The ring also recorded my respiratory rate and the way my skin temperature fluctuated from night to night.
Its ability to detect changes in temperature was being touted as a possible early detection mechanism for COVID.
So I wore a gen 3 silver Heritage on my index finger andhatedusing that finger for the ring.
The same thing happened again a night or two later.
I realized the battery must be dying, and with luck I was just inside the two-year warranty period.
It was during the gen 3 era that workout heart rate became available.
It also interpreted brushing my kids hair as dancing.
Good guess, I suppose!
Two years later, in 2024, the battery died again.
(A lifespan of two years seems to be sadly common.)
This time my ring was out of warranty, since Oura had switched to only offering a one-year warranty.
They sent me an exact duplicate of the dead one, and thats the ring Im still wearing today.
I wrote acomparison of the gen 3 and gen 4 rings, and areview of the gen 4.
The gen 4 is nice.
But when I was done reviewing it, I happily went back to the gen 3.
The essential features are all the same, and I preferred the way the gen 3 fit.
I liked its single-pointed shape, the better to fidget with and get it oriented correctly on my finger.
And Ilovedthat the LEDs were infrared rather than visible light.
There was no green glow under the ring at night.
The features Oura has added over the last four years have been nice-to-haves, but not game changers.
Having been at this four years, I say: Start wearing it whenever.
Two months from now, the exact metrics you had on your vacation will be history.
Heck, you might enjoy looking back at them for comparisons sake.
But your baseline is built over time and changes with time.
Its not something the ring imprints on like a duckling.
As Ive written before,I find that recovery scores are too imperfect to be useful.
But these dont always match up well to reality.
Instead, I look at the raw numbers for my resting heart rate and my HRV.
My RHR shoots up anytime my body is going through something stressful.
If I have a fever or a migraine, my RHR will skyrocket.
Also, yes, a resting heart rate in the 40’s is pretty low.
Partly it’s fitnessmy RHR lowers slightly when I’m doing more exercise.
And partly it’s just that Oura records lower resting heart rates than other devices.
When it records a 43, Fitbit might record a 50.
Again: compare your Oura ring’s numbers toeach other, not to other people or even other devices.
My four years worth of data bear this out in two important ways.
When comparing my sleep score with my total sleep time, surprise!
There is a strong positive correlation, with a coefficient of 0.77.
The more sleep I got, the higher my sleep score.
I was always skeptical of the way Oura claimed to divide up my sleep into stages.
We can even see where the new REM sleep came from.
The deep sleep graph looks like the opposite of the one above.
I felt validated in my complaints that it must not be picking up my REM sleep properly.
I also gained a lesson in just how much we are at the whims of the algorithm.
But my own experience didnt bear that out.
When I had been wearing the ring about a month, I got sick.
so I never did find out for sure.
I recall symptoms starting on that Thursday or Friday, June 2 or 3.
My readiness scores were all greatabove 80until that day.
Since then, Ive only had minor colds and sniffles.
But, again, I dont get that validation until after Ive started feeling crappy.
I looked up theresultsof the TemPredict study.
That is, to be honest, not all that useful!
And, clearly, the algorithm missed a lot of people.
Ouragave these results a positive spin.
The headline finding was that when the algorithm worked, it predicted illness 2.75 days before a positive test.
But Oura did eventually launchSymptom Radar, a feature that rolled out to Oura users in December of 2024.
Bottom line: I feel confident in saying the promise of illness prediction has fallen flat.
But that’s not exactly helpful in any practical sense.
Durability
When you buy a $300+ piece of jewelry, you expect it to last.
This is the gen 3 ring that I wore for two full years.
The bottom surface, where the ring would contact things Im holding, is more scratched up for sure.
Others may feel differently.
All three get plenty of daily wear.
My wedding rings scratches are subtle; the Oura rings are much more obvious by comparison.
Battery longevity
My biggest disappointment over the years has been the battery longevity.
Not the batterylifethe ring goes most of a week between charges without any problem.
But Im talking about how much use you get out of the ring before it stops holding a charge.
I forgot all about that, and then it happened to me.
Fortunately, I was just barely inside of the warranty period, and got my replacement.
I lucked out again with my second replacement, since the gen 4 had just launched.
They just shipped me a duplicate of my old ring, in a baggie (no charger).
I cant complain about getting three rings for the price of one.
That said, should I really need three rings infour years?
There are plenty of five-year-old Apple Watches and Garmin watches out there that cost around $400 originally.
You would expect a $300+ Oura ring to last longer than two years.
But check the subreddits and forums, and ask any long-time Oura ring user you know.
Two years is pretty typical for the gen 2 and gen 3 rings.
(Its too early for a verdict on the gen 4.)
But you should know that youre not buying something that will last for years and years.
I saw someone on a forum who was thinking about getting an Oura ring as his actual wedding ring.
Not a good option if youre going to be sentimentally attached to that specific, physical ring.
Because itsso dang easy.
I dont need to start or stop anything on the ring itself or on an app.
I dont need to wear it for workouts.
Even during times I was paying more attention to other wearables, I kept the Oura ring on.
Charging is low-maintenance, too.
I keep the Oura rings charger on my nightstand.
Cardio exercise is reasonably easy to get a handle on, but weightlifting is different.
I compete in Olympic-styleweightlifting(the sport of the snatch and the clean and jerk).
The weights are heavy, but the lifts also require precise technique and coordination.
Some days you’re able to snatch 60 kilos, some days youre lucky to make 53.
Coaches and lifters have known this for decades, if not centuries.
But its still hard to predict exactly when youll feel uncoordinated versus when youll perform well.
But it didnt quite work out that way.
And the reverse happened, too.
I know what it looks like when Im stressed and burned out: high RHR, low HRV.
You have to take ownership of your new self-knowledge, and learn, not just listen.
Would I have gotten just as good an understanding of my body and my training without the ring?
Probably, but Id expect a lot more mental ups and downs.
I guess the ring has taught me a little bit of self-compassion.
