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Oura's latest acquisition could mean gesture controls are coming to your smart ring
- Oura is acquiring gesture-recognition startup Doublepoint.
- Oura hasn’t shared specifics on how it may integrate gesture control into its products.
Smart ring maker Oura is buying a startup that’s been working in gesture recognition. The company is in the process of acquiring fellow Finnish company Doublepoint, which has been working on gesture recognition tech for wearables and VR platforms, among other things.
As reported by Bloomberg, Oura is buying Doublepoint with the intent to fold gesture-based interactions into future wearables in some capacity, though Oura hasn’t said what specific role gestures could play in its devices.
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In an interview with Bloomberg, Oura CEO Tom Hale didn’t have specifics to share about the acquisition. “This is about a core capability that we can imagine as AI and different kinds of modalities and user interaction, as gestures become more and more important,” he told the publication.
The acquisition could signal that Oura intends to expand its smart ring functionality beyond health and fitness tracking. Doublepoint’s website highlights projects like Apple Vision Pro-style eye tracking-enabled pinch-to-click for AR headsets, as well as gesture-based control for smart home devices and simple games like Flappy Bird.
Gesture controls in other wearables like the Galaxy Ring and Apple Watch typically activate simple functionality like dismissing an alarm or answering a phone call.
Oura hasn’t shared the terms of the acquisition. It could be a while before we see any of Doublepoint’s tech show up in an Oura product: Bloomberg‘s report points out that the company purchased a firm called Proxy to bring “biometric identity and payments technology to its devices” in 2023, features that didn’t ship in the latest Oura Ring 4 released in 2024.
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