On Monday, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman spoke with Tom Hale, CEO of Oura Health Oy (the company behind the popular Oura Ring), about the future of the company and the status of one of its best smart rings, the flagship fitness tracker, in an extensive Interviews

In that article, Garman seems to confirm that Oura is working on the fourth generation of its fitness tracking smart ring The new device will reportedly be unveiled in October

The current third generation Oura Ring was announced on October 26, 2021 and released on November 16, 2021 If the fourth generation were to appear this year, it would be announced and released in a similar fashion

According to Gurman's sources, the new Oura Ring will have better battery life and a thinner design Activity tracking should also be greatly improved, and Gurman describes it as “the biggest product overhaul in three years”

Hale expects hardware to make up the bulk of sales, but software will increase over time Whether that means new software products or higher subscription prices is unclear

“Retention is better than any other subscription model I've seen,” Hale said

“You don't need to do a whole lot to double this business

Other news from Garman's interview revealed that the Finnish firm expects to sell $500 million in products between rings and subscriptions According to Hale, the company has sold more than 25 million rings

There have been several competitors over the years, but perhaps the largest is Samsung, which just launched the $400 Galaxy Ring in July, already one of the best alternatives to the Oura Ring Samsung has been working to prevent Oura from filing a patent against Samsung to after it preemptively sued Oura to prevent it from filing a patent application Apparently, Oura has a habit of suing competitors, so it may have been more of a defensive move

Allegedly, Apple is working on an Apple Ring, but as with the iPhone Flip, there is no definite timeline as to when any of these mysterious products will appear