The Oura Ring is a lightweight tracker that is small enough to wear 24/7. This stylish ring is designed to fit perfectly around your index or middle finger, but don’t let the size of this health tracker fool you. The ring itself is made from silicone and has an aluminium core.
The Oura Ring Generation 3 is packed with sensors that measure various aspects of your health, like sleep, fitness, and other physical activity levels.
Let’s take a closer look at the Oura Ring Generation 3 in terms of what it can do, how accurate it is, and more.
What does the Oura Ring do?
The Oura Ring is a health tracker designed to monitor various aspects of your health during the day and while you’re asleep. With advanced sensors, these aspects are measured accurately.
The Oura Ring collects data continuously and syncs with a mobile app that provides a holistic overview over a 24-hour period to determine how prepared you are mentally and physically for the day ahead.
This score considers factors like sleep quality, activity levels, and readiness.
Image: https://ouraring.com/
Sleep Tracking
The Oura Ring tracks your sleep and gives you a sleep score, determining how well you’ve slept.
This is based on data points that include your total sleep, the sleep time in each sleep stage and, more. Collecting data on your sleep allows the Oura Ring to give personalised recommendations on when to start winding down so that you can get the most from your sleep. It even records your naps and adjusts your daily score taking these into account.
A new feature of the Oura Ring Generation 3 is that it can now detect blood oxygen levels at night and note whether you’re experiencing any sleep disturbances.
Activity
The Oura Ring gives you an activity score measured by inactivity, activity level, and recovery.
With the built-in sensors, your heart rate can be tracked during workouts and deliver insights into heart rate stats, pace, distance, recovery, etc.
Being able to follow your heart rate 24/7 means that you can learn more about how your body responds to daily choices and habits.
The Oura Ring is also an activity tracker that shows steps, training volume and frequency, inactive times, burned calories, and so on. With the Oura Ring, you don’t need to manually select an activity before starting, as it can automatically detect over 30 activities, track these and deliver insights.
Readiness
One of the unique features of the Oura Ring is its ability to track your readiness for the day.
This feature takes into account various factors, such as your sleep quality, activity levels, etc, to determine how well-rested and prepared you are for the day ahead. This information can be beneficial for those who want to optimise their performance, in sports, work, or other activities.
The Oura Ring also provides personalised recommendations based on your health score. These recommendations can include suggestions on improving sleep quality, increasing physical activity, and reducing stress.
Image: https://ouraring.com/
How Accurate is the Oura Ring?
The Oura detects body temperature and movement through tiny sensors embedded inside the ring.
In terms of accuracy, the Oura Ring fairs well with numerous studies conducted.
For instance, a study by the University of California San Francisco recorded that the ring was accurate within 4 minutes compared to a polysomnography.
Regarding the accuracy of sleep, a study by the University of Minnesota concluded that the Oura Ring was reliably accurate in processing data associated with body movement when sleeping.
According to further studies, the Oura Ring also successfully tracks physical activity. In terms of monitoring heart rate, the Oura Ring has an average error of fewer than 0.2 beats per minute.
Overall, the Oura Ring is proving to be an accurate monitoring device that can track physical activity, sleep, recovery, and readiness.
How Does The Oura Ring Know When You Fall Asleep?
Most wearables available on the market use an accelerometer to track movement and determine your sleep state. They identify you as awake when you’re on the move, but if you remain motionless for an extended period, they detect you as asleep.
In contrast, the Oura Ring employs a more advanced approach to monitoring sleep. It combines body temperature and activity patterns and is one of the only wearables that can measure skin temperature. The Oura Ring can accurately detect your sleep stage by analysing the natural fluctuations in body temperature as you drift off to sleep and wake up. The Oura can detect patterns of when you’re going to bed or resting during the day.
As the Oura is on your finger, it can detect even the subtlest of movements. It can tell the difference between a twitch in your sleep, getting up for a night-time bathroom break or rolling around in bed.
Not only can the technology detect when you’re falling asleep, but it can also detect the sleep stages, including deep sleep, light sleep and REM sleep. The technology used means you can also get detailed insight into sleep patterns, including the duration of each sleep stage, the time it takes you to fall asleep, and the number of times you wake up during the night.
What apps is the Oura Ring compatible with?
With the Oura Ring, you can automatically sync your health and workout data from apps, including Apple Health, Health Connect, Google Fit, Natural Cycles, and Strava.
With iPhone or Apple Watch, you can get your Oura data at a glance. There is also a companion version of the Oura App that can be accessed on your Apple Watch.
Does the Oura Ring have a monthly fee?
Your Oura Ring and Oura App will still work without paying a monthly fee, but you won’t have access to the full range of benefits, insights, and data available. Non-paying members will have access to three simple daily scores: sleep, readiness, and activity, plus the interactive and educational explore content.
However, with a monthly membership, members will have access to so much more, including:
- An in-depth sleep analysis each morning.
- 24/7 personalised health insights
- Accurate and live heart rate monitoring
- Body temperature readings for period prediction and early illness detection.
- Workout heart rate tracking for further insight into the correlation between workouts and overall health, plus sleep and readiness scores.
- Restorative time through tracking physical and mental recovery.
- Sp02 monitoring, where blood oxygen levels are accurately measured throughout the night.
- Daily, weekly and monthly views of body metrics.
- Rest mode, where body stress is detected, results in the Oura adjusting daily goals to put your rest and recovery first.
- Record how specific feelings, activities, and surroundings affect sleep and readiness scores.
With the monthly membership, you will gain further insights.
The monthly fee is USD$6.99 for those not residing in the US.
Overall, the Oura Ring is a highly accurate and comprehensive health tracker that can provide valuable insights into your health. Its advanced sensors and algorithms make it an excellent tool for tracking various health parameters, including sleep, activity levels, and heart rate. The ring is also stylish and comfortable to wear, making it an excellent choice for those who want to track their health without compromising on style. While the Oura app’s premium features require a subscription, the basic features are available without any additional costs, making the ring a cost-effective and valuable investment in your health and wellness.
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