Oura Ring Is Heading Toward an IPO. Now a Lawsuit Targets One of Its Biggest Selling Points
A new class action lawsuit demands Oura change its marketing claims about sleep tracking and compensate users accordingly.
Oura Ring claims to do it all—tracking your heart rate, exercise, and even sleep cycles—up with its purported sleep-tracking capabilities, so much so that they are taking legal action
A class action lawsuit, filed on Thursday in San Francisco, accuses the $11 billion wearable company of falsely advertising the device’s sleep-tracking technology.
In reality, Oura rings cannot measure one’s sleep
“In reality, Oura rings cannot measure one’s sleep or cycles. That’s because sleep happens in the brain, not on one’s finger,” the lawsuit states. “Oura’s AI models are doing guess work as to what may be happening, based on improper inputs, and thus taking advantage of desperate consumers who struggle with their sleep or are concerned for their health by selling faulty AI-based inference as reliable science.”
The lawsuit, filed in the name of Madison Surber by Clarkson Law Firm, does not challenge all of the purported abilities of the Oura Ring, such as temperature or heart beat measurements. It specifically takes issue with Finnish Oura Health’s claims that the ring can determine the “exact stage of sleep the wearer is in,” the suit states, noting that that type of calculation “requires electrodes in the scalp and sensors on the eyes, as only a hospital or other clinical setting can do.”
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The lawsuit cites recent marketing language, taken from Oura’s websites, retail partners, and social media in which the company claims its rings can achieve anywhere from 79 percent accuracy to “95% Sleep Staging Accuracy compared to clinical sleep lab.” The lawsuit also references technical materials that reportedly differentiate Oura Rings from the types of overnight tests conducted during clinical sleep studies, due to Oura’s lack of electric brain activity and eye-movement measurements in sleep tests.
Oura Ring claims to provide consumers
“Oura Ring claims to provide consumers with a holistic sleep health analysis, but the ring doesn’t actually produce an accurate score of an individual’s sleep quality. Yet people are making real health decisions based on that feedback,” Shireen Clarkson, Clarkson Law Firm co-founder and partner, said in a statement. “The reality is, consumers are paying a premium price, up to hundreds of dollars a year, and handing over their most personal health data to a big tech company. But what they get in return is a mere guess dressed up as science.”
The lawsuit specifically names the Oura Ring 4, Oura Ring 4 Ceramic, and Oura Ring 5, and seeks monetary compensation for Surber and other class members, who it says “overpaid for Products that should have, but failed to comport with the advertised representations.” The lawsuit also seeks to prevent Oura from continuing to make claims about the sleep-tracking capabilities of its rings.
Source: www.inc.com
