Naturally, this sent me down the rabbit hole of finding the best tracking device.

There are many options. From Fitbit to Apple Watch to Garmin, there's a wide variety of gadgets to monitor our habits. Especially since it's a growing market. According to Yahoo Finance, the global fitness tracker market was valued at $52.29 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $189.98 billion by 2032, growing 17.5 percent every year from 2026 to 2032. Looks like more and more people are interested in quantifying our health.

Beyond smartwatches, there are also rings. Oura, a Finnish company, pioneered data tracking 10 years ago through a smart ring. The design is unobtrusive, and yet it has the capacity to measure all kinds of information, of course, at a price. To access its full power, you need to pay $349 for the ring plus a $6 monthly subscription.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Oura is "the leading smart-ring brand, with over 60 percent of the market," representing 5 million rings sold worldwide.

Oura and its competitors Ringcon and Ultrahuman have become popular for rings with nice aesthetics as well as a good capacity to track steps, heart rate, sleep cycles, and even menstrual health. But competition will be no more: earlier this year, the International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled against Ultrahuman and Ringcon for patent infringement, effectively banning them from import and sales in the U.S. market starting Oct. 21.

These rings may be less benign than they seem. On Aug. 27, Oura sent out a press release announcing a partnership with the Department of Defense (now unofficially renamed Department of War) and Palantir's FedStart platform to support "population-level analysis of risk and readiness." Whatever that means. This triggered all kinds of online backlash over privacy concerns.

Oura CEO Tom Hale said that the company does not and "would never sell customer data." That has not stopped users from literally trashing their $349 smart rings. Privacy concerns, even if exaggerated by social media, should not be dismissed.