Discovery brings Oura Ring to South Africa

At Discovery’s first Sleep Summit in Sandton, it announced the Oura Ring 4 will come to South Africa alongside a new Vitality Sleep Score metric.

The company says it’s the first health insurance company to reward customers for sleep; and will integrate sleep into health, wellness and insurance through its Vitality Sleep Score and Vitality Sleep Rewards.

Dinesh Govender, CEO of Discovery Vitality says: “With the evidence of sleep’s importance alongside exercise and nutrition, bringing it into the Vitality programme will allow our members to take greater control of their overall wellbeing.”

The partnership with Oura is exclusive to Discovery to bring the Oura Ring 4 to Vitality customers with a qualifying Discovery Bank account.

The bank says other wearable devices can be used to measure sleep, such as smartwatches from Apple, Garmin or Samsung. However, it did not mention Samsung’s Galaxy Ring or the Ultrahuman Ring.

Vitality customers can track their sleep data with the wearables outlined by Discovery to get a personalised Vitality Sleep Score, which the company says is a proprietary personalised measure of the causal impact of sleep on a person’s health risk.

Introducing the Oura Ring

The Oura Ring 4 marks the first time the smart ring is available officially in South Africa.

Currently one of the most popular smart rings globally, it offers wellbeing and health insights that help users improve the quality of their sleep, recovery and stress.

It also measures heart rate variability, blood oxygen, and body temperature. It is useful for tracking sleep, stress, wellbeing, activity or fitness, women’s health, heart health and provides a readiness score.

The titanium ring will be available in sizes 4-15, is 2.8mm thin and weighs between 3.3-5.2g, depending on size. It is 100m water resistant and claims to have a battery life of between 5-8 days. It works over Bluetooth Low Energy with Android and iOS, plus integrates with 40 different apps.

Oura Ring 4 Discovery price plans

Just like Discovery’s other wearables like smartwatches, customers have the option to fully fund their Oura Ring 4 by achieving weekly sleep goals over a 24-month period, or to purchase it with a 25% discount.

The Oura Ring 4 is currently listed on the Discovery website for R9 997 if the fully funded option is chosen, which is tied to a once-off activation fee of R999.

The 25% discount option is up to the value of R8 598, which includes a 12-month Oura membership. The ring sizing kit costs R100, which gets deducted from the final payment when the order is complete.

Discovery sleep stats and data

Discovery says sleep data will be integrated into Personal Health Pathways for its medical aid members from 2026.

Dr Ron Whelan, CEO of Discovery Health says: “Through Personal Health Pathways, we’ve built a precise and personalised approach to healthcare. Integrating sleep into this framework is a natural next step in helping medical scheme members achieve better health outcomes.”

It released data in a report called The Sleep Factor, which says sleep is a foundational pillar of health, impacting our risk of disease and our longevity yet one in three adults consistently fails to achieve sufficient sleep, placing them at higher risk of cardiometabolic disease, depression, motor-vehicle accidents, and premature death.

The Sleep Factor used data from 47 million records of sleep data from 105 000 individuals over a three-year period, combined with group data from insure telematics, health claims, vitality exercise and demographic details.

The findings from the above data reveals that individuals with insufficient and irregular sleep face a 22% higher risk of death compared to the average population. And those who sleep less than six hours per night have a 1.7 times higher likelihood of diabetes onset; 1.3 times higher likelihood of ischaemic heart disease; and a 1.2 times higher likelihood of moderate to severe symptoms of depression.

Govender adds that its data indicates that “individuals who consistently achieve seven hours of sleep and maintain a bedtime within a one-hour window of their typical sleep onset are associated with more favourable health outcomes. This pattern underpins our 1–7 sleep heuristic.”

In response to the findings, Discovery will integrate sleep into health, wellness and insurance platforms.

The Vitality Sleep Score will be calculated from regularity, duration and quality of sleep. Sleep data will include much like other sleep trackers, a breakdown of the sleep stages that includes awake, REM, light and deep sleep stages.

“This Score sums up complex data on sleep regularity, duration and quality measures, as well as demographic, clinical and lifestyle behaviour, into a simple score that guides each around their sleep health.”

Discovery Insure and Vitality Drive

At the Sleep Summit, Discovery shared from its findings that “sleep quality is a critical factor in accident risk”. And from 2026, Discovery Insure will integrate sleep tracking into Vitality Drive, in a bid to reward safer driving behaviour.

Members will earn Vitality Drive Sleep Points for consistent, quality sleep, which unlocks rewards like fuel and higher status levels.

Robert Attwell, CEO of Discovery Insure, says: “Using advanced telematics to reduce driving risk on our roads has been foundational to Discovery Insure. We now know that factors outside the vehicle, such as sleep quality, are just as critical in preventing accidents as are driver behaviour once behind the wheel.”

The Oura Ring is available to order on the Discovery website and customers can track their sleep on the Oura app, subject to subscription fees, but the Vitality Sleep Score goes live in 2026.