Thin Blue Line Wedding Band That Reads Her Heart Beat
No Ring-ing Endorsement
Here's the short version of my Oura ring review:
It'due south not cracking, only it'south adept enough.
I forked out a few hundred bucks for information technology because I hoped it would assist me meliorate my slumber.
Eleven months afterward, despite putting serious thought and effort into sleeping better, these are the discouraging results:
No improvement.
But I'm still using the darn thing.
Why?
Because the pros of the new Oura band, though smaller than I'd hoped, yet outweigh the cons. In this Oura ring review, I'll explicate why.
What Is the Oura Ring
The Basics
The new Oura ring is a regular-sized (possibly a scrap thicker than about) ring yous can get in 1 of 3 colors (or with a diamond on information technology if you absolutely love burning greenbacks for inane reasons).
Within the ring are a bunch of fancy sensors that collect biometric data. The ring periodically sends this data to your phone, which relays it over to the cloud to make various calculations related to your slumber, action, and readiness.
What Oura Measures
- Blood pulse volume in your finger, from which it calculates your respiratory rate, heart rate, and centre rate variability.
- Body temperature.
- Movement of the hand that's wearing the ring.
- Time of day.
What It Infers From Those Measurements
- Sleep quality:Calculated based on what time you're lying in bed, for how long, how much you lot movement around in bed, and how your animate, temperature, and heart rate measurements vary during that time. It too attempts to break that sleep into the unlike stages: light, REM, and deep slumber.
- Activity:Calculated based on periodic (not continuous) monitoring of your heart charge per unit and how much y'all move your hand.
- Readiness: Calculated based on trends in your resting center charge per unit, HRV, respiratory rate, and body temperature.
What'south on the App
Why Sleep Is so Freaking Of import
Before continuing with my Oura ring review, I want to emphasize why sleep is so of import.
Really, I'll permit this guy do it for me:
That's Dr. Matt Walker. He's a sleep scientist who wrote a book, Why We Slumber. It's one of my fifteen favorite "sledgehammer books" because it scared the crap into making me want to sleep ameliorate.
Here's why he says we should care A LOT about sleep:
"It enhances your memory and makes you more artistic. Information technology makes you look more bonny. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. Information technology protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. Information technology lowers your adventure of eye attacks and stroke, not to mention diabetes. You'll even experience happier, less depressed, and less anxious."
Dr. Walker
But we people are dumbasses.
Instead of merely sleeping more and better to go these benefits nosotros pay thousands of dollars for doctors, supplements, and doodads to "hack" the organisation.
Read Dr. Walker's book or, at the very least, listen to his interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, and you lot'll be convinced how important sleep really is.
Now back to the Oura ring review.
The Pros and Cons of the Oura Ring
✓ It's a Ring
I much rather wear a ring than a tight bracelet or a scout, especially one every bit inconspicuous as the Oura.
✗Information technology'south a Band
I'd much, much rather not wear anything at all and I can't wearable the ring when I'chiliad playing basketball, lifting heavy barbells, or doing chin-ups.
Also, people ask me if I'm married when I wearable it.
And then I stopped wearing my Oura band during the solar day, generally for the following reason:
✗Useless Activity Tracking
The Oura ring but tracks activity through its built-in accelerometer, so I go barely whatever credit for weight preparation and stationary exercise like yoga.
Information technology besides doesn't properly runway the high-intensity interval training I do because information technology only takes periodic heart-rate measurements during the day.
The only things the Oura band is useful for during the waking hours are:
- Counting steps
- Reminders via the app to move every once in a while
- The Moment office
None of those were good enough reasons for me to keep wearing my ring all day, so now I simply wear it at night.
✓ Eye-Opening Data
Before I got my Oura ring, I assumed I was a skilful sleeper. I'd autumn asleep immediately, stay comatose through the night, and so wake upward near vii-viii hours later.
I thought incorrect.
The Oura ring made me enlightened that while I was having a proficient quantity of sleep, my sleep quality wasn't platonic.
My heart rate chart was almost always a downward sloped line instead of an optimal bowl-shape, my HRV was the opposite, and I rarely got equally much deep and REM sleep every bit I should.
This data woke me out of my complacency and got me experimenting with all sorts of things like light, temperature, eating schedule, slumber schedule, screen time, to improve my sleep habits.
✗Too Much Information, Not Plenty Recommendations
The Oura has all the information necessary to be able to give me helpful, actionable tips.
For case, it could do a simple regression to see how much my inactivity affects my sleep and advise me accordingly.
Only information technology doesn't.
Aside from telling me whether or not my eye rate and sleep quality from the night before indicates I should "Up the activity" or "Take information technology easy", information technology doesn't do anything to help me figure out how to improve my sleep.
I've had to accept matters into my own hands, practice my own analyses, and fifty-fifty maintain my ain spreadsheet (in which I accept notation of stuff similar eating time, nutrient quantity, alcohol and caffeine consumption) to try to crack the code to better sleep.
I wish I didn't have to and that the Oura ring would make easier.
✗Unreliable Data
Three months ago, I lost my Our ring and replaced it with another 35 days later on. I got the same aforementioned size and same model…
…But different results:
My boilerplate deep sleep scores with my new ring have jumped up by 37% and my REM scores have decreased past 30%.
I didn't make any changes that I know of to my sleeping habits, and so I suspect that somehow a difference between the rings is causing these unlike scores.
This indicates that the deep sleep and REM scores are completely unreliable.
Only at least they seem to exist consistently unreliable. As long equally I can roughly rely on their progression, not the accented numbers, the scores are useful.
✓ Durability
During the six months I wore my Oura band 24/7, it held upwards admirably to all the punishment I put it through, including rock workouts, calisthenic training, and general negligence.
All it has to show for my rough treatment are quite a few superficial scuffs and scratches, but they just give the ring graphic symbol.
✓ Low Maintenance
I only take to charge my Oura band once a week or then and I can become weeks without having to sync it with my phone.
✗Questionable Customer Service
Good thing my Oura band'due south been durable and defect-free because, based on more than than a handful of accounts in the comments, client service is unresponsive, unsympathetic, and unhelpful.
✗It Punishes Me For Reading in Bed
When I read in bed, the Oura band defaults to assuming I'm having a difficult fourth dimension falling asleep and gives me low latency and sleep efficiency scores, two of the 7 measures that make upwardly the overall slumber score.
✓ It's Improving
Many other Oura ring wearers reported the same event with reading in bed, so the Oura squad fixed it.
Information technology'due south non the nigh glamorous fix—now I tin manually adjust my latency to report the time I was reading—but it'due south a lot meliorate than earlier.
The team's made a couple of similar improvements, and I am confident there will exist more to come.
✓ Piddling Daily Dopamine Hits
Every morning I eagerly check my sleep score from the night earlier to come across how I did—specifically focusing on my deep sleep and whether my heart rate graph was in the desired U-shape.
The feeling of anticipation I get from doing so is similar to the i I get when I open up Instagram to see if I got whatsoever new likes, follows, or comments—only a heck of a lot healthier (I retrieve…).
✗Information technology Takes a While
I naively hoped the Oura Ring would immediately help me identify things I've been doing wrong and set them so I could sleep like a baby and become superhuman.
Information technology didn't.
It takes weeks, even months, until you tin can kickoff to spot useful trends.
Clearly there isn't anything the Oura team can do anything nearly this, only it is something y'all should keep in mind before you lot buy one for yourself in gild to have the right expectations.
✓ Long-Term Wellness Tracking
The Oura ring keeps me very enlightened of trends in my key health markers, similar HRV and resting centre rate. This motivates me to stay healthy.
For example, for my beginning four months with the Oura band, I was encouraged and motivated past my steadily decreasing resting heart charge per unit and increasing average HRV. These were signs my exercise and nutrition choices were paying off.
But then on my fifth month, Kim and I went on a hectic road trip in South Africa.
For two weeks, nosotros exercised less, ate worse, and drank more than normal and my Hour and HRV gains completely vanished (…but, interestingly enough, my sleep scores improved).
One time our trip was over and life stabilized, I was more motivated than ever to plow things back around—and track my progress—cheers to the continuous long-term health trends from my Oura ring.
✗It Costs $299
The $299 price is for the silverish one (like I take) or the blackness.
It's $399 if you cull the "stealth," and $999 if yous want a diamond on information technology.
✗Uncertain Delivery
If you're in a rush to get a new Oura ring, be sure to ask how long it will accept earlier ordering.
As of May 2019, a couple of commenters have shared that they got their rings promptly later on ordering, just prior to that many complained that they had to wait three months or more.
✓ The Promising New Moment Function
At the cease of May 2019, Oura introduced a function (iOS only for now) I'd been looking frontwards to ever since I kickoff got on the waiting listing for my Oura ring 2 in 2017:
The power to turn on the heart rate and HRV tracking during the day.
They call it "Moment."
For 1 to sixty minutes, I can now try to relax my mode to a lower heart rate and higher HRV and see how I practice.
So far, I suck at it.
My HRV generally decreases and my Hour increases during my "Moments," which is the reverse of what I desire.
But the fact that my Oura ring has motivated me to even try to relax at all is already a plus. I'm confident information technology'southward a matter of time and tweaking with my relaxation routine earlier I somewhen effigy out how to do it effectively.
Oura Ring vs Alternatives
✧ Oura vs. Motiv Ring
The Motiv Ring is Oura's closest competitor.
On the exterior they look about the same, just functionally they're non. Here are the biggest differences:
Motiv Ring Advantages
- $100 cheaper ($199 vs $299)
- Better action tracking: When you work out, it tracks your activity more continuously than the Oura Ring.
Oura Ring Advantages
- Way better sleep tracking. Oura specializes in tracking your sleep by tracking sleep phases (deep, REM, low-cal). The Motiv only tracks "restful" and "restless."
- Longer battery life (6-seven days for Oura vs iii days for Motiv)
- More than measures. Information technology measures HRV, trunk temperature, and respiratory rate. The Motiv doesn't.
Oura vs. Motiv Conclusion
Oura wins!
Even if the Motiv band but cost $xx instead of $200, I'd still get the Oura ring because it's far and away the amend tool for tracking my slumber, which is priority number one for me.
✧ Oura vs. Fitbit
Comparison the Oura Ring versus the Fitbit is like comparing slippers to running shoes.
Like slippers, the Oura Band is designed for resting. And like running shoes, the Fitbit is designed for activity.
You can employ either for the other purpose, only that'due south getting away from what they're designed for.
Either get both for the all-time performance or pick whichever functionality is more of import to you—tracking sleep or tracking remainder—and purchase accordingly.
✧ Oura vs. Sleep Cycle App
For over seven years before I got my new Oura ring, I relied on my phone's Sleep Cycle app to measure out my slumber.
Fifty-fifty afterward I got my ring, I continued to use it for its alarm. This allowed me to compare the slumber scores betwixt the two.
Hither's the comparison:
If the Slumber Cycle app were any good, the dots on this nautical chart would roughly follow a diagonal, upwards-sloped line.
They don't.
That means the Sleep Cycle app is pretty much useless for sleep tracking.
Final Verdict on the Oura Ring
To determine whether or non something was a good buy, I ask myself i question:
If I lose it, would I get another of the exact same or would I shop effectually for something else?
For the Oura band, the answer is I'd get it once again. It's i my rare few favorite things that meat that benchmark.
Non but in theory, either.
I actually lost my band somewhere in the Namibian desert and as soon equally I got home I got a new one.
That'southward because, while the Oura band hasn't fully lived up to my expectations, it has made me more focused on and witting of my sleep quality and long term wellness markers.
And even though my sleep scores oasis't improved in the months I've had it, A) at that place's a chance my sleep would've got worse if non for the Oura band and B) I'1000 optimistic that I'm getting closer to finding the perfect slumber routine with its assistance.
Compared to the benefits, the cost is minimal. But similar how it's worth spending more on a good mattress, the same applies for the Oura ring sleep tracker.
Recommendation
If you lot're looking for a magic pill, don't bother getting an Oura ring.
The data might entertain you lot for a while, but if yous exercise nothing nearly it you'll presently get bored, ditch it, and be $300 poorer and no better off.
But if you lot're willing to be proactive well-nigh improving your health—pregnant you're willing to put some conscious effort into figuring out and fixing what's hurting your sleep—the Oura ring is the best tool out there.
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Source: https://www.theunconventionalroute.com/oura-ring-review/
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