The Oura Ring has been making its rounds on social media and I have contemplated giving it a try for over a year now. What finally convinced me to order it was a way to manage my sleep quality and overall stress. I’ve already been using my Apple Watch for 4 years so I was ready to make a comparison after using it for 30 days straight! With training for my first marathon with a 1 and 3 year old, I wanted to see how I was able to recover and use that data to enhance my performance.

What is the Oura Ring

First things first, let’s talk about what exactly the Oura Ring is. The Oura Ring is designed to be worn on your pointer finger and tracks key metrics like heart rate, sleep quality, activity levels, and body temperature. It has a 4-7 day battery life and is water resistant. The ring is compatible with both iOS and Android devices through the Oura app, which provides a comprehensive view of all metrics.

Key Features

Sleep Tracking: It provides insights into your sleep patterns, including time spent in light, deep, and REM sleep. Then it calculates a sleep score based on sleep quality, duration, and efficiency. The Oura ring also tracks how long it takes you to fall asleep and your sleep schedule.

Activity tracking: It monitors steps, activity levels, and calorie expenditure. From there it gives an activity score by evaluating your daily movement, including periods of inactivity, and suggests ideal activity levels. Based on that data, it advises on recovery time needed after intensive physical activity, helping to prevent overtraining.

Readiness monitoring: It combines data from sleep, activity, and physiological signals to provide a readiness score that indicates how prepared you are to take on the day. The ring also tracks HRV to provide insights into recovery and stress levels. Through measuring body temperature continuously during the day, it monitors temperature deviations, which can indicate stress, illness, or changes in your body.

Menstrual cycle tracking: Provides predictions and insights into menstrual cycles using temperature data.

Honest thoughts on the Oura Ring

PROS:

• Love the sleep/stress ratings and seeing the sleep timeline throughout the night. I learned that even though my stress rating was high throughout the day, my body was recovering with quality sleep which was encouraging to see.

• Sleep tracking is more accurate than my watch and comfortable to sleep in. I hardly noticed it and there were no annoying notifications that woke me up.

• The earlier I went to sleep, the more deep sleep I got.

• Can track your cycle using your temperature with Natural Cycles 

• Loved the long battery life/quick charging station

CONS:

• Activity tracking is not as accurate for strength training as running. If I wanted accurate fitness measurements, I would need to use another type of smart watch.
  
• I wish they didn’t have a monthly membership to use it with an already expensive ring.  

Alternatives

While the Oura Ring is a unique offering, there are other wearable devices in the market that provide similar features, such as:

• Whoop Strap: Focuses on recovery and strain monitoring with continuous heart rate and HRV tracking.
• Fitbit and Garmin: Offer comprehensive health tracking with more extensive fitness features and smartwatch capabilities.
• Apple Watch: Provides a broad range of health metrics, notifications, and third-party app integrations, but with a focus on smartwatch features

Overall I think the Oura ring is a great addition to measure sleep and stress. However if you’re looking for an activity tracker, the Oura ring is not the most accurate as my Apple watch and ring were way off with steps. I did end up returning it at 30 days but now that I’m finally getting around to writing this review a few months later, I actually do miss it. If they stop charging for the monthly membership on top of the price of the ring, I might consider trying it again. There’s talk of similar rings coming out without the subscription so I’m curious to see what companies launch similar products soon!