Oura ring 4 review: impressive health tech, but not for everyone

Review – Oura Ring 4

Oura Ring 4 is the latest
version of a popular smart ring that collects data on your
fitness, sleep and stress. For reasons that will become
clear, this is not a full review. Think of it as a
snapshot.

There is no doubt that many of you reading
this post will love the Oura Ring. While the idea is
appealing, I couldn’t cope with the reality. In testing it
didn’t even last 24 hours on my finger. I’ll explain why
later. First, some background.

Oura Ring 4 is a feat
of engineering. It weighs around five or six grams and sits
on you finger quietly going about its business monitoring
your vital signs.

The Oura phone app

You
can’t put a display on something this size, so it uses a
phone app to present the health data. Bluetooth connects the
ring to your phone. The app is well organised and easy to
navigate, sometimes you have to dig down to find specifics,
but it’s done well.

Some information, such as your
heart rate, shows up immediately. It’s real time. You can
get a sleep score the morning after you first wake up after
a night wearing the ring.

Other measurements and
health recommendations only become available after you’ve
built up a backlog of data.

Sizing kit before you
buy

Physically the ring is about the size of a
man’s large wedding ring. Before you take delivery, Oura
sends a sizing kit to help you get one that’s the right
size. There are 12 possible sizes.

Rings can come in a
variety of colours and formats. If you buy direct from Oura,
prices start at US$350 for a basic silver ring. There are
four styles of ceramic ring and six metallic colours. Most
cost US$500. Depending on the exchange rate that works out
at between NZ$850 and $900. There will be GST on top of
these prices.

Alternatively you can buy some ring
models from retailers like JB Hi-Fi. At the time of writing
JB Hi-Fi sells a gold Oura 4 for NZ$979. While it’s hard
to imagine that any retail outlet would maintain stocks of
all styles and sizes, this is a product that you might want
a closer look at before committing.

As smart rings go,
Oura is expensive. Prices are typically $200 to $300 higher
than the cost of a Samsung smart ring. You could buy a high
end Apple Watch for the same money.

Even basic
functionality requires a subscription

At this point
we need to discuss a potentially controversial aspect of the
Oura Ring. The ring is effectively useless without a
subscription plan on top of the ring purchase. When you
register a ring, you’ll get email correspondence.
Eventually you’ll see a message that
says:

Please note that you must complete
this account setup process in order to fully activate the
Oura experience.

Part of that process is
handing over your card details.

Although the
subscription fee won’t break the bank, US$6 a month or
US$70 a year, it feels wrong being asked for so much money
up front and a regular payment just to use the
device.

To put this in context, there’s no charge to
use the app that works with Samsung’s rival smart ring.
While Apple doesn’t charge users of the Apple Watch health
features at the moment, there are reports a premium
subscription service is in the pipeline.

There’s a
clear trend from device companies to attach subscriptions to
hardware products. Not
everyone likes this approach.

Without a
subscription — Oura calls this membership —
you’ll be able to see readiness, sleep and activity as
well as get battery notifications, but that’s
it.

Battery life

Earlier there was a mention
that the ring is too small to include a display. It turns
out this is a positive. Displays can be power-sapping. Not
having a screen means you can expect to get eight days of
use on a single charge. You’ll get a phone app
notification when the ring needs charging.

Eight days
is what Oura’s marketing material says. It’s a plausible
claim, but it’s not one I could check. I didn’t get to
eight days, so I can’t confirm that. Which brings us to
the main problem I found with Oura Ring 4.

Why I had
to send the Oura Ring 4 back

In practice I found the
Oura Ring 4 to be less comfortable than a smart watch. It
only weighs five or six grams, which doesn’t sound much.
If you’ve not worn rings in the past, you may notice
it.

Perhaps over time it becomes background. I will
never know because my ring experience most certainly did not
merge into the background – quite the reverse.

Ten
years ago I had a serious allergic reaction to the first Apple
Watch.

While at a skin specialist being treated
for something else, the surgeon noticed my swollen blotchy
wrist and told me to take the Watch off immediately. You
can read the gory details in my first Apple Watch
review.

I was conscious of this when testing the
Oura Ring 4. At first the ring was fine although a little
uncomfortable. My finger was a little itchy, but that could
be unfamiliarity. At bedtime the finger was a little red…
almost imperceptible. It didn’t seem worrying despite the
experience with the Apple Watch.

Then at around 1:30AM
I woke up in pain, my finger was throbbing and swollen. So
swollen that taking the ring off was difficult. If I had
left it on for another hour or two, I may not have been able
to remove it.

Eventually I went back to sleep. When I
woke the next morning, the finger and part of my hand was
still blotchy. For obvious reasons given the earlier medical
advice, I did not put the ring on again.

Oura is aware
of the problem. A note on the product safety page
says:

If you experience redness or skin
irritation on your finger while wearing your Oura Ring,
remove it immediately. If symptoms persist longer than 2-3
days, please contact a
dermatologist.

Verdict – Oura Ring
4

It’s unusual to write a verdict after minimal
contact with a product, but here goes. Oura has found a way
to measure health data that can be unobtrusive and minimally
disruptive for most people. It can alert you to health
issues before they become major problems, that alone is
worth the expense.

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Oura Ring 4 review: Impressive health tech,
but not for everyone was first posted at
billbennett.co.nz.

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