Oura is a company that sets accomplishing healthy sleep as its goal. Thus, all its products are designed to help customers with quality rest at night. The company’s flagman is Oura ring, which has gathered massive media and consumer attention throughout 2020. It is an electronic device that combines the features of a health tracker with a smartphone accessory. Oura ring has the basic functions of a smart ring – control of respiration rate, sensor measurement of temperature, and heart rate.
However, in the face of the pandemic, the demand for precise symptom control increases almost exponentially, and many such devices are not accurate in distinguishing COVID signs. The alternative product should target specifically the audience that is intent on the early detection of coronavirus. The suprasternal notch is the area on the human body that can be scanned for symptoms relating to the COVID infection, rather than the overall fatigue or ailment.
The general functionality of a new wearable is similar to the Oura ring. The electronic sensor monitors pulse and respiration, which are essential in pinpointing COVID symptoms such as fever, coughing, and breath impairment. Like the ring, it also connects to a smartphone and feeds data into Oura app. While Oura ring presents data in the readiness score, the notch wearable will use the COVID probability metric, which will indicate the accuracy of the virus signs. Overall, the new suprasternal wearable will be more precise in scanning for symptoms due to the proper anatomic placement and will not require metal materials, thus reducing the production costs.
The shipment has been impacted all over the world, and Oura is not an exception. The increasing sales of Oura rings also resulted in a growing amount of logistical delays. It is unwise to end the contract with current retailers of Oura products. The German company DHL supplies most of Oura rings to Finland, the European Union, the United States, and other countries of the world. For the delivery of sizing kits to the U.S., Postal Services is used. However, it is also possible to procure products via Internet retailers such as Amazon. It might be beneficial to expand the number of companies shipping Oura’s new products to include Amazon’s competitors, namely the European company Otto, the Indian Flipkart, and the Japanese Rakuten. The reason for diversifying retailers lies in quicker access of consumers to Oura’s products.
The prices of Oura’s products have never been cheap, and the expensiveness of its rings became the major source of income when information about Oura ring’s efficiency in detecting COVID went viral. At this point, there is no reason to suggest that the decline of coronavirus pandemic will happen in the near future. Therefore, the products will still be bought despite their high price due to the more prevalent fear of contracting the infection. Current version of Oura ring costs 300 dollars, while the wrist wearables of competitors, for instance, Whoop are sold at 30-40 dollars per kit. As for the notch wearable, competitor products are in development, for example, ANNE by Sible Health. However, there is no available price to contrast; therefore, it seems reasonable to sell it at the same price as rings since materials to make suprasternal wearables will not be as expensive. As a result, the brand name will serve as an incentive to buy these products that promise to accurately detect COVID signs.