2 minute review
Smart Rings are a good idea in theory: small, smart, and smart, but rather difficult to make. Part of this is due to the complexity of making them and getting components small enough, but also the complexity of making a device that is truly useful enough for people to care about. This is where Oura comes into play: a small ordered ring consisting of compensating activity and rest. It has sensors that collect biometric data throughout the day and matches it with a mobile app where it's processed to help you understand what's going on in your body and make smart lifestyle changes. It might not seem like anything new, but the ring's form factor gives Oura a real edge.
The Oura ring is comfortable enough to wear all day and is water resistant to XNUMXm (Image credit: Future) The best fitness tracker is the one you wear every day, leaving you to paint a picture complete picture of your health and well-being over time. Oura looks like an ordinary jewel and can be put on your hand in a second. You hardly need to think about it, and the moment you use it, you'll quickly forget it's there. Rather than simply checking her data against the average measurements of someone her age and gender, as many fitness trackers do, Oura spends weeks establishing a baseline, which she can then use to deliver tailored advice. Your heart rate may be below average, but if it's normal for you, there's probably nothing to worry about. Oura tracks metrics during the day, but does as much as possible at night. In our tests, the sleep tracker was found to be extremely accurate, adequately noting precisely when we fell asleep rather than just when we fell asleep right. The lack of movement throughout the night means the ring can collect more accurate data and do it more frequently, giving you more useful information in the morning. When you look at the app from the start, all of that information is right there, as well as some helpful tips that can help you plan for the day after and adjust your plans based on your readiness. It is very simple, but very effective, even more than a smart watch.
Oura price and launch date
- Released in 2018
- Only free in Oura
- International delivery
This is the second generation Oura ring, released in two thousand and eighteen. It is available directly from Oura with worldwide shipping. The simple ring costs €720 (about €2 / AU$XNUMX) and the diamond version costs €XNUMX (about €XNUMX / AU$XNUMX). Both have the same quirks on the inside; the only difference is a line of stones on the face of the more expensive ring. As of this writing, that makes the Oura around the same cost as the stress-sensitive Fitbit Sense, and a bit more expensive than the Fitbit Versa XNUMX. However, while the Oura and Sense are geared towards wellness, the two are very, very different devices. .
Oura design
- Choice of style and colors
- Water resistant up to one hundred m
- Comfortable to wear all day
The Oura ring is made of lightweight titanium and weighs between 2g and 3g depending on size and style. It has a very sleek and clean look and comes in 8 forms: Compute (tested here), which has a pointy face, and Heritage, which is flat. Heritage is available in silver, black, gold, or a dark gray matte finish called Stealth, while Computation is available in solid silver, black, or silver with a row of diamonds. The ring is waterproof up to XNUMXm so you can wear it while swimming, bathing and washing your hands. There are XNUMX small sensor bumps inside, but they are impossible to feel when you use it. To ensure you get the right size, you will receive a free sizing pack containing XNUMX plastic ring blanks the same width and thickness as the actual ring, and with exactly the same little nubs on the inside. It is advisable to try to wear white all day and while you sleep to ensure that you select the one that best suits you. We'd certainly be happy and advise you to try them on during your regular workouts to make sure you're happy with the fit.
(Image credit: Avenir) You can wear the ring on either finger or on your thumb. We started using it on our left index finger, but switched to our thumb after a few days. It was easy to wear all day while running, walking, and biking (even with cycling gloves), and it wasn't slippery even with wet or cold hands. The ring is delivered with an induction charging support, with a USB cable. Simply slide the Oura ring onto the plug and an LED on the base will light up to indicate that charging is in progress.
The Oura ring comes in several different sizes (the sizing kit helps you find the right one) and can be worn on either finger, or the thumb (Image credit: Future) There is no light, screen, or mechanism haptic feedback on the ring. Instead, your interactions happen through the Oura app, free for iOS and Android. In contrast to Fitbit. there is no premium membership level; Your historical data and trends are available for free. Data is timed from the ring every time you open the app, although in our experience this has been a bit hit and miss. Ring synchronization would sometimes take multiple minutes, though it never failed.
Health surveillance
- Overly accurate sleep monitoring
- Detailed health information
- Personalized life advice
As we mentioned previously, Oura is all about finding the right balance between activity and rest: getting plenty of exercise, but also allowing enough time for quality sleep and subsequent recovery. Wearing your ring all day will let the app get an idea of your activity level. You'll get eventual prompts to get up and move around if you've been sitting at your desk for too long, and you'll be set daily activity goals, which you can achieve by doing moderate to vigorous activity each and every day. one of the days. You can also choose to manually add workouts to the Oura app. The ring itself doesn't have any specific activity tracking modes (and there aren't any you can activate in the app), but you can input a type of activity, like cycling, a duration, and a perceived level of effort. The app will use this to calculate an estimate of calories burned (which was normally a bit higher than measured by our Garmin Instinct Solar).
Oura encourages you to hit your activity goals each and every day, based on your heart rate (Image credit: Future) Oura makes a lot of sense at night, though. As the company's CEO, Harpreet Singh Rai, explained to TechRadar in a recent interview, sleep is wildly essential for health (more so than many of us realize) and wearable devices can track data. Much more accurately at night due to lack of movement to disrupt the signal. . (something that sports watches must compensate through the use of specially developed algorithms). Each morning, you'll receive a readiness score, based on your activity and sleep patterns, as well as biometric data including resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and body temperature. Many running watches (including those from Garmin and Polar) offer a similar number to help athletes balance rest and workouts, but Oura was one of the first to bring a tracker-like score. That's a really useful number, and it's worth noting that Fitbit chose the same name for its readiness metric, which was announced when the Fitbit Charge XNUMX launched in September XNUMX.
Each and every morning, Oura gives you a Readiness Score based on your activity levels, sleep, and biometrics (Image credit: Future) A look at the Readiness Score in the Oura app each morning will help. to see how much energy you have for the day after and let you direct your tasks accordingly. If your readiness score is low, for example, the app will advise you to take it easy. If you spend a little more time, you can drill down to see the factors that affected your score for even more information and tips. If a measurement seems infrequent (for example, you may be sleeping less or your resting heart rate is higher than usual, indicating that you may be stressed), the app explains what it means and the mode changes of life you might be considering. We were also particularly impressed with Oura's sleep tracking. Unlike many devices (whether watches or non-portable devices placed under the mattress), the ring was able to accurately distinguish between time spent in bed awake and time spent asleep. Oura can also spot naps and factor them into your restorative score (although the app will also warn you that they're a bad idea if you take them too late in the day). Many other fitness trackers only record one sleep period per day, which is a real advantage. Everything is adapted according to the trends of previous nights. The app can even suggest an ideal time to go to bed (which isn't always before midnight). Sometimes you may see data gaps. This means the ring has temporarily lost connection, perhaps because it was moved or the sensors were dirty, so it's worth making sure it's clean and on properly before you go to sleep.
The Oura ring is truly useful, and its form factor is more efficient than a watch in many ways (Image credit: Future) Aside from the occasional delay in data syncing, the Oura is pretty hard to find. It has successfully carved out a new niche in wearables and is different enough from sports watches that we can easily justify having both: one for training and one for restoration. However, if you already have a device like a Fitbit, you may find there is too much of a mix between the two. In our experience, Oura's sleep data is going to be more accurate and the information more detailed, but we advise you to choose between both instead of using both. There are some peculiarities that we would like to see in a future Oura ring. This would certainly be difficult to incorporate due to the size of the ring, but a vibration motor would allow the ring to wake you up at the prime time in your sleep cycle, when you're in a light sleep, without...