Oura Adds Cardio Effort and VO2 Max to Move Beyond Time and Zones

Oura announced on October 20, 2026, that it is rolling out Cardio Effort and VO2 max to expand workout tracking beyond exercise duration and heart rate zones. TechCrunch

Cardio Effort is meant to show how much strain a workout puts on the cardiovascular system, the heart and blood vessels. The score builds across the week and is judged against the user's own baseline. It combines intensity and duration, so a short, hard session can score about the same as a longer, easier one.

The feature has two parts. Workout Cardio Effort scores a single session. Weekly Cardio Effort adds those sessions into a weekly total. Weekly totals fall into five bands: Light, Fair, Maintaining, Building, or Reaching.

The method avoids the standard formula based on estimated maximum heart rate, which is usually guessed from age. Instead, Oura compares elevated heart rate during exercise with the member's long-term resting heart rate. Weekly levels use personalized ranges set from recent activity patterns. Cardio Effort is rolling out to Oura Ring Gen3 and later models.

VO2 max covers a different measure, aerobic capacity, or how well the heart, lungs, and muscles deliver and use oxygen during exercise. It is like the size of your aerobic engine. Oura estimates it passively, without a lab test, using GPS-enabled workouts. Users get a first estimate after five qualifying activities.

Oura shows the VO2 Max estimate in ml/kg/min, a standard unit for oxygen use per kilo of body weight, in the My Health Heart Hub. Results are grouped as Low, Fair, High, or Peak. VO2 Max is launching in Oura Labs for members with Gen3 and newer rings. Oura says the two features are meant to work together to show how hard users are working and how that effort accumulates over time.

The new metrics build on an existing activity system. Oura tracks more than 40 live activities automatically. Oura It offers Live Activity Tracking that lets users start a workout in the Oura App and see pace and distance in real time. Oura The Ring uses a 3D accelerometer, a motion sensor that tracks movement in three directions, and pre-trained algorithms to track daily movement, and its Automatic Activity Detection includes running splits that show time per unit of distance.

That system has changed in steps. Oura Ring Generation 3 added workout heart rate tracking. Oura and Strava partnered to integrate activity data, including adding Strava workouts to the Oura app. More recently, Oura updated its rings and app for more accurate step count and calories-burned measurements, and its upgraded feature set tracks more than 50 metrics, including GLP-1 insights.

The broader context here is a shift from fixed cutoffs to long-term personalization. Fixed zones and age-predicted maxima are simple to compute but can be noisy from person to person. Anchoring effort to long-term resting heart rate and recent activity gives up easy comparison between people in exchange for tighter tracking for one person over time.

In my view, the pairing of load and capacity is the telling decision, and the practical payoff if the estimates hold is continuity. Weekly effort alone tends to reward volume. A VO2 max number alone gives users no clear lever to change it. Together they give both sides of training without lab testing or structured protocols. The Labs placement for VO2 max also suggests Oura still views passive estimation as provisional while it collects data across devices and workout types. Rings already capture overnight resting physiology, and extending that baseline into daytime training brings recovery and exertion into one system.