For some reason that still alludes me, my embarrassingly long career in journalism has seen me test all manner of consumer technologies, from power tools to electronically-powered scooters and bicycles.
Perhaps a healthy interest in, erm, health and fitness, has also seen a number of editors task me with trialling fitness trackers, heart rate monitors, smartwatches and even those bizarre contraptions that aim to spasm your abs into some kind of pin-up washboard stomach (spoiler alert: they don’t, not eating pies does).
Anyway, despite this depth of experience in fitness-y gadgetry, the en vogue smart ring has evaded my radar up until recently, when I was tasked with testing some of the best smart rings from the world’s biggest brands.
Casting aside my trusty Garmin Enduro 3 smartwatch, I slipped a dainty silver ring onto my finger for several weeks to see whether the insights it provided could convince me to ditch a smartwatch in favour of something lighter, more discreet and more comfortable.
All the rage
The smart ring market has exploded in the past couple of years. Ultrahuman, Samsung, RingConn, Amazfit and Circular all offer compelling alternatives, often at lower prices or with flashier feature lists than the Oura tested here.
But Oura remains the original — one ring to rule them all, if you will. This fourth-generation model refines the formula with an improved battery life (around 8 days), more accurate sensor readings and a thinner, more comfortable design.
Those sensors are now recessed inside the ring, which improves both comfort and reliability, while the expanded sizing options help ensure a snug, consistent fit.
Prices start at £329/$349, climbing to £499/$499 for the new ceramic finishes, which offer a more muted look than traditional shiny metals.
Less appealing is the subscription: after a free month, Oura charges £5.99/$5.99 per month or £69.99/$69.99 per year. Given the premium hardware price, that’s a tough pill to swallow.
When compared directly to my Garmin Enduro (from £699.99/$899.99), it’s definitely a more discreet option and one that allows me to wear an analogue timepiece on a daily basis, without worrying about losing my step count and other vital health statistics.
On top of this, I also found it more comfortable to wear overnight, which is essential for sleep and recovery tracking. But that’s really where the benefits ended for me.
Buckles under pressure
Instead of obsessing over performance metrics, as Garmin does, the Oura Ring focuses on sleep, recovery, overall wellbeing and women’s health markers — such as menstrual cycles and fertility windows.
While I couldn’t exactly test that stuff, it does go some way to explain why 59% of Oura users are women.
What I could test was its performance as a fitness tracker, and this is where I felt it couldn’t keep up with Garmin’s admittedly more expensive current offerings. Firstly, and arguably most importantly, the ring proved difficult to wear when partaking in any strength-based activity that requires grip.
Granted, some light racket sports are fine, but anything involving dumbbells, barbells, heavy lifting, climbing and even rowing can feel uncomfortable. What’s more, the knurled grips and bars found in gyms are arguably the fastest way to completely ruin a ring.
During one dead-lifting session, I felt that the Oura Ring 4 was either going to crumple and potentially damage the sensors inside or slice my finger open. So I took it off.
My hesitance to retire my Garmin was compounded when I headed into the app and started crunching the numbers. Oura Ring will accurately track step count and heart rate, therefore giving a fairly accurate picture of calorie burn, but it doesn’t go into the same performance depths as Garmin does.
For anyone training to run a faster marathon, improve Functional Threshold Power on a bicycle or simply get jacked in the gym, it doesn’t offer the same kind of beneficial insights on workout effort, recovery and the sort of progressive overload that’s required to improve at anything.
With a suggested battery life of eight days, the Oura Ring also fell a long way behind what my Garmin Enduro offered, which often can go almost a month before I have to plug the thing in.
While this isn’t the end of the world, it’s still slightly annoying for those not wanting to miss a second of vital statistics-tracking.
Verdict? An excellent back-up plan
I’ve seen a number of people use Oura and other smart rings as a sort of back-up device — something they wear in addition to a dedicated fitness tracker. To me, this seems like the most sensible solution for anyone really into their training.
It is excellent for giving a holistic view on wellness, how rested the body is and how workout or lifestyle choices are potentially impacting the ability to train. But if you wear a Garmin 24/7, that too can also do this with an excellent degree of accuracy.
Granted, where Garmin and other smartwatches fall down is wrist-based heart rate accuracy. I’ve long worn a chest strap heart rate monitor when training, purely because wrist-based optical systems aren’t at all accurate. While I found the Oura Ring slightly better than a wrist-based system, it still didn’t deliver the goods. During a few spicy treadmill sessions, it read far lower than the zones my chest strap was delivering.
But above all else, the smart ring just can’t offer the same breadth of abilities as my trusty Garmin. That’s to say, it can’t navigate me back to the car when I’ve got lost on a trail run, nor can Oura Ring build me a sports science-based programme to improve my Gran Fondo cycling performance.
For that reason, I’ll continue to wear a massive slab of titanium and fibre-reinforced polymer on my wrist when I next head to the gym.
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