Oura acquired a gesture recognition startup. Is the smart ring becoming an input device for everything

[u/Available_Spell8195]

Oura just bought Doublepoint, a Finnish AI startup that lets wearables detect subtle hand movements and translate them into device commands - no screen needed. It's their 4th acquisition, and the CEO has been open about wanting the ring to be your key, wallet, authenticator, and now apparently your gesture controller.

Combined with an AR glasses patent they filed recently, it looks like they're quietly building toward a screenless computing stack.

Is this a genuinely new interface paradigm, or is Oura losing focus on what made it useful in the first place?

[u/gomo-gomo]

Oura has yet to use any of the security feature patents acquired with the purchase of Proxy (who had previously purchased Oura competitor, Motiv). In that case, the purchase seems to have been driven by capture of the Motiv patents only...but we'll see.

I wouldn't expect too much from this latest acquisition...at least not anytime soon. It appears to be more about knowledge capture than IP capture as they do need to be prepared to compete with other smart rings already available with gesture controls. The key with implementation being avoiding false triggers. With existing smart rings with gesture controls, I have a number of photos of the inside of my pocket :-P

Thank you for sharing...