Small, stylish, and powerful biometric tracker, but requires subscription for analytics. Amazon Affiliate Product Link: geni.us/Oy9qqE8
Thank you to Best Buy for sending me a sampling of this product to try.
The Oura Ring comes with a charging base, USB-C cable, and quick start instructions. The charging base for the Oura is custom fit to your ring size, so note that chargers for differently sized rings will not be compatible. At the front is an LED indicator and on the bottom is a rubber foot for stability. To charge your ring, simply place it onto the post. The LED flashes white while charging and turns green when the ring is fully charged. If you’ve sized the ring correctly, it should fit comfortably without any gap between the ring and your finger. If you’re not sure what size you need, you can order a sizing kit, whose value will be credited to you when you buy a ring. Just note that Oura does not offer half sizes.
Inside the ring you can see a number of different electronic components like the various sensors and charging coils since the interior is clear. There are three raised bumps to help you locate the sensors by feel, and these will also help keep the ring in place on your finger in the correct orientation. The exterior of the Horizon is a completely smooth and shiny titanium and differs from the Heritage by only the omission of a raised flattened area on top. It is water resistant to 100m/328 ft depth, hypo allergenic, and withstands typical operating temperature from saunas to ice baths. When wearing the ring, you’ll want the three sensor bumps on the bottom on the palm side of your finger. You should also see the marking on this side while wearing it. One thing to note is that although the material is pretty resilient, is that through normal use and wear and tear eventually the finish will get a little bit scuffed up.
You'll need the Oura App to see your data, and create an Oura account so that your data can be synced to the cloud. Once you’re done setting it up, you can see a number of different metrics like SpO2 for blood oxygen levels and breathing regularity while sleeping, automatic period prediction if you menstruate, and 24/7 heart rate. Each metric is clearly explained as to what it can tell you about your health and how the ring takes these measurements. One thing to keep in mind is that you do have to launch the app at least once a week to download and sync the data on the ring to your account. The data storage on the ring isn’t unlimited and after about 7 days, the oldest data starts to get over written so it’s best if you check the app every couple of days to ensure all your data gets uploaded.
As a fitness tracker, you can initiate tracking of a specific type of activity like running or swimming. Each day you’ll be presented with three daily values for your previous day. The first is readiness, which summarizes your general physical well-being, the second is sleep, which tracks your stages of sleep throughout the night including, wakefulness, REM, light and deep sleep as well as heart rate and blood oxygen. And the third is your activity summarizing how much physical activity you completed. Your scores are accompanied by recommendations for improving or maintaining them for improved health outcomes. You can view daily, weekly and monthly biometric history to track your trends in graphs and charts over time, helping you identify areas you can improve or focus on.
Every new Oura ring comes with a free 1-month Oura subscription included, but if you decide not to renew and pay the monthly or annual subscription fee, the app defaults to the inactive experience. After which the only thing you’ll be able to see in the app are the summary scores for your activity goal, readiness, and sleep. You won’t be able to tap these and see any data points, breakdown of the scores, or any of the recommendations or analysis of your data. What you can do instead, is log into your Oura cloud account from a computer and download your raw biometric data to a spreadsheet since your data will be there as long as you keep wearing the ring and opening the app to sync your data. With a little spreadsheet knowhow, you can create your own summaries and analysis, without paying a monthly subscription fee.
Overall, the Oura Ring 3 is a powerful biometric tracker that’s also lightweight, stylish, and comfortable to wear. The app provides detailed insights, data breakdowns, and visual tracking of your stats over time to give you a daily, weekly, and bird’s eye view of your health, daily habits, and areas to focus on for improvement. That is, if you’re willing to pay the subscription fee. But even without the subscription, your biometrics and be captured and downloaded from the cloud, and this data can be super useful as long as you’re willing to put in the effort to crunch the numbers and perform the analysis on your own.
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