Health has always been a priority for me, especially after having open heart surgery in my 20s. And it’s no secret that I love a good wellness gadget (I touched on some favorites in this post about how to boost your immune system). So it was only a matter of time before I bought an Oura Ring! Every time I mention this product on Instagram, I receive tons of questions. So, I figured it might be helpful to create a landing spot for all of my thoughts. Today I’m going to share my honest Oura Ring review, discuss a few tips for choosing the right one, and touch on some commonly asked questions about this device.
Wellness Gadgets I’ve Tried
The first wellness gadget that I remember owning was a Fitbit, back in 2016. I tried out a few different models of this device. I loved the data a Fitbit provided and that it helped me make sure I was sleeping and walking enough. However, I felt like it was an eye sore, so I didn’t love wearing it. I have been on the hunt for something more chic and easy to wear ever since. Enter the Oura Ring.
Honest Oura Ring Review
I purchased an Oura Ring eight months ago, and I feel like I’ve had ample time to form a solid opinion. So what’s my honest Oura Ring review? Love is an understatement! The information this device provides goes so far beyond what a Fitbit was offering. Plus, it’s so much prettier to look at! There are truly so many reasons why I love this product. I could go on and on, but instead, I’ve narrowed it down to my top ten below!
1. Personalization
The longer you wear an Oura Ring, the more it’s able to become “personalized” to you. It allows you to tag all sorts of activities in order to determine which ones best help you achieve your wellness plans.
2. Sleep Tracking
I believe the Oura Ring is better than similar devices at accurately tracking sleep. It gives insight into your various sleep stages – deep, REM, and light. It provides you with your ideal bedtime, based on your distinctive sleep. It shows you your own personal sleep patterns. It allows you to “tag” different factors that potentially made your sleep more challenging, such as anxiety. When it comes to sleep tracking, my Oura Ring review is that it’s the leader of the pack.
3. Activity Level Monitoring
This device is constantly monitoring your activity level. Not only does it encourage you to be more active at times, but it also tells you to take a break when you’ve overdone it. I love this about the Oura Ring.
4. Daily Readiness Score
Every morning, this ring takes your heart rate variability, body temperature, and resting heart rate into account to give you a readiness score. This score helps you understand how well your body has recovered from all that you did the day before. I love using this information to either push myself or scale back on movement for the day, depending upon how my body is actually doing.
5. Symptom Tracker
The Oura Ring will let you know if it notices any signals that are out of the norm for your body, such as an elevated body temp. When these changes show up, it will check in to see if you are okay. Back in January, I woke up one morning and it asked me “Are you feeling okay? You might be coming down with something”. At that point, I wasn’t really sure yet if I was sick, so I thought this was wild! But it was so helpful in guiding me to rest my body, rather than push myself, knowing that I was about to battle a virus.
6. Menstrual Information
Probably my favorite feature of this product is the menstrual information that it provides. It is so good at accurately predicting periods, based off of your history and body temperature. I also find it super helpful that it tells you which stage of your cycle you are in – menstruation, the follicular phase, ovulation, or the luteal phase. It also tells you how you may be feeling in each stage. This feature plays a large factor in my positive Oura Ring review. It has been very accurate and helpful for me, encouraging me to prioritize self care when I need it the most!
7. New Features
This device updates with new features regularly and is constantly innovating. Most recently, it started reading the user’s heart health. You can even take a walking test to see how your heart is functioning and if your cardiovascular age is aligned with your actual age, or if it’s younger or older.
8. Stress Monitoring
An Oura Ring monitors your stress by showing when you are relaxed, restored, engaged, or stressed. This is nice to recognize patterns of, and sometimes I’m surprised to discover what stresses me out!
9. A Chic Design
If I’m going to wear something daily, I want it to look great. And in my opinion, this ring looks much better than any fitness watch. The only times I ever take mine off is to charge it or clean it. I can wear it to the pool or out to a nice dinner, and the low profile sleekness of the ring pairs seamlessly either way!
10. Tailored Information
The Oura Ring allows for a tailored experience, meaning you can choose which area of your wellness you want to focus on. I appreciate this, as I’ve found these areas often shift depending on what season of life I’m in. For example, are you looking to be more present and focused? Increase your energy? Improve your athletic performance? Manage stress? This device asks you these types of questions. And based on your responses, it will help encourage you toward these goals.
Tips for Selecting an Oura Ring
While I love my Oura Ring dearly, it’s no secret that this piece is an investment. Therefore, it’s important to select one that you can comfortably wear all day long. Here are a few tips that I learned during the buying process.
- Order the Oura Ring sizing kit. Not only is this $10 well spent, but if you end up ordering an actual ring, this will be credited toward your purchase.
- Test it out for a few days. I recommend wearing the ring sizer for a few days, not just a few minutes. This will allow you to see which size truly fits best, especially if your fingers swell in heat, when exercising, etc.
Oura Ring Review: FAQs
While this pretty much covers the majority of Oura Ring questions that I’ve received, there are a few outstanding ones that I want to touch on.
What happens if I lose my Oura Ring?
A few short weeks after I got my Oura ring, I lost it. I was changing our bed sheets when it slid right off my finger and into the washing machine. I used a bluetooth finding app that helped me discover that it had actually made its way into the drum of the washing machine. I had no idea where it had gone, and never would have known where to look without the bluetooth app! While it does have GPS tracking, which is great, the bluetooth finding app can be very helpful in finding its exact location in a room. It’s kind of like a really expensive game of Hot Cold!
Give us an honest Oura Ring review! What are your thoughts?
Overall, I absolutely recommend the Oura ring, and now I can’t imagine not having all of this information! As someone who has always been interested in health and wellness, and also someone who has had some medical challenges in the past, I crave this kind of empowering insight. It has even been great to share with my primary care physician and cardiologist.
