If you are not a fan of smartwatches for fitness tracking, you might want to give a try to fitness tracking rings. Oura Ring Generation 3 comes with advanced tools and good battery life. Here is everything you need to know about it before you go and purchase the Oura Ring.
The Oura Ring is unlike any of the best fitness trackers that came in the past. For one thing, because it’s a ring, you wear it on your finger instead of your wrist. It also lacks any physical controls or buttons. Advanced sleep measurements and proactive recovery tips, in fact, make up for the lack of holistic health tracking. There are three most important aspects of utilising this smart ring, with sizing and battery life. The third-generation Oura is like an over-the-top mood ring. It may appear to be a simple metal band, but it contains microscopic sensors that track your activity, physical and mental health, and sleep. It can also measure your body temperature and monitor your heart rate throughout the clock, as well as anticipate your next period.
Pros
Cons
The Oura Ring Generation 3 is available at $299 and comes in four finishes: Silver, Black, Stealth and Gold. However, before you get your ring, you’re sent a sizing kit. There are 8 Oura Ring sizes, but they might not match up with regular ring sizes. After trying on the sizing kit’s dummy rings, you can determine the size needed for your ring. A proper fit is necessary as wearing this thing to sleep needs to be comfortable. An Oura Ring Generation 3 purchase comes with a complimentary 6-month Oura Membership. Once the trial is up, the Oura Membership costs $5.99/month. You need the membership to use most of the Oura Ring’s features, insights and personalized recommendations.
The Oura Ring Generation 3 seems like just an ordinary piece of jewelry on your finger. Heart rate, respiration rate, and body temperature sensors are housed in the three inner ridges. You can wear the ring on your index finger with the slightly flattened edge of the ring facing up for accurate readings. Moreover, you don’t have to take it off when working out, cleaning your hands, or preparing dinner. This is because it’s waterproof and safe for interaction with sweat, soaps, and other things your hands might come into contact with on a daily basis.
The ring is made of titanium and comes in four colors: black, gold, silver, or stealth (matte black). Although Oura claims the ring has a scratch-resistant coating, it depends on your usage and it is likely that it might get some wear.
The ring is waterproof to 328 feet, so you may wear it when swimming, showering or diving. The ring is a basic band that flattens out at the top to resemble a bolt. A version of the second-generation ring had a point at the top. However, the new model has a seamless inner moulding that is non-allergenic and has three sensor bumps that push on your finger. The 0.3-inch band is 0.1-inch thick and 0.3-inch broad. On paper, those proportions appear small, yet the Oura might feel hefty in your hand. Thus, making it awkward to seal your grip. However, compared to a traditional wristband-style fitness tracker, the ring is noticeably more comfortable to wear to bed.
It weighs between 0.1 and 0.2 grams. The third-generation device is the same size and weight as the previous model, but it has 32 times the memory and three times the number of sensors. These allow the ring to record more precise data.
The latest model has seven temperature sensors, whereas the previous model had three. Thus, allowing it to measure your body temperature 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and power the new period prediction feature. It has red and green LEDs in addition to infrared LEDs that measure your resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV, the fluctuation in milliseconds between each heartbeat and a stress signal), and respiration rate. The red LED allows nightly blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) measurements. Moreover, the green LED monitors your heart rate around the clock. You can get your health data in its companion app of the same name which is available for both Android and iOS.
Oura currently charges a $5.99 monthly membership fee, in addition to the ring’s cost, for access to all of its app-based services. This includes daily health indicators, personalized recommendations, and a library of roughly 50 guided meditations. According to the company, this transition enables the company to bring out new features and improve the customer experience on a regular basis. A six-month membership is included with the ring. New ring users will only be able to access their three daily Oura scores (Activity, Readiness, and Sleep) as well as the ring’s battery level, basic personal information, and app settings without a subscription.
Owners of the second-generation ring, strangely enough, do not need to worry about membership. They can continue to use the same functions as before. Oura claimed it will continue to support the older ring “for up to 2 years post-Gen3 release” with “regular software and firmware updates.” However, due to hardware limitations, many of the new functions will be unavailable on the second-generation ring.
The ring is available in sizes 6 to 13. It can be worn on any finger on either hand, however, Oura suggests wearing it on your index finger for optimal results. The sensor bumps need to be on the bottom of your finger when wearing the ring for maximum accuracy. Oura provides you with a free sizing kit once you place an order. When trying the ring make a fist to ensure there is no gap between the top of your finger and the inside of the ring. If you’re unsure, Oura suggests going with the smaller size. The company mails your actual ring when you confirm your size via a URL on the box. According to Oura, the size kit can take up to three weeks to arrive, and the delivery of your ring could take the same amount of time.
Download the Oura app after your ring comes. If you don’t have an account you can create one and agree to the terms of service and privacy policy. After that, the app advises you to charge the ring. Continue after making sure your phone is linked to Bluetooth. Accept the Bluetooth pairing request when the app discovers the ring and you should be good to go. If you’re new to the Oura app, you can link your account to Apple Health or Google Fit during the registration process. The ring will automatically sync your workout, sleep, and meditation data between the apps. After that, the app will ask you to enter your birthday, height, weight, gender, and preferred units (metric or imperial). These fields are automatically filled in if you connect your account to Apple Health or Google Fit. Finally, the app inquires about your lifestyle, aspirations, and sleeping patterns.
In the My Profile section, you can skip the questions or edit your answers. The Oura app is well-organized, with sections for Home, Activity, Readiness, Sleep, and Explore at the bottom. The Home page displays a summary of your data, including your daily Activity, Readiness, and Sleep ratings. A thorough description of the components that contribute to each score may be found in the Activity, Readiness, and Sleep sections. For measures like body temperature, HRV, respiratory rate, and resting heart rate, the ring takes roughly two weeks to create a baseline. Every day, the app shows any potentially worrying numbers in red, allowing you to quickly understand where you’re falling short. Moreover, it provides trend graphs and instructional information to help you understand the variables it tracks and analyze your results.
The app provides daily individualized recommendations based on your statistics to assist you in customizing your routines. If you haven’t met your daily activity goal, it suggests steps get there. You can access Oura’s library of meditation and breathing sessions under the Explore tab. Meditations can take up to 30 minutes and help you focus, relax, reset, and unwind in preparation for sleep. You can add a soundscape to play in the background before starting the meditation. Oura also asks you to evaluate how you feel after the meditation. It then displays a summary screen that displays your lowest heart rate, average HRV, and skin temperature during the session, as well as how these numbers relate to your baseline. Oura maintains track of these parameters while you meditate and displays them once you’re finished.
The Oura Ring Generation 3 isn’t the best fitness tracker on the market. It’s evident that it’s not designed to provide metrics while working out without a display. If you’re going for a run, you’ll want to use smartwatches to keep track of your pace. Because there’s no real-time fitness tracking, it might feel inconvenient. The Oura Ring app can track calorie burn, steps, walking equivalency (daily activity burn converted to walking distance), and hourly movement. It calculates workout intensity based on your heart rate and minutes of intense activity, as well as workout data imported from Apple Health or Google Fit.
The Oura app allows you to register for exercise in the past and can even guess how long a workout took. The length of time you spend sedentary, how often you work out, how much recuperation time you give your body, and if you’ve needed push alerts to stand up every hour determine your Oura Ring activity score.
You can evaluate your entire time laying down, hours asleep, resting heart rate overnight, and sleep efficiency per cent in the Oura app at a glance. These parameters, as well as hours of REM sleep, hours of deep sleep, sleep latency (how long it takes you to fall asleep), and sleep timing, are used to calculate a daily sleep score. When it’s time to start winding down for bed, the Oura app will send a signal to help with sleep timing. The sleep measurements on the Oura Ring are significantly advanced and accurate. It takes note of every movement you made during the night, even if you just opened your eyes to check the time. The time spent awake, in REM, deep or light sleep is indicated by a colour-coded timeline.
The Oura Ring’s genuine trademark, the readiness score, is influenced by the activity and sleep data. When your body is ready for physical activity, or when it’s time to relax, your readiness score tells you. A score of 85 or higher suggests a healthy balance of movement and rest. However, an optimal score is attained when your resting heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature, sleep, and activity are all in harmony. Recovery is critical to achieving your overall wellness objectives. You may sustain workout-related injuries or experience increased stress if you aren’t physically or psychologically refreshed.
Oura Ring goes a step further by recommending a Rest Mode when it detects an abnormal body temperature, which could indicate illness or another cause to slow down. You may also manually enter Rest Mode to turn off your activity goals and movement notifications if you’re not sick but think you need a day off.
The Oura 2 was great for tracking your sleep and recovery, but it fell short as an activity tracker. That’s still mostly true, although the third-generation ring has made some improvements. It now has 24/7 heart rate tracking and a Workout Heart Rate feature. The new Heart Rate feature of the Home page displays your current heart rate as well as a graph of your heart rate over time. Additional data, such as your average everyday heart rate, sleeping heart rate range, and total restorative time (periods when your body and mind are recharging displayed in green on the heart rate graph), as well as trend graphs for these metrics, are available in this area.
The third-generation ring, like its predecessor, has a 3D accelerometer. It can automatically recognise and track more than 30 distinct activities. When the Oura detects an exercise, the app prompts you to tag it and confirm the activity’s start, end, and intensity level. It maintains track of your activity calorie burn, intensity level, and workout length while you go on walks. If you walk with your phone, it will record your mileage, average pace, and a map of your path. After finishing, you can manually add an exercise.
To gain credit, simply hit the + sign symbol in the lower right corner of the Home tab. Then, choose your activity, and enter the start time, length, and intensity. The Oura Ring currently does not allow you to manually track a workout in real-time, but this is expected to change soon. Following your workouts, the app will provide you with a summary of your metrics as well as insights to help you plan future workouts.
Period forecasts are now available as an optional beta function on Oura. Instead of relying on the old-school calendar method, the ring uses its innovative sensors to take into consideration your body temperature variations while estimating your next period. When you first activate this function, the app will ask you a few common questions. This includes questions like when your last period began, how regular it is, and how long your cycle is on average (from the first day of your period to the day before your next one). It uses this information to tell you the expected start date of your period. You can log your period if it begins earlier or later than the ring predicted. As your cycle varies, Oura’s period predictions adapt. For the most precise estimates, the organization suggests confirming your start date.
Oura also expects to introduce nightly SpO2 sensing and a new sleep stage-tracking algorithm this year. The SpO2 feature isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s still valuable, especially in light of COVID-19. It reveals how well your circulatory and respiratory systems distribute oxygenated blood to your body. This can help you determine whether a hospital visit is required. This capability is available on several wrist-based fitness trackers, such as the Fitbit Charge 5.
The battery life of the Oura Ring Generation 3 is predicted to be 4-7 days. However, it is rare to spend a week without changing. In our testing, the ring required recharging every 5 days. This is good enough to avoid being irritating. The Oura Ring sits on a dedicated wireless charging base when it’s time to charge. When the base is charging, the indicator light becomes white. When your Ring achieves 100 percent battery life you’ll get a notification on your phone. It takes about an hour to completely charge your ring.
The Oura Ring does a great job of blending in. The fact that it can match the rest of your jewelry is a big plus. While you need to pay a monthly fee, the membership offers enough software to persuade you that it’s worth it. A period-tracking tool that predicts the start of your cycle is another great feature. Moreover, there is a library of soothing audio sessions that appears to be expanding. You can track your real-time fitness on the app. The Oura Ring Generation 3 may be just what you’re searching for if you want to keep a closer watch on your health but are not a fan of a fitness tracker on your wrist. It has more sensors than its predecessor and better health-monitoring functions. It gives you 24/7 heart rate tracking, accurate temperature monitoring, and period forecasts, with upgrades like nightly SpO2 monitoring.
Are you planning to buy the Oura Ring? Tell us in the comments section below.
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