The Repair Nightmare that are Smart Rings
Article excerpt
In the quest to make every wearable device ‘smart’, a lot of electronics along have to be crammed in very small spaces, along with ways to make them resistant to …read more
In the quest to make every wearable device ‘smart’, a lot of electronics along have to be crammed in very small spaces, along with ways to make them resistant to environments that our bodies do not mind, like getting hit by a rainstorm or simply washing our hands. These two factors combined make especially devices like smart rings an interesting case study for repairability, with [iFixit] recently taking apart a modern Oura smart ring to assess its e-waste factor after the built-in battery dies.
The tiny 10.5 mAh Lipo cell in the Oura Ring 5. (Credit: iFixit)
" data-large-file="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/oura_ring_5_battery_ifixit_youtube.jpg?w=626" class="size-medium wp-image-1118391" src="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/oura_ring_5_battery_ifixit_youtube.jpg?w=400" alt="The tiny 10.5 mAh Lipo cell in the Oura Ring 5. (Credit: iFixit)" width="400" height="400" srcset="https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/oura_ring_5_battery_ifixit_youtube.jpg 737w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/oura_ring_5_battery_ifixit_youtube.jpg?resize=250,250 250w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/oura_ring_5_battery_ifixit_youtube.jpg?resize=400,400 400w, https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/oura_ring_5_battery_ifixit_youtube.jpg?resize=626,625 626w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px" />The tiny 10.5 mAh Lipo cell in the Oura Ring 5. (Credit: iFixit)
The subject of the teardown video is the Oura Ring 5, a $400 smart ring that’s designed to track your vitals much like a wrist-worn fitness tracker, just in a much smaller package. This metal-and-epoxy sandwich can definitely survive a good rain shower and washing of hands, but to get to the internals rather forceful methods were needed, unlike previous Oura and Samsung smart rings where some applied heat was enough.
In the Ring 5’s case even more heat was needed to make the inner ring start to slide out, but by that point the Li-ion battery inside had already popped from the heat. The inner ring then got stuck and more violence was required to continue the disassembly and get to the super-tiny, 10.5 mAh battery. Of course, at this point the smart ring really won’t be getting back together, never mind still work or be waterproof, which is a central issue with these smart rings.
With the EU’s February 2027 deadline for user-replaceable batteries looming on the horizon, it’ll be interesting to see whether devices like this can squeeze into an exception category, or whether manufacturers will have to massively redesign or stop selling these devices to this rather large market. So far this particular regulation has already forced Nintendo to make a special Switch 2 console for the EU.