Oura’s latest acquisition hints that gesture controls may be coming soon

Today, Oura announced it has acquired Doublepoint — a company specializing in AI-driven, biometrics-based gesture-recognition technology. This suggests that voice and hand gestures will come to Oura rings in the near future.

It’s thought that in future rings, voice and hand gestures could play a central role in the user experience. What this might look like remains to be seen, but based on what competitors are doing, we’d guess that ring wearers will be able to use double-pinch gestures, similar to those on the Samsung Galaxy Ring and Apple Watch.

Doublepoint Technologies is a Helsinki-based startup that uses artificial intelligence and biometric data to enable users to control wearable devices with small hand movements.

In an interview with Bloomberg at MCW Barcelona, Oura’s Chief Executive Officer confirmed that gestures would become more important in future products, but cautioned, “it’s not like something’s happening tomorrow or in the near term,” so we might have a while to wait. He also stressed that he wanted the gestures to be “meaningful” to Oura’s customer base. At MWC, he referred to a Doublepoint demo in which users could skip songs with gestures or create a trackpad with their fingers.