I bought my first smart ring 8 months ago because they seem to be the new trend in fitness tracking.

A little context is necessary before I get into my experience with the Oura smart ring. I don’t wear jewellery. When I got married, I lost my wedding ring within two months. It happened 12 years ago, and I have worn no ring or jewellery since then. My wedding ring was my first jewellery ever. Sadly, it only lasted 2 months. My wife was super upset.

Why buy a ring after so many years?

I have been sleeping with the Apple Watch for many years. However, wearing the Apple Watch Ultra wasn’t comfortable. I recall at the time I was also struggling to sleep. I figured sleeping with the Oura ring will be better.

Because I wasn’t sure how well this experiment will work, I bought a secondhand v2 of the Oura Ring. The benefits were that I paid significantly less and unlike v3, the second generation Oura ring does not require a subscription. Luckily, the ring was in excellent condition because the previous owner bought the wrong size. Even more lucky that the ring was a good fit for me on my wedding finger (fourth finger on the left hand).

What’s it like wearing the Oura ring, every day, all day?

It has been fantastic. If you are looking for a sleep tracking device that does not get in the way and is super comfortable, a smart ring is much better placed to take that role. The first couple of days, I wore both and compared the results. I couldn't see any drastic difference, so I retired my Apple Watch Utra from sleep tracking duties.

I felt good not wearing a computer on my wrist when sleeping. As the days passed, I started wearing the Oura ring all day, and I had a set routine. Every day, before I go for a shower, I put the ring on the charger. I shower for five minutes and that is more than enough time to charge the ring.

Annoyances of wearing a ring

People who wear rings probably already know this and are ok with these tradeoffs. The fact is wearing a ring is more annoying than not wearing a ring (sounds obvious, doesn't it 🤣). This depends on how sensitive are you to these things. Personally, I want to have less on me than more.

The Oura ring weighs between 4 to 6 grams which is inline with an average wedding band. Oura ring's direct competitor, the Ultrahuman ring weighs only 2.4grams. The numbers are small but it's clear that the Ultrahuman ring is 50% lighter than the Oura ring. That is an impressive achievement by the folks at Ultrahuman.

Ultrahuman vs Oura | Switch to Ring Air

The world’s most comfortable and compact smart ring that monitors your sleep, movement and recovery.

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I have yet to try the Ultrahuman ring and have no intention of doing so. That being said, the weight of the ring didn't bother me at all. The real concern for me was its thickness, which is a problem that isn't easily resolved. After all, one cannot defy physics.

In day-to-day life, I can feel the annoyance of the ring on my finger:

• putting cream on hand will cause the ring to hold on to the cream
• cranking my fingers, which I do often causes discomfort.
• The finger size can fluctuate because of temperature, etc and that can cause the ring to feel too tight or too loose.
• I remove the ring before I wash my hands because if I don't; I feel the wet ring on my finger.
• Moisture gets trapped underneath the ring, which caused skin irritation.

Your experience may differ. This is only based on my personal experience. I know several people with 3-4 rings, and it doesn't seem to bother them.

Battery life:

At no point did the ring die on me. In addition, I have gone away on short trips (3 to 5 days) and this ring kept going. On active days, the Oura ring would last 3 days instead of 5. None the less, it still is miles better than what any Apple Watch can do.

Oura ring has memory storage:

We recommend you sync your Oura Ring daily with your Oura App. However, the Oura Ring is capable of storing up to one week of data depending on the type and frequency of use. This means that your ring can continue to collect data without syncing to your device for up to one week. This would apply in the case that you wanted to enable Airplane Mode for an extended period of time.

It’s refreshing not to worry about charging the ring. USB C charging makes it easier, but the charger is unique to your ring size and it requires to be put in a certain way for it to charge. It took me some time to master this, but it's still frustrating because I have to watch the charger constantly to ensure I'm placing it correctly. Unlike the Apple Watch, where I can effortlessly put it on the charger even with my eyes closed.

How good is the tracking?

Evaluating this is probably the most difficult but also rather straightforward. The Oura ring is a wearable focused on your wellbeing. It does nothing else. The Apple Watch does a lot of things and one of those things is focusing on your wellbeing/health.

Having focused on one particular aspect of your life allows the Oura ring to provide in-depth data and present it in a way that is simple to understand. Oura provides quarterly reports like this one:

The Oura Ring app is polished and works very well. Its Android 🤖 experience lacks behind its iOS counterpart. The data does not sync between the two platforms, so if you are syncing the Oura ring your android phone; it does not show on your iOS Oura app despite both logged into the same account. The Oura app is a standalone application syncing with your Oura ring and directly to Oura servers.

I am in no position to verify the accuracy of the data collected by the Oura ring. I recommend you check out the following video from Quantified Scientist:

Personally, the data from the Oura ring was just as useful (or not useful) as the Apple Watch app. I used to check my Apple Watch every day for sleep tracking and health data. Over the years, it's much of the same. I know how much I sleep, how active I am during the day, so on and so forth. Therefore, its effectiveness was lost on me.

Sometimes, looking at my sleep score in the morning can be demoralizing. It tells my brain that if I haven't slept well, my day may not be good and I need to take it easy. This mindset isn't productive. On the days when I don't see my terrible sleep score, I go on with motivation to make the best out of the day, rather than taking it easy because I know I haven't slept enough.

This works both ways because on days that I have slept well, Oura app tells my brain that I am ready for the day etc, etc.

In summary, the data from the ring and/or Apple Watch holds no significance for me anymore. I actually prefer not to track these things. Especially things like hours slept, energy burn, active minutes, etc. I have been tracking these for over 9 years (since the first Apple Watch). The data has remained relatively unchanged. This is because I follow a set routine and do the same things daily.

Perhaps, in the future, I will feel differently, but for now, I am finding a strange sense of comfort not knowing exactly how many hours I slept or how many minutes was my morning run, etc. Some times, some things in life; are better left unquantified. Unless, of course, the quantification is necessary.

So what now?

I sold my Oura ring. If I no longer need the data it is collecting, then the ring serves no purpose. Therefore, I rather not wear it. I am glad I found a new home for it.

My wife asked why I stopped wearing the wedding ring (oura ring). I jokingly said because I am having an affair. That joke did not land well 😥.