Ask HN: Does anyone use an Oura sleep ring?
Does anyone use an Oura sleep ring?
How do you feel it has worked? Is your sleep better?
What has it done well?
What could be improved?
How do you feel it has worked? Is your sleep better?
What has it done well?
What could be improved?
After the first ~year and a half of use the battery would no longer hold a charge for more than one day, but I got in touch with their support team and they sent me a brand new ring for free, no questions asked. Now the battery lasts about a week.
In terms of its accuracy as a sleep tracker, obviously no consumer-grade wearable is going to be as good as a sleep study in a lab with full EEG, but I’ve seen anecdotal reports on Reddit of people comparing the Oura ring to the Dreem (an EEG headband), and saying that the two report surprisingly similar sleep phases and durations. It has seemed pretty accurate to me.
The real kicker for me was when I experienced an episode of De Quervain’s Thyroiditis earlier this year and it induced symptoms of hyperthyroidism. Over the course of a few weeks, I watched my resting heart rate overnight rise 60% above my baseline, I watched my HRV and sleep quality overnight plummet, I watched my body temperature increase - this correlated perfectly with frequent blood work that showed extremely elevated levels of thyroid hormones (free T3 and T4). My doctor started me on a beta blocker to control some of the worst symptoms. Gradually as my thyroid recovered, I could watch my overnight heart rate come down, and my HRV and body temperature return to baseline, and use the very accurate data from my ring to help taper off of the beta blocker (with my doctor’s approval).
That specific example aside, in normal daily use I find that the Oura helps me stay in better touch with my body - quantitatively measuring little differences in the status of my body in response to behaviors (food, exercise, alcohol, etc.) that I might otherwise not have even noticed. I highly recommend giving it a try.
I like that I can see when and how long I was in "deep" sleep or at least what the rings thinks is deep sleep. I can usually correlate that when I do not get much deep sleep I am more tired the next day.
I like that I can get a resting heart rate at night. It also takes your temp (somehow). So each day once it syncs I look at resting heart rate and temp for last night.
I got one more than 2 years ago. It eventually died about 2 months ago. I was well passed their warranty so I insta-bought another without a thought.
So in short I think it is a good product. I cannot think of a way to improve it honestly.
I should probably add: the battery died after 3 years of use.
It does gamify sleep for me but I personally think sleep is very important so having any kind of metric and then incrementally working to improve it is useful.
I don't really pay attention to the "Readiness" or "Activity" metrics but maybe I should? At least for now, I want to focus on "Sleep".
Apparently if it's not measuring your brain waves, it's not actually measuring deep sleep.
Also this gives me the creeps:
Can you share why?
I'll make a partial exception for the ongoing pandemic, but that's because the disease can be spread to others by close contact. Insomnia, although quite serious, is not contagious.
Overall I don't welcome any attempts by my employer to track anything other than my actual work performance.