I have had the Oura ring now for about five months now and wanted to update my views on this bit of wearable tech and how it helped me in my journey to better health and fitness.
Improving Sleep:
This was one of the main reasons for getting the Oura Ring. I have been tracking my sleep using my Apple Watch Ultra, but I don’t always like wearing my watch in bed. So this was a great solution to not having to wear my watch and still be able to keep an eye on my sleep.
Bedtime:
With the Apple Watch, you can set your bedtime, and it will put you into sleep mode, which is a great feature. With the Oura Ring, you are provided with an ideal bedtime based on the data that it has collected.
The app also provides a lot of information, such as sleep latency. This is quite interesting as it tells you how long it took to fall asleep the previous night. This can help you to understand if you are ready for sleep or maybe not and should maybe move your bedtime out. Again this will be based on data from how active you have been.
Body Clock:
This is a new feature that has been launched, and it effectively tells you what your Chronotype is. It is based on data such as Temperature, sleep-wake cycle and physical activity. Your Oura Ring will then take three months of data and provide you with your type. On the app, you can then check if you’re aligned.
Weekly Reports
Every week you will have a report that is available in the app. This covers your Sleep, Readiness and Activity. The report will help you to see if there are any changes to your trends and patterns.
I find this helpful as I can see how more social activity weeks affect all of the data points that are tracked. This then gives you the ability to make changes if needed. It is displayed in graphs, and therefore it’s easy to see how consistent you have been.
Readiness (Stress Management):
This is the thing that I wish the Apple Watch Ultra had without having to buy a third-party app.
As someone who is trying to improve their health and fitness, I find having an indication of how ready my body is for the day beneficial. Now, of course, you should also go with how your body is feeling, but this is valuable information to have so that you are not overworking and overstressing your body.
HRV and Heart Rate Tracking
Your readiness score will consider a number of things, HRV and your heart rate being two of them. I don’t tend to dwell on these all that much and will generally just take the readiness score as my main piece of information. It is, however, interesting to look into every now and then.
It is fantastic to see how certain things can affect your recovery. For instance, if I have been out and had a few drinks, my HRV drops, and my readiness score will take a hit.
Wear and Tear
After five months of constant wear, the Oura Ring has held up pretty well. There are a few scuffs around the ring, from catching it on surfaces etc. but nothing too dramatic. This is mainly because I went for the black version of the Ring and imagine that you would see less of this on, say, the silver version.
Battery Life:
One of my favourite things about the Oura Ring is its battery life. I charge my ring once a week, and it will prompt me when it needs charging. And when I do need to charge, it doesn’t take long to get to being fully charged again. It’s great not to worry about charging every few days.
Comfort:
The Oura Ring is very comfortable, and half the time, I don’t realise that I have it on. This is great if you don’t want to have a bulky tracker or smartwatch, especially for sleep tracking. Because this is so comfortable, I no longer wear my Apple Watch Ultra to bed.
Conclusion
I have to say that I really do love my Oura Ring. It’s comfortable and tracks my sleep and readiness (the main ones for me).
I would say, though, that if you get the black version, as mentioned, be prepared to see scuff marks. They are not significant but are noticeable, so you may think twice about your colour choice.
The other thing that is not me above is the subscription fee. It does pain me somewhat that I have to pay for the app to get the info, as the ring on its own is expensive enough. But I would begrudgingly say that it’s worth it as I do get value out of having this data.
I would certainly recommend this if you are looking for a small and comfortable fitness tracker. If you have a smartwatch like an Apple Watch, I would maybe think about if you want to spend £300 plus price as you can get most things on your watch.