Reply With QuoteThanks, that's really good to hear. I've tried wearing other smart watches and trackers. I like their features but they leave me feeling a bit cold so I think this could be a solution.Originally Posted by Mj2k
I really like it.
I swap between index finger on my left & ring finger on my right hands depending on heat / cold / swelling. Also task related as some things are more comfy on a different finger.
The insights on wellness etc are great, my readiness needs some improvement but starting to realise some patterns / drivers of this.
Apple Watch is going to be sold, as I’m convinced this is the solution for me. It has been great being able to wear a proper watch again without double-wristing
My wife loves hers too. Money well spent.
Thanks, that's really good to hear. I've tried wearing other smart watches and trackers. I like their features but they leave me feeling a bit cold so I think this could be a solution.
Sinn came up with this............
https://www.sinn.de/en/Dual_Strap_System.htm#17
Interesting thread and I've been having the same dilemma as the tough as nails Garmin Instinct hasn't left my wrist for ages!
Looks like you have got to the same position as me with regards to wanting watches back in your life again. I do miss notifications though - if it vibrated it would be perfect.
There is a link further back that gets you 50 off the price, and I get some vouchers if 3 people use it.
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I remember seeing this before. Equally didn’t want to be smashing my Apple Watch on the desk every few minutes. Also I am not sure if that strap would get more looks than one on each wrist lol.
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Sony also did a smart strap that was a bit of a flop but I think there is still a gap for this:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wena-Pro-So.../dp/B07NLNH8VB
Strikes me that if you could incorporate the whoop band into something like an Erikas original strap or even a nato you could have exactly the solution that allows the use of a “normal” watch with a(n unobtrusive) tracker?
I had forgotten all about that. Agree that if there were a range of specific SELs that worked, it could certainly work and solve the problem we have - after all, I am wearing 2 rings on 1 hand.
Whoop profile still seems large for me. That said, if you are lifting weights etc, the Oura will get scratched - seems very durable though so far, even times where I think I have scratched it; turns out to be from the surface of the other material.
So six weeks in and i'm pretty smitten. The samsung watch was sold some weeks ago and today i'm sporting a seiko pogue which makes me very happy. Yesterday a bit of noughties digital Tag. I'm falling back in love with my watches again.
So what is good about it?
Battery life is a real 5-6 days, enough that it's not really a thing anymore. The only thing ive started doing is charging it on a friday so it doesn't run out over the weekend as i leave the charger on my desk. To do a top up charge is maybe 30-40 mins.
As Mj2k says it's robust, so much so that i don't really think about it anymore. It's been rattled off walls and all sorts and has a few wee small marks but nothing of any consequence.
The sleep detection is scarily accurate and it's also highlighted to me how shite my sleep quality is after a few beers. I'd always suspected it but none of my previous devices were ever able to demonstrate a difference. Now i notice a difference in HRV, body temp and resting heart rate after only a few beers. Is that a good thing? The jury is out :D But it's definately made me stop having beers unless I'm actually have a night out or night in. It's stopped the odd beer throughout the week which is already helping my sleep quality and my waistline.
After a really heavy night on the sauce we also had a terrible night with the 2 year old and in the morning oura recommended i turn on recovery mode, scrap any plans i had to exercise and spend the next few days recovering. Feels a bit like overkill but i'll be honest it did change my behaviour and i did feel better after it.
It's still not allowed me to work out why my deep sleep is awful and variable but that might come later - I'm tagging everything i'm doing so i'm hopeful of some insight that helps.
I love how discreet it is, it's quite chunky by ring standards (and compared to my wedding ring) but I'm surprised at how many people have commented on it as a nice piece of jewelery. An equally surprising amount of people have clocked it as an Oura and asked about it too.
Bad things? The step count is waaaaaaaaay higher than anything i've seen before but i'm not that bothered about the number, more the relative number in comparison to my previous trends.
The Google fit integration seems pretty trick but ironically the issue i have is Google fit seeing strava workouts, i get it there in the end but it sometimes needs me to make an edit to my strava workout and then save it. The ring is meant to auto detect workouts but the small print (which i missed) says it's iOS only which is mildly annoying but i just get aroudn that by using google fit or strava so it's not a deal breaker.
The only other concern is the amount of people on their insta page complaining about poor customer service - it's not something i've seen or experience but they don't seem to be bots. It feels like if your order goes smoothly (ie you buy the right size) then you're ok but if the product is faulty or you need to exchange the ring the results can be variable. Feels to me like small company ramping rapidly issues but it's maybe easy for me to say that?
Overall i'm really happy with it and i'm more than happy to pay the small monthly to keep this going - if it's this good now i can only imagine how good it will be when the gen 3 features really start to come online (right now the hardware is capable of a lot more than is turned on).
Hope this is helpful.
EDIT : It's also genuinely made me go to bed earlier. Which is the first device i've ever had that's succeeded in nudging me that way.
Thanks very much, that's super helpful. I'm going to get one ordered.
They have changed the T&Cs of the referral so rather than 3 it is now up to 5 and the financial reward is much lower.
You can still get €50 discount using the code below. So effectively gets you a stealth ring for no extra, or a discount on the shiny ones.
https://ouraring.com/taf/ebe7c73008
Thanks very much for the link!
If / when that referral code runs out we can use mine - i didn't even know it existed before :D
We get nothing these days from a referral, only those who use it.
Previous incentive that changed was only 3 links to sign up & you got a couple of hundred dollars of vouchers for a clothing / fitness brand.
Guessing it was too popular - so feel free to share yours here too.
Had a long fast cycle yesterday and was expecting my recovery score to be a bit lower than normal on the Monday morning. It's been fairly consistent on this and generally i recover by Tuesday. So i was expecting high 60s / low 70s.
Instead it was 55/100 and it was essentially saying "you are ill" and advised me to rest.
Got out of bed and didn't feel great, achy and heavy head. Did a lateral flow and it came back positive.
Clever little thing.
Wow that's quite incredible! I'm on verge of buying one, only factor putting me off is lifting weights whilst wearing it. I usually take my wedding ring off when lifting, however if I wear gloves it's ok - but I think this is a bit more obtrusive?
Anyway, hope your bout of COVID is over quickly and as painlessly as possible - get well soon!
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I have been wearing a sizing ring for the last couple of days but can’t decide on which one to go for. It seems my finger changes size quite a bit over the course of a day and I’m either a size 11 or 12 depending on the time of day! Unfortunately I think an 11.5 would be ideal
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I’m using an 11, but also found it changes through the day. My main wearing finger is my non dominant index, but sometimes move it across to my right ring finger for a break, or stack it on top of my wedding band (too lose on its own, but with the other ring below it holds perfectly).
Annoyingly our metal handled saucepans have just seen the PVD scratch on an edge profile. Will have to see if I can hide the shine with a sharpie.
thank you!
it's more obtrusive than my wedding ring but it's not that bad. I notice it more than the wedding ring when i'm doing stretches with my fingers pushed together but i've had no issues when cycling. The sizing kit is pretty representative and you can get them for buttons on ebay if you want to try before you buy.
Missed the fact you were down with covid & this predicted you were not well. I had a readiness of 52 last week, and despite no positive test was clearly under the weather with something. Slept for 14hrs Saturday night and had my strongest readiness and sleep ratings!
When I have the ring on my ring finger, I feel it more as there are 2 fingers either side ‘pushing’ into it. On my index finger I do not notice it at all in that respect.
Have to move to my ring finger when driving as the steering wheel just seems to put pressure gently on it and don’t like the distraction in my concentration.
Get well soon!
How's everyone getting on? That's me passed the 6 month mark and i'm still using it every day - first thing i check every morning.
Latest update just delivered blood oxygen sensor which i've yet to really find any use for, but good to see the innovation is coming. The strava integration is nice, although i wasn't aware that the android version doesn't store location so oura - stava is pretty pointless as it doesn't store distance, elevation etc. I'm assuming it will come soon.
My free period was extended as a goodwill gesture which i really appreciate, but i'm happy to pay now - it's giving me everything i want now. Aside from the mini review i did earlier its now making me take more proper breaks during a typical day. I was guilty of thinking i was taking a break but i was actually pottering about or on my phone. Not clear if it's making a difference to my sleep but they claim it is. I'm ramping up my cycling training just now and it's really helping me to know when to push and when to back off.
Keen to see if it's now just part of everyone's life or if it's in a box.
I have had mine for a few months now and find it useful. I had to switch to having it on my right index finger as it was a little loose on the left and I actually lost the ring twice but luckily managed to find it again after a couple of days by retracing my footsteps and using my phone to see it it would connect to it.
I didn’t like the bling of the polished version when it arrived so I gave it a brushed finish which matches my SubC much better!
It hasn’t been life-changing but the regular prompts to move around a bit if I have been sat at my desk too long do have an effect.
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In a similar vein to this thread I went down the Whoop route and can report being very happy with it. Great data, especially for sleep tracking things such as HRV, respiration rate, resting heart rate etc. it gives a good indication of recovery in relation to your overall cardiovascular strain and sleep (need and what you got).
I’ve got a couple of the wrist bands (use one solely for working out) and a bicep band which gives me options depending on the workout I’m doing. Battery life is approx 4 days and the ability to charge while it’s still on your wrist is useful.
I’ve changed up my exercise routing and joined a CrossFit gym (previous lifting and IWT type gym was sold and the new owner a bit meh) so the Oura definitely wouldn’t work for me now given how many pull ups and barbell work CrossFit has. That said I still use my Garmin to track workouts along with the Whoop as I control when the workout starts and finishes. The whoop seems to get it right most of the time though in respect to when my heart rate rise etc.
As an aside I’m also really enjoying wearing my “normal” watches again and just throwing my Garmin on when I work out but still get good data on recovery, heart rate etc.
Positives: data acquisition, ability to wear normal watch, quality of data, doesn’t track steps, breakdown of weekly and monthly recovery, sleep etc, wireless charging, subscription model (means I get upgraded to whoop 5.0 for no cost), other options in terms of placement of device (pants, arm sleeves, bicep bands).
Negatives: would like a longer battery life, tied in to whoop subscription for a year minimum (other plans are available, it gets cheaper if you tie in for two years, more expensive month by month).
Overall I’m very happy with it and would recommend it.
Not wishing to put a downer on things, but the potential issue with any smart watch/band/ring is that if you don't have a reference point for comparison it may seem great despite being inaccurate. I really like 'The Quantified Scientist' channel on YouTube for reviews on these things, as he focuses on giving real data backed comparisons to judge against and has the credentials to back it up.
I would say the above data is pretty damning for the ring at this stage in its development to be honest.
For those wanting the best device for health tracking, the Apple Watch is hands down the best out there. There's some Huawei options that also do very well if you're not wishing to go for an iOS device.
Personally I wanted something that I could wear in addition to a normal watch, which I think is the case for a lot of others here, so that ruled out the Apple Watch. After a pretty hefty amount of research I landed on the Fitbit Luxe, as I think it gives the best mix of feature set, accuracy and style. By style I mean it's compact and doesn't look like a watch (far smaller than a lot of the other bands), available in all black, and the screen can be set to only wake when you deliberately interact with the device. So far I've been impressed with it, but that's not to say it's the best option as that's of course very subjective.
Horses for courses, but workout tracking isn't a feature i put much emphasis on tbh - if I'm doing a workout I wear a HR monitor and use strava.
I used it once and haven't bothered again.
Completely with you here. The ring is the way to not have a bracelet on your other wrist, which I much prefer.
The older Alta Fitbits were great and minimalist. All the new ones are either too wide or look too feminine in their style for me.
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New updates discount code, £50 off referral link if any use to someone
https://ouraring.com/discount/5df5b00ec0
5 available
I've been thinking about giving one a try so wondered if anyone had a referral code please. Thanks!
https://ouraring.com/raf/99bf0e7aaa?utm_medium=iac
There you go.
18 months in and it's still the first thing I do every morning.
Will post a longer update later this week but it's genuinely changed my life.
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Another fan here.
Don’t waste your money on the matte stealth, it seems to chip easily and looks tatty very quickly. I’ve sanded ours down to be titanium, brushed for mine & more polished for my wife’s.
In doing so, lost a little of the angle but think that is a bonus given they have launched a fully round one now. Yes the raw titanium is a little battered but looks way better than a black ring with silver flecks and scratches showing through.
It was the simple things like flipping food in a wok that caused the issues, or not thinking & picking up patio gas etc. that’s the only real downside. Someone on here mentioned brushing the silver, not sure if that has a DLC coating or was just a simpler brushing required.
I do miss the notifications of an Apple Watch, but love not being double wristed / not wearing a proper watch.
Sleep analysis and the resulting readiness scores are spot on & it knows when I’m getting under the weather before I do. They have recently added rings, a bit like Fitbit had, where you can see how your patterns compare vs other in your friend group.
Would be great if they had NFC pay in it too, but can’t have everything.
Sizing kit is great, spend some time deciding which finger you want to wear it on. I find mine works well on left hand index and right hand ring finger, mostly on the right hand as 2 rings on same hand looks a bit strange and draws more attention.
I’d buy us both another in a heartbeat if they broke or got lost. Original purchase was based on my wife getting rashes from any of the Fitbit / garmin equivalents when her wrist didn’t get air to it. As soon as I saw them I knew it was the way forward.
You won’t regret it, the monthly subs is annoying, but it does add so much more insight vs an Apple Watch you need to charge in the day to be able to sleep with. I never got on with that aspect.
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I’ve been umming about one of these for a few years now! Enjoyed the reviews, thanks.
How do you get the brushed look, just have a go with a bit of sandpaper? The silver looks way too shiny in pics
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I started out with a fairly abrasive block, then finer and finer grades of wet & dry. Final brushed effect was with a medium GarryFlex block.
Wife’s one was continued use of ultra fine compounds to get it shiny at her request.
No idea if the silver can just be brushed vs removing the coating. There is a member on here that did it. Haven’t looked through to see if it’s posted here.
This man will be able to answer the question on the silver. I’m intrigued too, as next one will be silver instead.
I used a Tamiya sanding sponge sheet, either 400 or 600 grit. It was very easy to do and no need to go through the coating.
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Thanks, also reassuring it won’t be as much effort as removing the black stealth coating!
Thanks for the replies!
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Sorry life got in the way of this reply.
So as the thread shows i was an early adopter of the gen 3 Oura ring and I've now passed 18 months with it.
Since wearing it every day I've lost weight, I'm fitter and i'm getting sick less often. My mood has also immeasurably improved and I'm not as tired as i was.
Honestly it's been life changing for me and i can't think of a single thing I've done on my 48 years on this planet that have improved my life, with the possible exception of taking up cycling over a decade ago.
But rewind....i got the ring as i was knackered and grumpy all the time. I've been having bouts of mental fragility my whole life but i felt that I was just getting stuck in a rut and really feeling down in the dumps. On paper all was well, lovely family, great job no worries etc so i knew it was all up top. I've always struggled with my sleep and i wanted to try something different. I'd been using a samsung watch over lockdown to track sleep but i was missing my mechanical watches and i want to try something. i considered Whoop and Oura but preferred the upfront cost and residual value over Oura over the higher sub price of whoop.
Being super harsh the ring isn't game changing in terms of the changes I've made but where it's really made a difference is how it's made previously faddy things stick.
Oura has nudged me into the following changes;
- I've stopped drinking
- I now go to sleep at 22:30 at the latest
- No screens after 9pm
- No food after 19:00
- I wear an eye mask in bed
Each of the above came about by me experimenting with ideas from the Oura blog, tyring them out and seeing if they had an impact on my scores. I work in big data so this approach really works for me.
Now none of those are going to get me an award for sexiest guy on the planet but the cumulative effect is incredible. When i started i was getting readiness scores of 60 on a Monday morning after a hard cycle. Now i'm into the 70s worst case. More often than not i'm in the 80s and the minute it drops i take action to get it back.
Essentially it's gamified (sp?) my health and stopped me lying to myself - i can now see when my scores are declining, when i'm stressed, when i'm falling ill and instead of just ignoring it and ploughing on i do something about it. Similarly i'm no longer over-training on the bike and I'm finding my fitness is improving because of the enforced downtime.
The drinking thing was fascinating as it started out with me cutting out a couple of mid week drinks or drinks on the sofa on a friday night....essentially i could see it spiking my HR by 10-20 beats per minute overnight and it then had an impact on recovery etc etc. i also started journaling when i was feeling super low and realised that it was every time i was hungover. So i gradually started thinking "it's not worth it for x night" but kept drinking on "big" nights but it's now morphed into "it's simply not worth it for me". it's also made me realise how many events are shit when you're sober....which isn't a reason to get drunk, it's a reason to avoid those nights. I still crave the occasional "real" pint but more often than not i have one and then go straight back onto the non-alcoholic options.
When i first got the ring it felt a bit beta but it's now absolutely bang on. Full disclosure i've had one ring replaced under warranty for a failing battery and i've had a charger also replaced. But my wife's (later) gen3 has been flawless....as has the Oura customer service who replaced the charged even when i was 6 months out of warranty.
18 months in it's the first thing i do in the morning and the last thing i check at night - if my readiness is in the 90s then i go and push myself, it's it's not then i take a chill day. The other huge difference is that it's got me to separate the concept of sleep quality from sleep duration....with quality mattering more. Which is especially important as i've got young kids who don't always sleep well.
Ultimately what i like is that it adds a lot to my life but doesn't take much in the way of commitment - the battery needs charged every 4/5 days but other than that it's just unobtrusive and it just works. A wee added bonus is, in contrast to my posts above, i'm now a huge fan of the HR workout feature as it allows me to track rides that i wouldn't wear a HR chest strap for me (like my commute, a trip with the kids erc) and it doesn't seem to affect battery life much. It's quite subtle, it lets you have the off bad day but it will then start to nudge you into making more changes.
Many people have said the apple watch gives similar benefits but i have no need for the notifications and i find the constant need to charge smart watches tiresome. it's telling that my wife's samsung watch is frequently dead but her Oura never is.
I've also heard people saying they feel such devices give you anxiety about not sleeping well, not feeling well and i've had a few occasions where i've been staring at the ceiling thinking "shit i'm going to get a rubbish score" but in almost every case it's been due to me not following the pattern that i know works for me to get to sleep. As soon as i do that then i'm alseep and more often than not i wake to a message that says words to the effect of "you didn't sleep for long but it was high quality".
To sum up i look at the ring in the same way I look at therapy - It's maybe not ground-breaking in terms of the advice you get but if you're in the right headspace to listen and make changes then it can be incredible. But if you, as one of my mates has, buy the ring and then ignore the scores / advice then it's not going to change much...much like going into therapy and then not changing anything. You really have to commit and then see what happens - which is what i've done.
Downsides for me are that the step count for my wife differs wildly from her samsung watch...but I (and oura) don't really care about steps, they are more about overall calorie burn. Also although the blogs are good, you are very much left to your own devices when it comes to making changes. You can tag days when you are stressed, tired, jet lagged etc but it's not good enough yet at saying "right dick every time you tag alcohol your sleep quality drops by 30%". You have to make that link yourself. As a data guy i get that as it's hard to get right but i think that's what is needed to make the tagging beneficial. For me i've stopped tagging now.
Your mileage may vary and i totally understand people who think it's unnecessary - but it works for this somewhat fragile overthinker.
Thanks for the insights, really useful. I’ve got a whoop and love the data but looked long and hard at the Oura ring. The one question I have/had that no one could answer was how the ring interacts with exercise, specifically barbells and dumbbells (and bars for pull ups etc). Any insights on these that you could share (ie how bulky is it, can you use a bar, does it catch?)
It's bulkier than my wedding ring, but it's not that much bigger. My wife is 5'2 with tiny hands and it looks fine on her.
IRC they recommend that you remove it before you lift weights, but it's fine for me using dumbells etc although when i was a regular gym goer i never bothered with my wedding ring.
Could always tape it over.
True, it’s more the bulk when doing multiple pull ups or heavy barbell cycling as I’d want it to be tracking exercise data too. Currently with the whoop I can move it bicep or further up my wrist if I’m wearing grips/wrist straps or if the movement would hit it.
I had my first session in the gym in years, only using fixed machines vs free weights as not ready for that yet in my journey.
However doing a variety of lifting / pulling / pushing with the ring in place I didn’t register it was there at all. Whereas my wedding ring really dug in for me & will not be worn next trip.
Great review and thanks for sharing your thoughts. As an Apple Watch wearer, this snippet is the killer for me. I’ve got data, tons of data, I now want a reliable service that turns that into something I didn’t know. I want a service that correlates different data points and says ‘when that happens, the result is this’.
I had hoped Oura might be a step towards that but it seems that’s only really true for the readiness scores?
Can't comment on the apple watch metrics but i know a few people that have both the ring and the watch and each seems to add something to their life.
If you have a bad sleep (for example) it will point out where it went wrong (restfulness is my killer) and give generic advice on what could help. Same when you drop your readiness it will give suggestions on why this happened.
The data science insights come at a macro level on their blogs and social media where they say "people that tag xyz tend to ...."
As that's what i do for a living i know how hard that is, especially when you're trying to nudge people to make changes...it doesn't take many wrong suggestions to turn people off completely.
Last edited by Lazydonkey; 21st August 2023 at 09:59.
Have one somewhere - too chunky for me and quickly stopped wearing it. The sleep pattern was interesting but it just felt like a little novelty tbh
Which gen / colour did you have?
Might have a friend interested in one. Cheers
Oura now has the capability for measuring resilience using the metrics it measures.
It’s been out a couple of weeks & I have felt progressively more brain fog over that period. I’ve gone from being in the middle of Solid, travelled down through most of Adequate and about to enter Limited it would appear.
Am hoping I can snap out of it, as feeling fatigued all day has got rather dull and doesn’t seem to improve from a strong of early nights.
On another note, both my wife and I noted reduced battery performance after just over 2 years. Diagnostics uploaded from a couple of charge cycles and replacement rings posted out. Cannot fault their customer service there - premium product backing it up with a proper outside of warranty support. (Or more likely our UK CRA 2015).
I’m ready to buy a silver Horizon ring so just thought to check with the knowledge here first in case I would be missing any discounts or benefits available other than just buying on Oura website. Thanks
I see the rumour mill has Apple looking to release one - https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-ring/
Jake
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