A new Oura Ring feature may help you eat better

By Ajay Kumar Published July 29, 2024

Wearables are great for tracking steps and heart rate, but when it comes to counting calories and logging meals, you’re usually forced to do it manually, if you can do it at all. That may be set to change with the Oura Ring if a recent APK teardown from Android Authority is to be believed.

According to the teardown of the beta version of the Oura app (version 5.3.4 beta 2, for reference) the feature will allow you to more easily track meals with the Oura app. Logging the meal can be done by taking a picture and allowing built-in AI to analyze the items in the meal and presumably measure things like calorie count and if it’s a balanced diet or not. There’s also a manual logging option if you’d rather not have AI judging everything you’re eating.

The code in the APK teardown also suggests that the meals and mealtimes will be measured against their impact on your circadian rhythm, giving you some insight into the impact of food on your body in terms of blood sugar, energy levels, and your internal clock. Also included in the teardown are two screenshots detailing the AI-assisted meal logging features and the circadian rhythm measuring.

The teardown is the latest in a series of new features that Oura is set to roll out. One of the most recent updates is expected to make it easier for the Oura Ring to track your heart health with measurements for cardiovascular age that get compared to chronological age. Oura is also moving to measure cardio capacity to determine your body’s efficiency in supplying oxygen to muscles during exercise.

With Oura facing competition from the newly released Samsung Galaxy Ring, which is subscription-free, and the RingConn Gen 2, which has built-in sleep apnea monitoring, the company may be keen on offering more features in its wearables to compete. The Oura Ring 4, in particular, has already leaked, giving us an early look at the design but not really tipping its hand about new and upcoming features.

Currently, it’s unknown when Oura intends to roll out the meal tracking feature to users, but according to Android Authority, it shouldn’t be too long because it’s already in the app.