The Best Smart Ring for Discreet Fitness Tracking in 2026 | WIRED

The best smart ring does a lot without asking much of you, passively tracking your activity, health, and sleep. Some models go even further, with meal logging, AI coaching, and cycle tracking. No distracting screens. No bulky smartwatch banging you in the face while you're deep in REM sleep.
Once the preserve of wealthy wellness buffs, top-of-the-line smart rings are becoming increasingly affordable and available. Although our top pick is still Finnish pioneer Oura's Ring 5 (from $399), the company is no longer the only fish in the smart-ring sea, thanks to upstarts like Ultrahuman and RingConn, established fitness-tracking brands like Amazfit, and even tech giants like Samsung. I expect to see more entrants in the coming months, but for now, these are the best smart rings we’ve tried.
For more wearable recommendations, check out WIRED's guides to the Best Smartwatches, the Best Fitness Trackers, and the Best Fitbits.
How I Test Smart Rings
WIRED has been testing smart rings since the NFC Ring and the first-ever Oura Ring. I wear each smart ring 24/7, for at least a month, to assess how it performs in everyday life. Every ring is worn during activities like commuting, exercising, and sleeping to see how comfortable it feels over extended use and whether the design causes irritation, scratches easily, or gets in the way of everyday tasks.
What Am I Testing Next?
I am testing the new Ultrahuman Ring Pro, the RingConn Gen 3, and the Pulse Ring.
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The original Oura Ring unilaterally created the health smart ring category. This stylish, unobtrusive ring, popularized by biohacking billionaires, soon brought miniaturized fitness tracking to the masses.
Why WIRED recommends: The latest Oura Ring 5 is 40 percent smaller than its predecessor, making it one of the comfiest wearables to keep on all day and night. The titanium exterior has a new coating applied with physical vapor deposition (PVD) to improve scratch resistance, and the ring itself features redesigned sensors, stronger signal detection, and consequently, better accuracy. It also has improved battery life, lasting up to nine days of use.
The biggest upgrade is Oura's push toward AI-powered health guidance. Similar to Google Health Coach, the Oura Advisor can answer wellness questions, provide personalized recommendations, and help identify patterns across your long-term data. New health features, including blood pressure signals and nighttime breathing insights, expand Oura's focus beyond basic fitness tracking.
The trade-offs: While it now supports live activity tracking through the app and can work with compatible heart rate monitors, the Ring 5 isn't the best choice for athletes who need live workout stats or a built-in GPS. If you already own a Ring 4, I'd probably wait another generation, considering that most software additions are coming to older hardware anyway. Finally, you'll need an Oura membership ($6 per month or $70 annually) to unlock most of its insights. (Without it, you can only view your Readiness, Activity, and Sleep Scores.)
Is There a Class-Action Lawsuit Against Oura?
Last August, San Francisco’s Clarkson Law Firm filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that Oura rings cannot measure one’s sleep stages and rely on the company’s AI models to do the guesswork. The complaint argues that sleep is “defined by brain electrical activity, eye movements, muscle tone, and other signals measured through electrodes placed on the scalp, leads on the eyes, and sensors on the chin. [Oura] doesn’t measure any of these parameters.”
In an email statement to WIRED responding to the lawsuit, an Oura spokesperson wrote, “Like other consumer sleep wearables, Oura Ring estimates sleep stages using multiple physiological signals, including heart rate, heart rate variability, movement, breathing patterns, and temperature.”
According to Oura, its sleep-staging algorithm is informed by research based on more than 1,200 nights of collected data. “We published a peer-reviewed paper that describes how the sleep-staging algorithm was developed and how it uses the signals collected by the ring,” wrote the spokesperson. “Multiple third-party, independent studies support our claims of accuracy, and we have transparently reported on the mechanisms and measures that inform Oura’s sleep staging.”
As of November 2, the court has yet to rule on Oura’s response to the complaint. I’ll continue to monitor the lawsuit and report back on any significant developments. For now, though, nothing has surfaced that changes my judgment of Oura as my top pick.
TL;DR: Though still subscription-based, the Oura Ring 5 is the best sleep tracker, one of the best fitness trackers, and the best smart ring for most folks. Read my full review.
I'm currently testing the RingConn Gen 3, but the Gen 2 Air remains one of our budget picks thanks to its affordable price and subscription-free model.
Why WIRED recommends: The RingConn Gen 2 Air is slimmer, lighter, and much more comfortable than previous models. It tracks your steps, calories burned, heart rate, blood oxygen, and sleep. It can prompt you to get up when you’ve been sedentary for too long and nudge you to take a breather if your stress levels spike. It's also compatible with colored ring protectors to swap out with your outfits if you're someone who likes to color-coordinate.
RingConn added an AI assistant to the app that generates a plan for you, adjusting your targets weekly based on your activity and feedback. This feature is fine. You can ask questions and get tips, but it doesn't dramatically change the overall user experience or make me more motivated to use the ring.
The trade-offs: Compared to the Gen 2, it's made from cheaper steel, has a slightly shorter battery life (still up to 10 days), can’t detect sleep apnea, and comes with a basic charger instead of a nifty charging case. Workout tracking is limited and does not work well when your he