Forget the Apple Watch Series 10: The Oura Ring Is the Fitness Tracker I Use for One Obvious Reason
ZDNET Key Points
- The Oura Ring is the most competitive smart ring on the market, starting at $300 with a $6-a-month subscription plan.
- Great app experience, health data visibility, sleep tracking capabilities, and cross-platform integration make this smart ring a top choice.
- The monthly subscription fee is a complaint for users and battery life also decreases over time.
If you’ve heard of smart rings, chances are you’ve heard the phrase “Oura Ring” mentioned. After all, it’s the biggest company in the smart ring space and pretty much the blueprint for today’s competitors, whether they’re Samsung Galaxy Ring or The Super Ring. The smart ring market has grown dramatically since the launch of Oura Ring in 2015. Today, there are more options than ever, catering to the needs of a wide range of demographics such as women, gym addictsAnd Android Users.
Also: Oura Ring vs. Apple Watch: Which Fitness Tracker Should You Buy?
With all these exciting new options, is the $300 Oura Ring (plus a $6-per-month subscription) still worth buying? I’ve been testing the smart ring against its competitors for months, and the answer is yes. The Oura Ring is still the smart ring most people should buy, thanks to its competitive and constantly improving features, app user experience, excellent sleep tracking data, and industry-leading integration. Here’s everything else you should know.
A smart ring is only as good as the app it comes with. Unlike a smartwatch with a glowing screen that you can turn on/off and see information, a smart ring’s usability depends on its app and its app alone. The Oura Ring app is the best in the business, with the most comprehensive user experience of any smart ring app I’ve tried. The app loads quickly 95% of the time and syncs your data from the ring in seconds. Measuring your heart rate during a workout or recording a workout doesn’t take long either.
Oura measures four core areas of health, categorized into tabs in the app: sleep, activity, recovery, and readiness. It’s easy to see the underlying data that makes up your score by tapping on each tab. Go to the sleep tab and you’ll see all the factors that contribute to the data, like efficiency, time in bed, resting heart rate during sleep, latency, and time spent in each sleep stage. You can click on any of these data points to see a historical view of, say, your latency or average heart rate. This level of data collection and visualization, and the way every essential data point is easy to access and view from a daily or monthly perspective, is my favorite part of Oura.
Also: We’ve Entered the Age of the Smart Ring. Here’s Why It’s Going to Shake Up the Wearables Market
Which brings me to a silly but essential reason why I like Oura: it’s great at visualizing health data, which is crucial for smart rings. The Oura ring takes your sleep or activity data, stores it in an easy-to-find place, and gives you helpful recommendations for how to go about your day. And while all those numbers are in the app for you to dig into, you don’t have to interpret any of them to apply the data and tips to your lifestyle. Most of the data is paired with a short, easy-to-understand summary to make it easy to digest the numbers.
Take the Resilience tab, for example. You can check in on your resilience ebbs and flows by tracking which quadrant of the resilience map you fall into each day. Or you can scroll down a bit and read Oura’s resilience insights, which provide an easy-to-understand summary along with a recommendation or two for rest and activity.
Sleep tracking is another selling point of the Oura Ring. With the wearable’s discreet design, you can go to bed every night with it around your finger and barely notice (unlike the bulkier Apple Watch, which, in my experience, is a pain to sleep in). Plus, the four to five days of battery life you get from the Oura Ring means it’ll typically track your sleep for a few nights before you need to recharge it.
There are a number of useful features that set Oura apart from its competitors. But what really convinced me was how it helped me recover from an illness a few months ago. Before I got sick, I didn’t pay much attention to the ring’s recommendations. But as soon as I realized I was sick, Oura alerted me that my sleep, readiness, and body temperature data were all alarming.
Also: The Best Smart Rings You Can Buy
When I was in bed for a few days with a headache, stuffy nose, and fever, I found that the data Oura collected matched how I felt. On the day I had a fever, my abnormal body temperature was recorded on the app. I didn’t have the energy to see a doctor or consult a specialist, but I did get recommendations on the app to help me recover or at least document my recovery. For example, the app suggested that I rest and focus on recovery when my body temperature increased. I turned off rest mode a few days later, but Oura continued to remind me to take it easy and not push myself to help my recovery.
Oura also stands out for its software longevity and related features. Over the past few months, Oura has launched features for heart health, menstrual and menopause trackingand even a body clock chart. The ring also integrates with popular services like StravaNatural Cycles and Apple and Android health apps. With a long history in the industry, Oura has more integrations than its competitors.
There are a few caveats to the Oura Ring that you should consider, however. The first and most notorious caveat is the $6 monthly subscription fee to access extensive tracking data on the app. Of course, we’re seeing more subscription-free smart rings, like Ultrahuman and Samsung, luring users in with one-time payments.
Also: I tested this smart ring for fitness users and it almost beats Oura. Here’s why
Oura claims that the monthly subscription fee allows the brand to continue upgrading and releasing new features on a regular basis. While it’s true that the smart ring brand is rolling out new features like no other competitor, that’s a harder message to sell to consumers who might opt for a one-time purchase. Galaxy Ring $400 Instead, all of their health data is publicly accessible.
Another issue I had while testing the ring was the roughness of the band. Compared to the Galaxy Ring, which has a thinner band that, by contrast, rarely scratches, the Oura Ring band sticks out and is bulky around my finger, making it more susceptible to wear and tear over time.
ZDNET Buying Advice
However, Oura Ring is the best smart ring you can buy right now. It’s not without its flaws, but the sheer amount of health data it collects and visualizes for its users, the plethora of features that are useful to anyone regardless of gender, age, or health status, and the user experience of the app and the smart ring itself make for a compelling wearable, even in a competitive landscape.
By wearing the Oura Ring regularly, I have learned more about my health. I know that eating or drinking too late makes it difficult for my heart rate to decrease while I sleep, that regular exercise at the beginning of my menstrual cycle gives me the energy to succeed throughout the rest of the month, and that sleep is essential to my quality of life.
I can’t say much about myself. Apple Watchthe Evie Ringthe Samsung Galaxy Ringor The Super Ring. If technology is supposed to improve our lives and help us understand ourselves better through data we could never collect ourselves, then the Oura Ring is a revolutionary health wearable.
Oura Ring Specifications
| Material | Titanium |
| Weight | 4-6 grams, depending on size and finish |
| Size | 6-13 |
| Sensor | 3-axis acceleration sensor, heart rate sensor, relative Sp02 sensor, ECG sensor, EDA sensor |
| Durability | Water resistant to depths of up to 100 meters (over 328 ft) |
| Price | Start at $299plus $6 monthly subscription |
| Parcel include | USB-C charger and cable |
