Oura faced a lawsuit regarding claims that its sleep-tracking features are misleading.

      Lawsuit questions Oura's claim of 95% sleep-staging accuracy

      Oura has established a significant reputation for helping individuals comprehend their sleep patterns. Its rings provide a daily Sleep Score, along with estimates of light, deep, and REM sleep. However, a new proposed class-action lawsuit is now challenging the reliability of these figures.

      Filed on August 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the lawsuit alleges that Oura misleads consumers by promoting highly accurate sleep-stage tracking while actually relying on signals from the wearer’s finger rather than direct brain activity measurement.

      Oura has made substantial claims regarding accuracy

      Oura previously stated that there is a 79% agreement with the gold-standard polysomnography (PSG) for identifying wakefulness, light, deep, and REM sleep. More recently, the marketing referenced in the lawsuit asserted a sleep-staging accuracy of 95% when compared to a clinical sleep lab.

      The lawsuit maintains that such figures may mislead customers regarding the ring's measuring capabilities. Clinical sleep studies assess factors like brain waves, eye movement, and muscle activity, whereas Oura estimates sleep stages through metrics such as heart rate, heart-rate variability, movement, skin temperature, and blood-oxygen levels in newer models.

      The complaint cites a 2025 Nature study involving 45 patients over 45 nights, revealing that the Oura Ring correctly identified sleep stages only 53.18% of the time. The study indicated that light sleep was underestimated by 13.84 minutes, deep sleep by 5.98 minutes, while REM sleep was overestimated by 31.56 minutes.

      Reasons behind Oura facing legal action

      The lawsuit was initiated by California resident Madison Surber, who purchased an Oura Ring 4 Gold for $513.68 in May 2025. She claims that Oura’s advertising led her to believe the ring could accurately track her sleep stages and asserts that she would not have made the purchase, or would have paid less, had she been aware of its limitations.

      The lawsuit seeks class-action status, damages, restitution, and modifications to Oura’s advertising practices. Oura has contested these allegations, stating in a comment to USA Today, “We dispute the accusations in this complaint and plan to defend against them.”

      For users relying on an Oura Ring each night to gauge their sleep, the significant discrepancy between the claimed accuracy and independent research findings raises concerns.