Latest news with #OuraRings
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Starlink, Oura Rings to help monitor sailor fatigue underway
When the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group gets underway later this year, 1,600 sailors equipped with Oura Rings will embark on the largest volunteer study of crew fatigue to date. During the deployment, the rings will monitor the wearers' sleep length and quality, along with a range of other biometric indicators, to provide commanders with a near real-time picture of units' rest levels and allow them to make changes to support performance and address fatigue. The Starlink internet access now being provided onboard deployed Navy ships will allow the data from the rings to be uploaded securely and anonymously for review both by unit leaders and researchers in San Diego, who will track trends and hotspots and produce reports on the data. It's a step toward the Navy's ultimate goal to monitor real-time fatigue for all underway sailors and prevent future disasters linked to exhaustion. The origins of the upcoming sleep experiment date back to 2017, when the Navy lost 17 sailors in two separate collisions — from the destroyers McCain and Fitzgerald — with commercial ships in the Pacific. Investigations would cite crew fatigue as a factor in both tragedies. While some changes were made quickly — such as instituting a watchstanding schedule that more closely aligned with sailors' natural circadian rhythms — other changes have been slow to materialize. A 2021 Government Accountability Office report recommended that the Navy require 'systematic collection of quality and timely fatigue data' from sailors and use that data to better understand factors contributing to fatigue and how to address them. But as of 2023, the GAO found the Navy still had not fully implemented its plan to use wearables to collect biometric sleep and health data from sailors in real time. Called the Command Readiness, Endurance and Watchstanding, or CREW, program, this line of effort was developed by the Naval Health Research Center and equipped its first sailors with wearables in 2021. But the effort has struggled to secure the funding needed to propel it out of the research phase, said Dr. John Cordle, a human factors engineer with the Navy. 'There's no program of record; there's no research sponsor,' Cordle told Military Times. 'It's an example of a fleet initiative that needs to find a home, up in Washington, but has yet to become interesting enough for that to happen.' With a carrier strike group now equipped with the tech, researchers are hopeful the results will grab attention. 'We're … after helping leadership on these ships understand how the mission is impacting the sleep and the recovery of their sailors, especially as they go on these deployments that involve a lot of stress,' said Dr. Rachel Markwald, a senior sleep physiologist at the Naval Health Research Center and the implementation lead for the CREW Program. 'I think most people understand that sleep is incredibly important to help restore our performance, our health, our capacity,' Markwald added. 'And if we have no idea where folks are related to their own capacity, then we'll continue to just do what we've been doing and push forward without those insights.' While the 2017 collisions created the most significant moment of reckoning for the Navy, they're not the only recent examples of mishaps in the wee hours with indicators that fatigue played a role. Naval Safety Command published a rundown of smaller fatigue-related mishaps in the wake of the collisions. And in a presentation delivered earlier this year, Cordle pointed out that recent mishaps, including the February collision of the carrier USS Harry S. Truman with a Panama-flagged merchant vessel near the Suez Canal and the May 2024 collision of two landing craft air-cushion (LCAC) vessels off Jacksonville, Florida, took place between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. Investigations into both of those incidents have yet to be released. For the current study, participation was entirely voluntary, but came with an incentive: if sailors wear their Oura rings — which track 20 different biometric factors and retail for about $200 — for at least 75% of the deployment, they get to keep the tech. Sailors who are less consistent won't face a penalty, but will need to give the rings back. The rings were chosen, in part, because they don't give off a signal or GPS data and are considered passive, Cordle said. 'They connect to your phone [via Bluetooth], but if the phone is not there, it's not a problem,' he said. 'The Chinese can't find a ship because the crew is wearing Oura rings.' Still, even beyond securing a resource sponsor, the researchers know they'll face more obstacles on the way to the CREW vision of service-wide implementation of biometric fatigue monitoring underway. One unanswered issue is whether the service will be able to require sailors to wear the devices. Another concerns the infrastructure that will need to be added to ships to create secure local upload points to transfer biometric data to a central location while bypassing the cloud for privacy and safety. But Markwald said she believes the value of the devices will become clear not only to unit leaders monitoring fatigue but also to the sailors who will get a better sense of their own performance and needs. 'It's not just, hey, wear this device so that we can step in before fatigue becomes a problem,' she said. 'This is a self-management tool as well, and we want it to really be something that the individual can use and hopefully finds some value [in].'
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Finland's Oura went from a tiny Kickstarter campaign to a $5.2 billion startup with Cristiano Ronaldo and Prince Harry among its fans
Mark Zuckerberg, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jennifer Aniston, and Prince Harry have one thing in common: They all own Oura Rings. The Finnish company Oura, founded in 2013, is on the verge of a growth spurt as its niche innovation in wearable tech heads for the mainstream. Demand has boomed recently, with sales set to double this year and nearing the $500 million mark. Oura just capped off a Series D funding round in December led by Fidelity Management, which values the company at $5.2 billion. The capital injection is a key milestone, given that Oura was valued at half that figure just two years ago. The global wearable tech market is set to expand by 14.6% by the end of the decade. Of that group, smart glasses and rings are the ones seeing the most growth. This could be just the beginning of Oura's popularity as the company also has plans to go 'beyond the ring' with its new influx of funding, CEO Tom Hale said. "We're seeing kind of cultural relevance here in that Oura is becoming a shorthand for how you're doing. It's like the doctor's note that isn't a doctor's note," Hale told Fortune's Leadership Next podcast earlier this year. So, what made Oura a worthy competitor to the Apple Watches of the world? Oura was founded in Finland by Petteri Lahtela, Markku Koskela, and Kari Kivela, who wanted to find a way to gather wellness information on one's finger. In 2015, the young startup launched a Kickstarter campaign (like Peloton and Allbirds did), raising over $650,000 by the end and exceeding its goal sixfold. The following year, Oura won a CES Innovation Award that helped establish it as an emerging tech company. From its early days, Oura's approach to overall wellness lured many users amid a growing focus on health. More specifically, the Oura Ring gave people insights on their sleep levels, which hit a 'sweet spot with a particular customer set,' Hale said, according to the Financial Times. Oura's app shows its users a 'Readiness Score,' a number from one to 100 that reveals their preparedness for the day based on various health metrics, including sleep quality, heart rate, body temperature, and more. 'Wearable tech is for anyone who wants to better understand the state of their health and live more optimally for longer,' Hale said. Smartwatches from Apple or Garmin serve daily utility or track exercise but aren't comfortable to wear all day long. They may also need to be charged more frequently. On the other hand, Oura Rings fit more seamlessly as an accessory and have a longer battery life. The latest version, the Oura Ring 4, which launched in October, aims to be even sleeker in its look and feel. Don't let the size of Oura's devices fool you into thinking they cost less. They follow a subscription model that costs $6 a month, while the ring costs upwards of $350. Wellness and longevity are hot topics—and Oura is playing the long game in the tech market by catering to these trends. Celebrities have been spotted wearing Oura Rings, a culmination of the overall clout the device has gathered over the past decade. CEOs think the device boosts their performance by giving them specifics on their energy levels throughout the day. For now, Oura is a leader in the tech it pioneered. Hale confidently wrote off Apple foraying into the wearable ring market, leaving the Finnish company to contend with a small but growing pool of rivals. However, Hale has noticed people pairing up an Oura ring with another wearable—often times, an Apple Watch, he told Fortune. Competitors are in plenty: for instance, this summer Samsung launched a Galaxy Ring, which doesn't charge a subscription fee and is made by one of the biggest tech companies globally. Still, Hale is unfazed by the competition; he argues that it further underscores the unique value of this category of wearable tech. Meanwhile, the Oura Ring is finding new ways to be indispensable: It's been used in marriage proposals and indicated how stressed Americans were in the lead-up to Donald Trump's election. Women are Oura's fastest-growing segment, with those between the ages of 25 and 34 representing a third of the women using its rings. Following Trump's victory, Hale quelled concerns about the privacy of medical data, assuring users that their information would be kept private. "Our business model is we serve you and our goal in serving you is to improve your health," Hale told Fortune. "You think about like some of our competition, maybe they're not quite so scrupulous or maybe they just have stronger incentives to actually, do something with that data that's not, strictly speaking, in the interests of your health. We are 100% focused on it." A version of this story was originally published on on Dec. 20, 2024. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Miami Herald
21-03-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Costco adds item members have been begging for
If you've been out shopping for groceries lately, you've probably noticed a few changes. For one, your local grocery store probably has a robust new area for in-store pickup. Related: Popular bank closing dozens of branches (locations revealed) Many stores have begun to prioritize customers who choose to pay for their items before setting foot in a store. Guaranteed sales are always good for business. You've also probably noticed that the price of many key staples has gone up. The February CPI found that the cost of several key goods and services rose 0.2%. Annually, this puts inflation a 2.8% rate. Here's a snapshot at how some of those prices have changed during the month of February: Food: increase 0.2%Energy: increase 0.2%Electricity: increase 1%New vehicles: decrease 0.1%Used vehicles: increase 0.9%Apparel: increase 0.6%Shelter: increase 0.3%Transportation: decrease 0.8%Medical care services: increase 0.3% You may have also noticed that nowadays your favorite grocery store is selling a lot more than just groceries. Many of the top grocers in the U.S., like Costco (COST) , Walmart and Target, are known for selling plenty of other items consumers need. More Retail: Walmart CEO sounds alarm on a big problem for customersTarget makes a change that might scare Walmart, CostcoTop investor takes firm stance on troubled retail brandWalmart and Costco making major change affecting all customers Whether it's laundry detergent, paper towels, apparel, electronics, or pet supplies, these large-scale retailers reign supreme because they offer so much selection under one roof. It's part of the reason Costco boasts about 137 million members. The warehouse grocer sells everything from supplements to sofas. And it offers unique value since it buys most of its orders in bulk, which enables it to negotiate lower prices from its many vendors. And Costco is constantly adding new inventory to keep its paying members happy. On March 19 Costco will begin selling Oura Rings, the popular wearable device that tracks sleep quality, exercise and stress. Costco will carry the most updated version of the ring, the Oura Ring 4, which measures things like: Detailed sleep analysis24/7 heart rate tracking (Daytime, Nighttime, Activity)Advanced temperature monitoringBlood Oxygen Sensing (SpO2)Cardiovascular AgeCardio Capacity (VO2 Max)Cycle InsightsDaytime Stress Resilience "Costco's reputation for delivering exceptional value on premium products makes them an integral partner in expanding access to Oura's advanced health technology," Chief Marketing Officer Doug Sweeny said. "Costco also has an extremely diverse and loyal customer base with unique health needs, including families, fitness enthusiasts, tech-savvy individuals, and more. This collaboration provides a powerful, global platform to help us reach more individuals and empower them to take control of their health using Oura's comprehensive data and insights." Related: Veteran fund manager unveils eye-popping S&P 500 forecast The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
