Oura Ring 3 review: Still the best smart ring in 2024 (for now)

pros and cons

Pros

Insightful metrics that promote a healthier lifestyle
Lightweight design even with all built-in sensors
Waterproofing gives you peace of mind

Cons

It might be more durable
The fit isn’t perfect, even with the sizing set
Please provide us with a greater network interface, Oura

more purchasing options

On the surface, Oura’s Ring 3 looks like an extraordinary accessory. But it’s this subtlety that makes it one in all the more technological gadgets available today, housing sensors to watch heart rate and blood oxygenation, and housed in a well-known, small form factor. The ring is so light and inconspicuous that it’s hard to assume what number of things it keeps track of.

I’ve written about smart rings before and in any case the research, I am unable to stop fascinated with Oura.

Smart rings are finally taking up the mainstream market, with an influx of latest products in the past two years: Movano’s Evie Ring, RingConn’s Smart Ring and Amazfit Helio Ring. They’re all solid products in their very own right, but the Oura Ring 3 still holds up at the top.

When you fall asleep, Oura Ring works hardest, tracking your blood oxygen levels, heart rate, temperature and other metrics throughout the night. When you get up in the morning, you just open the app to see all of your data in insightful graphs. If you follow fitness, health, or technology trends in general, you could already find out about every part mentioned above.

That’s why this review is different. It isn’t sponsored by Oura, nor did the company provide me with a review unit. Instead, I’ll deal with the Oura Ring 3 experience as an actual customer, someone who invests in the product a few years after its release. (Better late than never, right?) If you are considering wearables in 2024 and wondering whether it could be investment, this review is for you.

Technical data

Material	Titanium with PVD coating
Libra	4-6 grams depending on the materials
Size	6-13
Sensors	3-axis accelerometer, heart rate monitor, Sp02 relative sensor, ECG sensor, EDA sensor
Durability	Water immune to 100 meters (over 328 feet)
price list	Start with $299
Parcel includes	Charger adapted to the size and USB-C cable

What are the most notable features of Oura Ring 3?

Whether you are cross-shopping between Oura and other smart rings or other wearables, these are the key recent features it is best to consider – together with my experience with each of them.

1. Monitoring your blood oxygen (Sp02) and heart rate during training

(*3*)Sherina Shibu/ZDNET

Oura first released blood oxygenation and heart rate monitoring features in May and July 2022, respectively, and since then they’ve been a quintessential feature of the Oura Ring 3 experience. With updated sensors, the ring can detect overall blood oxygen saturation and changes in saturation levels during sleep, allowing for more accurate data to be provided the next morning. By detecting oxygen in the blood, it may also determine if there are any possible disturbances or changes in respiration during the night.

Oura Ring 3’s training heart rate (WHR) measurement uses recent green LEDs to record your heart rate during exercise, creating an entire 24-hour heart rate graph that mixes your live heart rate and resting heart rate along with your WHR. Please note that for the WHR feature to work, your phone’s location services should be turned on and your phone should be with you throughout your workout to give you the option to record your route and distance, for instance while running.

Still, I like the flexibility of the Oura Ring for individuals who don’t desire to be tethered to a screen or wearable that is vibrating with constant notifications and distractions all the time.

2. Explore the sleep rating beta

(*3*)Our

I do not find out about you, but I am unable to sleep with a watch or any device product of heavier materials on my wrist. That’s why I appreciate the Oura Ring’s titanium finish, which is each lightweight and breathable. More importantly, the sleep rating I receive in the app every morning is a surprisingly detailed indicator of how well I slept, and that is largely due to the Ring’s newest update feature: the sleep rating.

For a while now, Oura’s sleep tracking feature has been precise enough to trace each time spent in bed and sleep duration. At the end of last 12 months, the company added the Sleep Staging solution to its functionality. This feature is technically still in beta, but is basically an improved tracking algorithm that gives more accurate data on how long an Oura user is sleeping or awake. There is nothing more you should do; just leave the ring off at night and let it do its thing.

What’s most enjoyable about sleep scoring is the “sleep lab accuracy” that Oura touts. Just take a look at the table above to see that sleep assessment is sort of as accurate as skilled polysomnography. This is a step in the right direction, as Oura is by far the easiest device to placed on for night’s sleep. That’s why every part Oura does to extend the sensitivity of its sleep tracking makes its biggest attraction much more enticing.

3. Living in a subscription model

(*3*)Sherina Shibu/ZDNET

The Subscription for $5.99 per 30 days charge is a controversial feature that Oura has implemented in its third-generation rings. No one likes paying greater than they originally paid for equipment, so I try to have a look at the subscription as positively as possible. For example, the $6 fee costs lower than my streaming service and gym membership, and yet I exploit the insights from the ring more often than either of those two. The ring also has a noticeable impact. I check my sleep rating every morning and have found that my activity and recovery scores have modified the way I eat, sleep, and interact with my surroundings.

The Oura app also features a library of guided meditations tailored to specific goals, similar to sleep and rest. A meditation app membership can cost more per 30 days than an Oura subscription, which after all doesn’t include tracking advantages. In my experience, I actually have found the Oura meditations to be helpful and I like that they vary in length. Because every part is in one place, the user is more more likely to see the connection between meditation and overall well-being.

What would I wish to see in the next model?

Before you place the Oura ring on it, it is best to know that the ring has its disadvantages. Here are some suggestions that detract from the overall ring experience and needs to be considered when purchasing a ring.

1. The fit may be more consistent

(*3*)Sherina Shibu/ZDNET

Before we ship you the ring, Oura provides a free sizing kit, which is great. However, after wearing the test ring in the best-fitting size for a day or two, submitting the exact size online, and receiving the final product just a few days later, I immediately noticed that the official ring didn’t fit in addition to the tester ring did.

Maybe it’s because I purchased the so-called Heritage model as a substitute of this Horizon — all test rings looked like Horizon; the Heritage ring I selected had a flat top – but perhaps Oura should then even have a tester set to suit other models.

The ring that arrived didn’t fall off my finger or anything, but once I grabbed the handlebars of my bike during spinning class, for instance, there was a noticeable gap between my finger and the ring. This made me query the accuracy of the tracking at times, although I didn’t notice any irregularities in the app’s data reporting.

On the other hand, I’m glad the ring wasn’t too tight. I jokingly call this little gap the sweat vent. Perhaps if Oura introduced half sizes, this problem would go away?

2. Better web interface for analytics

(*3*)Sherina Shibu/ZDNET

The Oura mobile app is flexible. The interface is a pleasant dark blue and displays your sleep, activity, and overall readiness rating, in addition to the aspects that went into compiling those scores. You may use meditation in the application. However, the same range of features isn’t visible in the Oury web interface. The screenshot above is a sample of what the site will seem like, displaying the same data you possibly can access in the app. Don’t be fooled by the numbers; isn’t as detailed as the mobile version.

In the future, I would really like to see the web version allow users to increase and isolate specific metrics. For example, the ability to watch heart rate or blood oxygen saturation at night and export them for your individual evaluation. Students and professionals who want to check the links between sleep and quality of life or sleep and mental illness could also higher aggregate data for research purposes. I’m not saying the web interface is bad. It could simply be higher.

3. Don’t ignore durability

(*3*)Sherina Shibu/ZDNET

Do you want lifting weights or cooking? You can remove Oura while doing either of those two things. Oura says you possibly can wash the ring if it gets dirty, and I’m sure every part will likely be fantastic if I wear it and transplant the plants with gloves, but I’m still protecting my ring this early and don’t desire to scratch it. Given how small a chunk of technology that is, durability is clearly one in all my most important concerns.

It could be helpful if the ring had a scratch-resistant coating, or if Oura experimented with different materials to make sure maximum durability. That way I would not must intentionally delete it each time I do something that might potentially damage it and risk losing it by forgetting I put that little thing away.

ZDNET purchasing advice

So it’s Oura’s Ring 3 still value it in 2023? Absolutely. The app is intuitive to make use of, the ring is light and comfy to wear, and it effectively breaks down my sleep and wellness data to offer actionable information.

The Ring shines where other wearables falter. For example, my dad has an Apple Watch and it vibrates with notifications all the time. He cannot wear it to sleep either; The watch strap isn’t very breathable and it’s uncomfortable to wear all of it night long. With Oura Ring, you possibly can spend your day without wearing anything that may distract you, and you possibly can open the app at any time to ascertain your progress towards your health goals.