Oura Ring Review: FFS, Hasn't The Novelty Worn Off Yet?

Ah, wearable tech. You’ve been missing my posts on this particular subject, haven’t you? Admit it! For a few weeks back there I went all in on the wearable tech subject, doing rash things like buying titanium Apple Watches and Oura rings in four different metal colours and then writing about them for general amusement/information purposes. And then it went quiet. Mainly because I didn’t want you all to think I was an insufferable twat. First I’d be talking about wearable tech, the next thing you know it would be posts with yummy matcha recipes. Now I’m absolutely not saying you’re a twat if you like matcha, but if you talk about yummy matcha recipes then I’m afraid I might have to strike you off my Christmas card list. a) for using the word yummy non-ironically in a public setting and b) for pretending that matcha doesn’t taste like something scraped from the inside of a compost bin. You’re living a lie!

Anyway, it is now a whole two months since I slipped the Oura ring onto my finger and wedded myself to my own wellness - albeit an algorithm-generated interpretation of my wellness, but sshh. Sixty days since I donned that thick, overly shiny, “wife of cyborg” metallic band and committed myself to a greater understanding of my own sleep habits, stress patterns and exact, minuscule variations in basal body temperature.

And what have I learned since my gush-fest of a post on the 1st of April (no, it wasn’t an April Fool’s - missed a trick there!) titled Oura Ring 4: Has It Changed My Life?

I shall tell you.

1. Wearing this ring could not be more comfortable or convenient. I genuinely don’t notice it. At all. The battery lasts for just over a week and when I do need to charge it back up, it takes the same amount of time as running a bath and having a quick soak. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t rate the aesthetic qualities of this ring that much (you can read my post about that here) but I don’t look at it and sick in my own mouth every time, much, so it’s fine. But you wouldn’t buy one of these just because it’s convenient to wear and “fine” to look at, would you? What does it actually do for me?

2. Look. I’m not an athlete. I’m not “in training”. I do just enough proper, heart-rate-raising exercise to stop myself from turning into a living, breathing tranche of paté, but I don’t take any of it particularly seriously. (For now: watch this space.) Do I need to know my optimal time to exercise? Or how long it takes me to recover if I’ve done some crazy-ass EDM spin session? No I do not. But I tell you what, I absolutely love the fact that the Oura tells me how far I’m falling short on my daily activity and movement. I don’t see it as some weird dictatorship where I’m being cattle-prodded into more and more formal exercise sessions, it’s just a reminder that I’ve been sat on my backside all day and could do with getting up. I’ve doubled my dog walks and I’ve increased the length of the dog walking route; if my numbers are low by the afternoon then I know I need to do a bit of a turn around the kitchen with the Dyson cordless (surprisingly good form of exercise, hoovering!) and a jog up and down the stairs. Can this ever be considered a bad thing? Incorporating a bit more movement into this typically modern, too-sedentary lifestyle?

3. The fertility-tracking element of the Oura set-up is both fascinating and seamless. I enjoy watching my tiny fluctuations in temperature and then Googling them to find out exactly where I am in my cycle and whether I’m about to ruin the latest set of Piglet linen by daring to go to sleep without an industrial-strength pair of waterproof pants on. In all honesty, I know when this is about to happen because I start having to take myself off into the utility room and scream into the boiler cupboard, but the Oura is even more accurate. (I combine it with Natural Cycles, but I do think that Oura could just do away with Natural Cycles and provide its own version. It wouldn’t take much more tweaking, in-app and it would better justify the monthly membership fee.)

4. I love being told that my “readiness score” is low. This is supposed to be a score that combines a few different measurements to tell you how prepared you are to face the day. A low score seems to happen quite infrequently, which is disappointing because I’d love more excuses to “be kind" to myself, aka do absolutely nothing, but when I do get one that’s below 70%…. BOY! Have I taken to it! I am writing this in bed with a hot water bottle - it has mistaken my upcoming period for a major health incident (which isn’t far from the truth) and who am I to argue? Flu-like symptoms, backache, headache, feelings of utter despair and desolation: Oura has identified that I cannot possibly carry on. Is Oura….a man?

5. The Oura Ring has just very quietly slipped into my daily routine and I feel as though the scores and prompts are there if I want them but easily ignorable if I don’t. I have no bad things to say about it, other than the fact that the other day it gave me a sleep score of 92% when I was sure I’d slept terribly. A rare blip, though; I’d say that for the most part the Oura perfectly senses tiredness and stress and gently advises in the most appropriate way about how you might proceed with your day. With caution or with gay abandon.

Do any of us really need this advice? No. You’ll remember that my true sole purpose for the wearable tech was to track my cycles and I think that it does this astonishingly well. The rest is a bonus, though I do feel as though the fact that my activity levels have more than doubled is a huge and significant bonus…

I filmed a video at the one month mark. If you like listening to me chatter on then press play!

You can find the Oura ring online at Amazon here and John Lewis here. (Both ad-affiliate links.)