexible pad on the inside of the ring, with magnets and small coils sitting underneath it.

Send current through the coils and the magnetic field moves the magnet. That movement pushes the flexible pad towards the wearer’s finger, creating a small pressure sensation. Change the way the coils are driven and the ring could produce different strengths, durations and patterns of pressure.

So instead of feeling a normal buzz, you might feel a tap, a short press or a sequence of presses against your finger.

That makes quite a lot of sense for a smart ring. Space inside these devices is extremely limited, and a traditional vibration motor takes up room that could otherwise go towards the battery, sensors or electronics. Oura’s design effectively turns part of the inner ring structure into the haptic system.

The patent goes beyond generic notifications too. Oura describes different feedback patterns being associated with different events, including successful contactless payments, battery status and physiological information. It also discusses haptic feedback being triggered when a measured health value crosses a threshold.

The same system could check how well the ring fits

There is another interesting part buried in the filing. Oura says the magnet and coil arrangement could also work in the opposite direction.

If pressure from the finger moves the flexible pad and magnet, the coil can detect the resulting electrical change. In other words, the haptic mechanism could double as a pressure sensor rather than simply pushing against the finger.

That potentially gives Oura another way of determining how tightly the ring is sitting on the finger. The company specifically discusses using pressure measurements alongside physiological data and identifying situations where changes in fit could affect those readings.

This lines up with other Oura work aimed at detecting poor ring fit and weak skin contact⁠. That earlier approach used optical techniques. Pressure sensing would give the ring another source of information about what is happening between its inner surface and your finger.

For smart rings, that is not a small detail. Optical heart rate and blood oxygen measurements depend heavily on good contact, and fingers change size throughout the day. A ring that can tell when its fit has changed could potentially judge some readings differently, warn the user or compensate for poor contact.

Oura is known for filing a lot of patents, some of which never make it into a real-world product. So don’t take this as a guarantee you will see the haptic feature built into Oura Ring 6.

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That does not mean Oura handed customers $84.4 million or that every Ring 4 has a faulty battery. It does show that the problem became expensive enough to leave a very noticeable mark on the company’s accounts.

Ring 4 replacements pushed warranty costs higher

Oura spells it out in its newly public IPO filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission⁠. Certain Ring 4 production cohorts experienced battery performance issues, leading to more warranty claims and higher costs as affected rings were replaced free of charge.

Some replacements were even provided outside the normal warranty period. Oura generally offers a one-year limited warranty, except in places where local law requires longer coverage, so that detail suggests the company did not always draw a hard line once the first year had passed.

The filing does not identify the affected batches, sizes or purchase dates. It also does not reveal how many rings were replaced, so Ring 4 owners still have no simple way to check whether their device belongs to one of those cohorts.

Battery complaints are not new territory for the company, and we previously covered battery drain reported by owners of earlier Oura generations⁠. This disclosure is different because it comes directly from Oura and attaches a substantial financial figure to problems with the Ring 4.

Oura’s wider numbers are strong

The battery disclosure sits inside a much bigger IPO story. Oura confidentially filed to go public earlier this year⁠, but the newly released paperwork gives us the first proper look at its finances.

Revenue reached $1.21 billion during the nine months ending June 30, 2026, up 74 percent from the same period a year earlier. Net income climbed from $1.6 million to $60.8 million, while the company sold 3.1 million rings during those nine months.

Oura also had five million paid members by the end of June, twice as many as a year earlier. Membership revenue rose 121 percent to $240.5 million and carried an 89 percent gross margin, with weighted-average 12-month member retention sitting at approximately 85 percent.

Hardware still generated 80 percent of revenue, so manufacturing problems can quickly become costly even with a healthy subscription business behind them. Oura says the Ring 4 warranty increase was tied to earlier design, manufacturing and supplier factors, while testing and quality-control work has since been expanded.

What Ring 4 owners should take from this

Owners seeing a sudden drop in battery life have a stronger reason to contact Oura support, however, even if the standard warranty has recently ended. The company has now confirmed that some affected devices were replaced outside that period, although it has not promised the same treatment in every case.

The newer Oura Ring 5 launched in June⁠ with redesigned hardware, and Oura says it continues to monitor its performance. The filing also warns that current or future generations could experience other quality issues, which is standard risk language but worth noting after such a large warranty increase.

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There are two models, Circular Ring 3 Pro and Circular Ring 3 Slim. They share quite a lot, but Circular has made a much clearer distinction between them than simply offering two sizes of the same thing.

Haptic vibrations are back

The return of vibration alerts is probably the most interesting bit here. Circular used haptics on its earlier rings, but dropped them with Ring 2, so Ring 3 brings back one of the few smart ring features that genuinely feels different from what most rivals are doing.

The ring can quietly buzz your finger for silent alarms, medication reminders and health alerts. Circular also plans to use vibrations during guided breathing exercises, which makes more sense on a screenless wearable than repeatedly asking you to check an app.  Both Ring 3 models get the feature.

NFC payments are also standard across the range. Circular says users will be able to tap their ring to pay using supported Visa and Mastercard cards, although we do not yet have a detailed list of banks, countries or card issuers that will work at launch.

Ring 3 Pro gets the full health package

Circular Ring 3 Pro is the one with most of the sensors. It has single-lead ECG, and Circular says its AFib detection is FDA-cleared. Blood pressure trend tracking also makes the cut, along with non-invasive glucose trend estimates, heart rate, HRV, SpO2, respiration, temperature, sleep, stress and activity tracking.

The hardware has changed quite a bit as well. Ring 3 Pro measures 6.8mm across and weighs roughly 3 to 4 grams depending on size. Ring 2 is 7.8mm wide, so the new model should look noticeably less substantial on the finger, although at 2.78mm it is actually slightly thicker than Ring 2’s 2.65mm profile.

Battery life gets a decent bump. Circular quotes up to 12 days for the Pro, compared with up to seven days for Ring 2. Its 700mAh charging case is rated for around five to six additional charging cycles, and a full wireless charge of the ring should take about 50 minutes. 

Ring 3 Slim cuts a few health features

Ring 3 Slim takes a different route. It drops ECG and blood pressure tracking, but keeps heart rate, HRV, SpO2, respiration, temperature, sleep, activity, stress and women’s health features. Interestingly, Circular’s comparison sheet also lists glucose trend estimates for the Slim.

It is considerably smaller than the Pro. The Slim is just 5.9mm wide, 2.35mm thick and weighs around 1.9 to 3 grams depending on size. That makes it both narrower and thinner than Circular Ring 2⁠, and probably the model to watch if comfort is higher on your list than ECG.

Circular quotes up to 10 days of battery life. Its 700mAh charging case can apparently recharge the ring around nine to ten times, while the ring itself takes roughly 30 minutes to fill up wirelessly. 

Both versions come in US sizes 6 through 14 and offer 50 metre water resistance. Circular is also rolling out an updated Kira app, which pulls the ring’s measurements together and uses AI to provide health trends and personalised recommendations.

There is one fairly important piece still missing, though. Circular has not announced pricing or a pre-order date yet, saying those details will follow in the coming months. 

So for now this is a proper hardware reveal rather than something you can go out and buy. But Ring 3 does look like a more interesting step forward than Ring 2, particularly because Circular is not simply piling on more health metrics. Payments and haptic alerts give the ring a couple of things to do during the day when you are not thinking about your sleep score.

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The application, US 2026/0248448 A1, was published on August 27 under the title “Techniques for migraine detection using a wearable device.” It is a continuation of earlier work rather than a completely new project, but the newly published document gives us a detailed look at how Oura thinks migraine prediction could work.

The ring would look for changes before a migraine

The basic idea is fairly straightforward. Oura would establish what is normal for an individual, then look for changes in their physiological data that have previously been associated with migraines.

Sleep plays a big role in the patent. The system can look at total sleep time, REM sleep and other sleep stages, then compare those numbers with the person’s recent baseline. A machine learning model could identify changes such as reduced sleep duration or a drop in REM sleep that tend to occur before a migraine.

Body temperature is another important input. Oura plots both sleep and temperature across the two weeks before and after migraine symptoms appear, showing the types of changes the company believes could provide an early warning.

The system could also use heart rate, HRV, movement and other physiological information already available from the ring. This would not rely on one magic migraine sensor. Instead, Oura is describing a model that looks at several small changes together and asks whether that pattern resembles the period before one of the user’s previous migraines.

That approach is fairly close to the direction Oura has already taken with Health Radar. The current feature looks for unusual changes across several background signals, while this patent applies the same broad idea to a much more specific outcome.

Oura could warn you before symptoms start

The useful part is what happens after the ring detects that pattern. Oura describes creating a “migraine prediction metric” that represents how likely the person is to experience a migraine during an upcoming period.

It could go further and estimate when that period is likely to begin. The app could then send a warning before symptoms appear, rather than simply noticing that something changed after the migraine has already started.

Oura even includes a mock-up showing how that could look. One notification tells the user that their data suggests they may be heading towards a migraine on Thursday and recommends taking the medication they normally use before going to bed. Another notices that their sleep has fallen over several days and asks whether they are experiencing migraine symptoms.

That second part would help the system learn from the individual. Users could log migraine events and symptoms, giving the model more information about what their own pre-migraine pattern looks like rather than relying entirely on population averages.

So this is a bit different from RingConn’s feature. Its Headache Signs tool looks at your biometrics alongside local barometric pressure and tries to flag a possible headache episode as it develops, whereas Oura’s patent is specifically about predicting a migraine before symptoms start and estimating when it may arrive.

Our takeaway

This is still a patent, so there is no indication that Oura is about to add migraine prediction to the app. But unlike some more speculative wearable patents, this one describes a feature that fits with the data the ring already collects and the way Oura is increasingly using that data.

Oura has been exploring other ways of making its existing sensor data more useful rather than simply adding more measurements. A recent Oura patent looked at detecting poor ring fit, for example, with the aim of catching conditions that could weaken the quality of those measurements in the first place.

Migraine prediction would be a much bigger step. Whether Oura can make it accurate enough for real-world use is another question.

This article originally appeared on Gadgets & Wearables, the first media outlet to report the story.

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A newly published US patent application from the company describes a smart ring built around that idea. It was filed in February 2025 and published on August 20, 2026 as US 2026/0246054 A1.

Anyone who has owned a smart ring for a few years will understand the problem. These devices are designed for continuous wear, but their batteries are usually permanently sealed inside. Once capacity drops significantly, replacing the battery is generally not practical and the entire ring can end up needing replacement.

Ultrahuman’s answer is to make the battery itself part of a removable section of the ring.

Swap the battery without stopping the ring

The drawings show a main ring body containing the sensors and electronics, with a curved battery section that attaches to it. Ultrahuman lists several possible ways of securing the two pieces, including magnets, a sliding lock and a snap-fit mechanism.

Electrical contacts automatically connect the battery module to the rest of the ring once it is attached. The patent mentions spring-loaded pins, pogo pins and magnetic contacts as possible approaches.

But the clever part is what happens when you take that battery out.

Ultrahuman proposes putting a smaller “residual battery” inside the main ring body. When the removable battery is detached, this smaller battery temporarily powers the sensors and electronics. Once a charged module is attached, a switching mechanism moves power back to the larger battery.

In theory, you could keep a second battery module charged and swap it in within seconds. The ring would continue recording while you do it, rather than spending an hour or two sitting on a charger. That is particularly interesting for sleep and recovery tracking, where missing chunks of data can affect the following day’s scores.

Oura has been thinking along similar lines

This isn’t the first removable smart ring battery design we’ve come across.

Earlier this year, we covered an Oura patent for a smart ring with a detachable battery section. Oura’s approach also separates the battery housing from the sensor-equipped portion of the ring, allowing the power module to be removed and replaced.

The two ideas attack much the same problem, although Ultrahuman’s residual battery makes its version particularly interesting. Instead of simply making the main battery replaceable, the filing is designed around keeping the ring operational during the swap.

That could also make charging work quite differently. Rather than charging the whole ring every few days, you could potentially charge individual battery modules separately and rotate them.

Battery ageing may be the bigger benefit

Convenience is only half the story. Replaceable batteries could substantially extend the useful life of smart rings.

I found battery performance pretty solid when I tested the Ultrahuman Ring Air, with the ring typically losing around 15 to 20% charge per day. But lithium batteries inevitably degrade with repeated charging cycles, regardless of how well they perform when new.

Ultrahuman explicitly talks about this in the filing. Instead of throwing away an otherwise functional ring when its battery deteriorates, the owner could simply replace the battery module. The company also suggests different battery capacities could eventually be offered, opening the possibility of choosing between a lighter module and one designed for longer runtime.

There is even an outer shell in some of the drawings that fits over the ring and removable battery section. This could be made from silicone, metal or a combination of materials, helping disguise the modular construction and making the finished device look more like a conventional ring.

None of this means Ultrahuman is about to launch such a product. Patent filings regularly cover ideas that never make it into commercial hardware, and making a removable section durable, waterproof and comfortable enough for continuous wear would bring its own engineering headaches.

But this is now at least the second major smart ring company we’ve seen exploring replaceable batteries. That makes the broader idea more interesting than any one patent.

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