It might seem low on the list, but style is key, especially for something like smart jewelry. I like the Heritage Black color of the Oura Ring that I chose because it can be worn with either silver or gold jewelry. Unlike smartwatches and fitness trackers, once you’ve chosen the ring band you can’t customize it—so choosing the color can be a big decision.
Syncing
The Oura Ring syncs well with the app, but it does take some time to update in the morning. Once it notes you’re awake, you can see a thin blue bar loading at the top as the app creates your readiness and sleep scores. It makes sense that it takes a while to load, but it is something to note if you’re someone that likes to see data immediately.
The app can also sync with various other platforms to share statistics like your sleep, weight, height, heart rate, menstrual cycle, and active energy. These include Apple Health, Google Health Connect, Natural Cycles, Flo, Strava, and more.
Water resistance
The brand claims that the Ring is water-resistant up to 100 meters. During testing, I showered and washed dishes with the Oura Ring and found that it still worked well, with no issues. Note that I did not test the Oura Ring while swimming or doing water sports.
Features
Tags
Tagging can help you identify triggers and factors that affect your health. Adding a tag is easy—just use the plus sign (+) at the bottom right corner of the app and choose from a wide range of options describing how you felt or what you did differently that day. You can use this feature to track small changes, like new cooling sheets, taking a hot or cold shower before bed, alcohol consumption, new diets, supplements, and more.
I’ve been using it to tag my emotions and symptoms right before my period. There are options for things like bloating, cramps, and even medication. I also appreciate that when I happen to take a nap, the nap tag automatically pops up to be added to my day. The idea is that all of these factors can influence how you sleep and, therefore, your health scores. Essentially, it doubles as my personal virtual health journal, since it can be difficult to always keep track of everything I do day to day.
I do feel that while there are a lot of options already available, there should be an option to manually add tags. For example, there’s a sad tag, but I would like to add a crying tag—because sometimes I cry right before my period, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m sad. Other examples of these discrepancies include having a menstrual headache tag versus just a headache tag. I think these little things might make a big difference for people with vaginas.
Explore
The explore section of the app gives you full access to meditation sessions, breathing techniques, and sleep exercises. While I haven’t used a ton of these, the few that I did were useful and easy to follow.
Log period
This is a new feature in the Gen 3. The Apple Health app syncs your menstrual cycle, and the Oura app uses this to notify you when your period is approaching. You can log your period with the tag feature and check your previous and future cycle start dates.