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Oura Ring Review: Smart Jewelry That You Won't Want To Take Off Again

RRP $ 399.00

"The Oura ring is a stylish piece of jewelry for tracking sleep and basic daily activities made from high quality materials that is easy to wear and charge."

advantages

• Light and comfortable to wear

• Detailed, informative sleep tracking

• Long battery life by simply charging

• Stylish, with a choice of finishes

• Well designed app

disadvantage

• Limited activity tracking

• Expensive compared to other fitness wearables

I've never got on so well with rings. In the end, I always took them off and stowed them away safely, either because they got annoying or it was just a matter of time before I took them off and forgot where I put them. When asked if I would like to review the Oura ring, the same concerns crossed my mind, but this chic piece of jewelry was too tempting to stop by.

It's a fascinating piece of wearable technology. Small and relatively inconspicuous, it doesn't take up valuable wrist space that I could fill with the watch of my choice. In terms of functionality, however, it's pretty light and also more expensive than many far more feature-rich smartwatches and fitness bands. After trying the Oura ring, did it stay on my finger?

design

The Oura ring has been in my possession for a month and I still wear it every day. For a jewelry-based piece of wearable technology that I never really got started with, this comes as a surprise, and proof that the Oura ring is a lot "stickier" than I expected. However, the decision to buy an Oura ring is a little more complicated than just buying a smartwatch because it is not a universal product.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Knowing your ring size will help you in the beginning, but Oura will send you a set of pacifier rings in different sizes to try on before you buy. I found two sizes that fit and the recommendation is to buy the largest that will fit. I did that and the end product is never too tight, even with hot hands, doesn't really sweat and actually fits on my index finger and thumb when I feel like a change.

I opted for the Heritage Oura ring with a flat top in a stealth finish versus the balance version, which instead tapers to a point. It's made of titanium with a PVD coating and is very light at around 5 grams, and the matte color here isn't as noticeable as the silver or gold alternatives. The choice of design and workmanship makes the Oura ring unisex, which is very welcome. Its lightness would make it disappear on your finger if it weren't for the 2.55 mm thickness of the tape itself. I wear it on my middle finger and can feel it on both sides of my fingers. It's not uncomfortable, but you always know it's there.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

This makes it noticeable along with the ring's width of 7.9mm. Whichever design or finish you choose, the Oura ring is easy to spot and will likely dominate all of the other more delicate rings on your fingers. I've worn it day and night for the past month. That is, when I'm working, washing dishes, gardening, and most other chores. He doesn't care about water, the finish is scratch-free and ugly streaks are quickly wiped away. I also had no issues with it on my skin, aided by Oura with a non-allergenic, non-metallic liner on the inside of the ring.

Obviously I haven't lost it yet, but sometimes I forget to put it back on, which results in me looking for it when I realize it's not on my finger. I would love to see some sort of "Find my Oura Ring" feature, but I understand that this is difficult to implement due to the lack of sound or vibration on the ring itself.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

How has the Oura developed overall as a mostly non-ring bearer? It wasn't a problem. It's much less annoying than a watch overnight, and if it's a little uncomfortable with hot hands, it only needs to be removed for a few seconds to make my finger feel better. The downsides come with size as it bumps into things, you can feel it when you grab something, and I found it best to take it off to wash the car in case it was at risk of scratching the body.

That being said, the Oura ring has become a part of my hand and I doubt I'll take it off even after I finish my review. Am I satisfied with my choice of finish? Yes, but now that I'm used to wearing it, I almost wish I had chosen the glossy black version for a bit more visual appeal. When buying the Oura ring, do not proceed like buying a tech device, but rather as a piece of jewelry, is my advice.

Sensors and app

The Oura Ring is primarily a sleep tracker that only provides basic insights into your daily activities. If you want to keep an overview of your health and all of your workouts in detail, then you should also use a smartwatch or a fitness band. I wore it paired with an iPhone 12 Pro and the app is pulling data from Apple Health (or Google Fit with an Android phone). This means that if your training is tracked with an Apple Watch, this data will be taken into account.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Wear it all day and the ring will record steps, calories, and activity time. It also helps the sensors monitor your baselines. It understands movement and in the app you can add a tag to any workout it shows during the day, it also records steps and displays them in the app. I've found that it tends to overestimate the step count when compared to a smartwatch. It doesn't offer real-time heart rate monitoring, the ability to track a workout, or blood oxygen measurement, and it doesn't offer features like contactless payment.

You don't have to do anything at night, just go to sleep as usual. It uses a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor to read your heart rate and breathing, a negative temperature coefficient (NTC) sensor to read your body temperature, and an accelerometer to monitor movement. All the data is collected and compiled in Oura's app, and since the ring is not displayed, you will need to open it to see your stats.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Sleep is broken down into efficiency, rest, sleep stages, latency, and timing. It reports the length of your sleep, your heart rate, and heart rate variability (HRV) and creates ongoing detailed trends based on all of these. Each section is given a rating and it's clear when something is wrong with the graph lines changing from blue to orange. Tap on any of these sections to learn more about what they mean.

Tracking and accuracy

You will receive a sleep and readiness score every day after the app has rated your activity and sleep. The readiness score shows how “ready” you are for the day, while the sleep score shows how restful and restful your night was. The main screen of the app is focused on these stats and you can easily ignore the rest of the stats and just look at these two and get a good idea of ​​your overall health every day.

I found the data from the Oura ring and its trends to be very interesting, and there is a decent amount of advice available, although it is mostly based on readiness rather than correcting sleep problems. For example, I like when I suggest that I take a break from too much activity when I've been busy and haven't had enough sleep. It seems obvious, but the reassurance is nice. But you are more on your own when you sleep, simply because correcting sleep problems is not easy.

What about the accuracy? I also use a Withings Sleep Analyzer under the mattress and the two always track my heart rate and record my deep sleep, but the Oura ring keeps saying I'm not getting enough REM sleep, while the Withings usually shows that i get twice the amount of REM sleep than the oura ring. The advice the Oura ring gives on this is too general to be helpful, especially since I am already doing what it suggests, but this applies to most sleep trackers.

I find the dates of the Oura ring and its trends very interesting

I like the way the Oura always understands when I wake up early in the morning and don't get up straight away, which the Withings are still recording when I sleep. This makes the overall statistics more accurate. However, the Oura ring sometimes thinks I wake up at night when I definitely don't. Finally, I cherish the memories of relaxing a few hours before bed, something based on your personal timing trends. It sounds like a mixed bag here, but it isn't. The data is presented in an appealing and logical way, the trending reporting is comprehensive, the connection and synchronization were absolutely solid, and the help it offers is largely informative and helpful.

Battery and charging

You place the Oura ring on its own little charging pedestal, which is designed so that the sensors snap it into place and make sure it doesn't slip and charge.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The battery is good for a week before it is close to zero, but the recommendation is to keep the battery between about 40% and 80% charged. I've found that putting the ring on the charger every other day or so while showering and getting ready in the morning works really well. This will charge it without interrupting its use.

Price and availability

You can buy the Oura ring from Oura's own online shop. The Stealth Heritage model shown here is $ 399, as is the gold version, but the black or silver models are $ 299. The Balance model is available in black or silver for $ 299. The ring size set can be ordered for free, and we recommend that you do so.

Our opinion

As a technical masterpiece, the Oura ring is extremely impressive. It wasn't long ago that such a small, perfectly shaped portable device with a battery that lasts a week would have been impossible, let alone so reliably and polished to produce. It's not entirely inconspicuous on my finger, but it's not far away and the cool design makes me happy to wear it all the time. The Oura ring is a success as wearable technical jewelry.

I found the deep sleep and simple activity tracking data interesting, informative, and a good insight into my habits. The slight lack of actionable advice is forgivable, and it's still much more than basic fitness bands offer. Either my Withings Sleep Analyzer or the Oura Ring are wrong about my REM sleep, which isn't really a black mark on the Oura and instead makes me question the reliability of the data from sleep trackers in general.

The Oura ring is a success as wearable technical jewelry

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for me to wholeheartedly recommend the Oura ring is that it is expensive for a really companion device. For a complete picture of your health and true fitness tracking, you must also wear a smartwatch or fitness band. When Huawei's excellent TruSleep system is available on the feature-rich Honor Band 6, which costs around $ 50, the $ 399 Oura ring suddenly looks like a hard sale.

But that's the wrong way to think about the Oura ring. It's a high-tech gem with the benefit of sleep and movement tracking, and not a top fitness tracker that happens to look like a ring. The technology it offers is excellent and the app is very well designed so you will never feel like it is missing, but you need to be aware of its limitations.

Interesting to me is that before wearing the Oura ring I probably wouldn't have bothered about it that much, but after a month I got used to seeing and feeling it, appreciate the insights it gives and have become pretty much attached to it. I plan to keep wearing it, and like all the best wearables – high tech or otherwise – it's a decision based on both how it looks and feels and what it actually does.

Is there a better alternative?

Smart jewelry is still a small niche, and there are very few real alternatives to the Oura ring that are widely available. The smart jewelry from Bellabeat, such as the Bellabeat Leaf, can be worn as a bracelet, necklace or on clothing and is significantly cheaper. However, the design is not unisex. Otherwise, most smart rings focus on contactless payment and not much else.

If you want more fitness and activity tracking capabilities, the better alternative is a smartwatch or fitness band. Almost all of them offer greater functionality and include sleep tracking, and if your budget is $ 400, the choices are huge. We recommend the Apple Watch Series 6 for iPhone owners and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 for Android smartphone owners or the Fitbit Charge 4 or Honor Band 6 if you are only interested in a fitness band.

How long it will take?

If you don't lose it, the Oura ring should last for years. The decisive factor will be the battery, which is obviously very small and, if it wears out, quickly only offers a short service life. However, this is unlikely to happen for a few years and Oura offers a two year warranty on its rings.

Should you buy one?

Yes. If you remember that it is a fancy piece of jewelry rather than a full fitness tracker, then not only will you enjoy wearing it, but you will also benefit from its sleep-related insights.

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