Oura Ring 4 review is still on top

The Oura Ring 4 Review: still on top — for now (with a review of oura’s software and smart rings)

Speaking of battery, Oura’s updated the charging dock. It’s larger, metal, and looks sleeker than previous docks. My hangry cat was able to knock it off my nightstand. I wish Oura had opted for a more convenient charging case like many of its rivals, but alas. Maybe next time.

The competition is better than Oura’s hardware. The charging case is easier to use and theGalaxy Ring is more comfortable. The Evie Ring has a good design for people who are prone to be bloated. Oura has software and its commitment to science in spades, while everyone else has just one.

Source: Oura Ring 4 review: still on top — for now

Vitals: An Overview and User Experience of the Oura Ring 4 Consumer-Grade Wearable Sleep Tracking System (GOODS)

The Today tab contains a timeline, cards to show different things at certain hours, and a link to specific metrics. You can find all of your metrics at Vitals. My Health is where you’ll find longer-term health trends and reports. The redesign takes a hot second to adjust to, but overall, I found the reorganization to be helpful.

The experience of the hardware isn’t completely different. Oura will not allow the app to be updated to the newest ring. That’s great! But it means there’s little incentive for folks with a Gen 3 to upgrade unless their battery is toast, especially since the starting price has increased to $350, and there doesn’t seem to be a trade-in program. (Current Oura members can get a 10 percent discount, but that’s it.) Really, the Oura Ring 4 is best for new users or people who previously couldn’t find a size that fit them.

Another needed improvement: automatic activity detection has been expanded to 40 activities. Oura says that roughly 30 of them are here. This makes the ring a much better standalone activity tracker, especially since enabling location permissions will also generate automatic GPS route maps. It’s flexible for smartwatch users, too. I usually don’t follow walks on my watch, but Oura picked them up easily. The start and end times were also accurate. Conversely, I much prefer to record my runs and strength sessions with a smartwatch. For those instances, oura prioritized imported activities so that I didn’t have to worry about duplicate activity records.

A single reviewer is not able to test these claims. The general consensus is that consumer-grade wearable sleep tracking is broadly accurate at the basics but should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. All I can tell you is what I experienced in my own testing. The Oura Ring 4’s sleep and wake times align with my own manual testing logs. I still saw occasional gaps in the heart rate at night, though it is hard to say if there were fewer or greater than before. My heart rate metrics, however, were all on par with my smartwatches — which is a good thing. Step counts and calorie estimates can be inflated compared to smartwatches, but that’s been true of every smart ring I’ve tested. For Oura, its measurement are consistent, and its margin of error is on the smaller side. I have been testing the Oura Ring for years and trust its sleep and recovery tracking features, even though I am not sure if they work on other devices.

The Oura Ring has one of its biggest con: the $6 monthly/$70 annual subscription. I don’t think it’s right to try and justify its subscription. You can either think everything. Oura can be brought to the table, or you can not. If you’re the latter, fair enough. My take is if recovery and sleep are your top priorities the Oura Ring is worth it. Otherwise, a smartwatch is a better investment.

Oura is betting that the best is worth paying for. It is a ploy that will probably last as everyone else is catching up. It is hard to maintain a lead forever, ask anyone who races.

Source: Oura Ring 4 review: still on top — for now

Putting a Smart Ring on a Mobile Device: A Comparative Study of Oura Ring 4 Review: still on top — for now

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It is impossible to read and analyze all of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

You have to pair Oura Ring with a mobile device. The terms of service, privacy policy, and any other permission you grant are included in that. Permissions for location data may be shared with you.

Source: Oura Ring 4 review: still on top — for now

The Oura Ring 4: Revisiting Oura’s Smart Rings in the Early 2000s Using Low-Lying Blood Oxygen Sense

Another improvement is the battery life. You can now get up to seven or eight days on a single charge. I was able to get up to 6.5 days even though the blood oxygen sense feature was enabled. I only have three to four days with a Gen 3. Again, your mileage will vary depending on ring size. Larger battery and larger size. The first-gen RingConn was the one I had longer with and the one from theSamsung Galaxy Ring.

Design-wise, this all-titanium ring is nice but not dramatically different from other premium options like the Samsung Galaxy Ring or the Ultrahuman Ring Air. You’ll notice more of a difference if you’re coming from older Oura models with flat or angled tops. The fourth-gen rings are all round. The Gen 3 is new and we introduced fully round versions in 2022. I have found it to be more comfortable. If you are considering an upgrade, I highly recommend trying the new kit first. I was a size 8 in the old rings, but now am a size 9. Plus, Oura’s size range has four new options, spanning sizes 4 to 15. You may find that a newer size fits you better if you were a size 6 or 13 before.

For the greater part of this past summer, I wore six smart rings at once. I wanted to see which was best, and the Oura Ring Gen 3 was the clear winner. Well, it’s been about two weeks since my experiment ended, and there’s now a new winner: the Oura Ring 4.

The Oura Ring 4 extends the company’s lead over the competition. When Oura’s rivals cost less and have started innovative, how long can it last?

This year, more women than men wear the Oura ring—yes, that chunky finger nugget that is, or was, the health tracking tool for every Huberman-listening, MMA-fighting, raw-meat-eating tech bro. Fifty-nine percent of all Oura ring wearers are now women, and in particular, women in their twentiess, who have bought rings at 2.6 times the rate of other demographic groups.

I’m a woman, and I’ve worn an Oura ring consistently for several years now because it’s the only tool that can reliably predict my period. Many fitness trackers now have a temperature sensing feature that purportedly allows you to track that drop in basal body temperature (BBT) that accurately predicts your period, and that you used to only be able to measure with a thermometer under your tongue right when you get out of bed. However, in my testing, smart rings like the Oura are the only devices that that have consistently caught it.

The new ring does not have bumps. The ring has a number of sensors that can be found on it, including a blood oxygen sensor, an electronic heart rate sensor, and a digital temperature sensor. It comes in a bigger range of sizes, from 4 to 15 and I was able to fit my ring size 8.