The short answer is yes, I have no plans to stop wearing the Oura Ring. I also have a list of essential Apple Watch apps that I couldn’t live without. As someone who does a lot of heart rate-based training, this is a deal-breaker. With all the features enabled, including continuous SpO2 monitoring, the battery life lasts about three full days. Natural Cycles, the first FDA-cleared birth control app, is another notable partnership. Oura Ring also works with Therabody, the maker of premium massage guns such as the Theragun Pro. Like Garmin’s Body Battery, it takes into account factors like resting heart rate, respiratory rate, activity levels, and sleep to tell you just how, er, ready you are to tackle your day. After all, if I wanted to micromanage my data and track my heart rate zones as I exercised, I would wear a smartwatch, not a smart ring. Still, you should know that it’s not an effective replacement for a fitness tracker or smartwatch for tracking exercise. Because the app keeps track of data over a stretch of time, you can also view trend reports to see things like your sleep score across weeks, months or years. Oura redesigned the app from the previous Oura Ring Gen 3, with a more intuitive home screen that shows your scores for readiness, sleep, activity and stress at a glance. I am actively trying to reduce the number of subscriptions in my life, and other smart rings that don’t have a monthly subscription (Samsung, Ringconn) may be worth a look, depending on your priorities. Oura Ring 4 may be one of the best smart rings on the market, but it is also one of the few that requires a subscription. Cycle tracking is a similar story — it is useful and accurate, but requires a lot of manual input. When I did pull out my phone and start and stop workouts manually, stats and GPS data were usually acceptable. I answered a few prompts and was prompted to enter rest mode. However, it’s not a replacement for a high-performance fitness tracker—it’s a complement to one. Though it’s more aesthetic than a wrist watch, it’s still meant to be functional, not forever shiny. The Oura Ring 4 looks more like a premium accessory than a chunky fitness tracker—however, it’s still not going to be quite as sleek as, say, a wedding ring (it’s a bit thicker). And though Oura claims it’s also more durable, Thorp didn’t notice much of a difference there, noting, "I never had an issue with my Oura Ring 3 regarding wear and tear." For instance, if you're traveling across time zones, Oura Ring 4 better captures the impact of jet lag on your readiness and sleep. I’ve always enjoyed moving my body, but Oura has definitely made me fall in love with exercise even more; as someone who likes keeping their workouts varied, I like that my Oura ring logs all of my exercise – from outdoor swimming to spin classes, yoga and pilates. It also works as a period predictor, detects when you’re getting ill before you feel it, and warns you when you appear to be heading towards burnout. Here, see my honest review of the Oura after wearing it studiously for over a year. While the pill certainly works for some – I took it myself for over a decade, without noticing any side effects – I eventually began to feel that my body was starting to reject it. With a fully titanium coating inside and out, it’s gentle to the touch, even on sensitive skin, and slips on and off your finger with ease. "The next-generation Oura Ring 4, reimagined Oura App, and the development of the Smart Sensing platform represent significant steps forward for wearables across accuracy, comfort, personalization, and design." In keeping with our mission to make health a daily practice for every body, Oura Ring 4 is also available in a wider range of sizes—now extending from size 4 to size 15. Featuring recessed sensors and a fully titanium inner and outer coating, Oura Ring 4 is sleeker and more comfortable than ever to wear all day long, from workout to night out. And while some other smart rings don’t require a subscription fee, we think the small fee here is worth it considering the superior tracking capabilities Oura provides compared to its competitors.
