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The Red Dot Design Award is one of the world’s largest design competitions that highlights high-quality design, functionality and innovation. This year the award was given to Oura rings, that are developed by Finnish wearable health tech company Oura Health and they include well-being technology.

The Oura ring and the free Oura app helps users get more restorative sleep and align their lifestyle to their natural circadian rhythm. Oura is the world’s first wellness ring and app that shows how your body responds to your lifestyle by analyzing your sleep, activity levels, daily rhythms and the physiological responses in your body.

A 40-strong jury of independent design experts recognized Oura’s new ring designs for their high quality in an adjudication process that compared submissions from 59 countries.

“Success in the competition is proof of the good design quality of the products and once again shows that companies are on the right path. When I speak about good design, I am referring to more than just an attractive product. All of the products are characterised by outstanding functionality. This demonstrates that the designers have understood their clients and their needs”, said Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award.

Design also feels on the skin

“When designing a small object, you need to take into account that every millimeter or even tenth of a millimeter is significant. Those details are not only visible, you can also feel them on your skin”, says Mikko Latomäki.

The new Oura ring was announced in November 2017. “We set the bar very high when it came to designing the new range of rings”, says Kari Kivelä, CTO, Co-Founder and Head of Design at Oura. “The project started with numerous different design concepts, and through a process of continual refinement, we finally settled on three unique ring designs.”  

“When we were designing the first Oura ring, the electronics had a lot to do with the process and even gave the ring its final form. Nowadays, everything can be squeezed inside of a small black square: phones, TVs, cameras… We designers have to come up with a form that is meaningful to people. That’s why it is crucial to understand all the nuances and different use cases, because all the decisions we make during the design process will be seen and felt in the end result”, explains Latomäki.

Oura Health Ltd. is a Finnish health technology company founded in 2013 and it has users in over 50 countries. More than 20,000 rings have been pre-ordered to date. The company has received the CES 2016 Best of Innovation Award and it was selected as the Best Health/Lifestyle Startup in Finland at the Nordic Startup Awards.

For more information:

Industrial Designer student Mikko Latomäki, Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Tel. +358 44 32 00419, mikko.latomaki@aalto.fi    

Oura ring: