My Honest Oura Ring Gen3 Review

It’s finally here! My full Oura Ring Gen3 Review is HERE!!!!! On one hand, I always wanted to wait a while to write this because I wanted to use to the product for a long time before forming and sharing my opinion about it. But on the other hand… I didn’t mean for it to take THIS long. Regardless, thanks for your patience!

I’m going to dive into a lot of details in this Oura Ring Gen3 review, but the TLDR version is that I love it. I personally am so glad I bought it and I feel like I learn a lot from it. That being said, there are definitely pros and cons. So when people ask me everyone’s favorite question of “is it worth it?”, I stand by my answer of “it depends.” I know that’s frustrating, but it’s the truth.

Okay, let’s get into it!

Oura Ring Gen3 Review

What is the Oura Ring?

The Oura Ring looks like a piece of jewelry, but it is so much more than that. It has sensors and technology that tracks your heart rate, respiratory rate, body temperature, movement, and more. This results in daily Activity, Sleep, and Readiness scores, along with additional insights that you get in their app. The Oura Ring Gen3 comes in 5 finishes (silver, black, stealth, gold, and rose gold) and 2 styles (horizon and hertiage). 

How much does the Oura Ring cost?

Depending on the finish you choose, Heritage rings cost between $299 and $449. The Horizon is a newer and slightly sleeker design and ranges between $349 and $549. I have the Heritage in gold so that it looks cohesive with my wedding rings.

In addition to the initial cost, you also have to pay for an Oura Membership. This costs $5.99 a month and gives you access to all of your analytics in the app. I got 6 months of this free when I bought mine and I believe they still do that with purchases of the Oura Ring Gen3.

How do you know what size to get?

When you place your order, I highly recommend selecting “Free Sizing Kit” instead of a size. You’ll get a kit of plastic replica rings in all of the size options for you to try on. I encourage you to try them on a few different fingers and wear the ones you like best for a few hours each to see which one is most comfortable. I really didn’t think I would wear mine on my index finger, but that was the one that was the most comfortable for me and I’m SO glad I went through the process to figure that out. I think I would like it less if I just ordered a size for my ring finger.

On that note, is it comfortable?

Yes, it’s very comfortable! I honestly forget that I’m wearing it most of the time. I was worried it would feel a little bulky but it sits really comfortably on my index finger. Again, if I had guessed and gone with my ring finger, I think I would it would feel bulkier for me, so don’t skip that step!

How often do you have to charge it?

They say that the charge lasts 4-7 days, but I honestly haven’t really paid attention to that because it holds a charge really well. It also charges pretty fast so I’ve just gotten in the habit of popping it on the charger when I’m taking a shower (it’s waterproof but I still prefer not to wear it in the shower) or reading before bed (not moving around and before I fall asleep) from time to time and that keeps it from dying on me.

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Oura Ring Gen3 Review: Sleep

When considering the Oura Ring, I think it’s important to know that it is a sleep tracker, first and foremost. This ring tracks total sleep, time in bed, sleep efficiency, resting heart rate, restfulness, REM sleep, deep sleep, latency (how long it takes to fall asleep) and timing. And based off all of that information, it gives you an overall Sleep score each morning.

Obviously you can generally tell if you had a good or bad night of sleep on your own. But I’ve found that all of this has helped me see how my behaviors and habits effect my sleep.

For example, my best night’s sleep are usually nights when I have moved my body in some way that day, with some sort of wind-down evening routine. On the other hand, my worst night’s sleep are when I watch or talk about something really stressful right before bed, drink alcohol, and/or spend time on social media right before trying to fall asleep.

I’ve also learned how helpful it is for your body if you go to bed and wake up around the same times. Obviously, it’s common for me to go to bed much later on the weekends than I do on weekdays, but sticking to a small window the majority of the time can help. It makes sense that it’s confusing for your body if you don’t wake up until 11am on the weekends but your alarm goes off at 6:30am on weekdays. 

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Oura Ring Gen3 Review: Activity

Activity tracking is probably the most controversial aspect of the Oura Ring – if having a really accurate activity tracker is the most important thing to you then you might get frustrated with this. That being said, I’ve been able to learn a LOT from the Activity insights they provide.

Each day, you will get a goal for “Active Calorie Burn” that might go up or down from the baseline goal you set based on your readiness score for the day. (I’ll explain Readiness in the next section!) This is what I pay attention to the most because it is the estimate of calories you burn over the course of the day through exercise or other activity. I also feel like this “score” is more accurate than the steps count.

In addition to the Active Calorie Burn/Activity Goal and Steps count, you can also see your Activity Score (based on how close you get to your Activity Goal), the amount of time you’ve been inactive with alerts if you don’t move every hour, your training frequency/volume, and recovery time.

Now let’s talk about the cons for some people. First, the Oura Ring does not pick up on all activity. For example, you need to manually input workouts like strength training, barre, pilates, and other classes like that. This is a little confusing because it tracks your heart rate and general activity vs rest all day no matter what – but you need to manually input those workouts in order for them to count towards your activity score.

You do that by pressing the + at the bottom right of your screen and selecting “add a workout.” Next to that, you’ll also see “Record workout HR” which is an option for you to press before vs after a workout, but that is only an option for running, cycling, and walking. I promise this makes more sense once you’re actually in the app 😂

The other main con is that the steps are not super accurate. I didn’t buy this for the step count so I’m okay with that, but it’s good to know ahead of time if that’s a main reason you’re buying it. I had some theories for a while, but I don’t have an Apple Watch to compare and I don’t carry my phone with me for every single step so I had nothing to compare it to. So what did I do? I bought a pedometer to test it out!

Pedometer vs. Oura Ring Step Counter

I spent a whole day with the pedometer and my ring on. The morning and early afternoon were mostly on my computer, with a quick walk to take Luna outside first thing, a 45 minute barre class, and some movement around the kitchen making lunch. By 1:25 pm, I had 1674 logged on the pedometer, but 4127 logged on the Oura ring.

Then I got on the walking pad to walk and work for about an hour and a half. This increased my steps on the pedometer by 9,395, all the way up to 11,069. But my Oura ring only increased 1519, up to 5,646.

The rest of the day was mostly computer work, then I shot a recipe with a decent amount of chopping and stirring, and cleaned up the kitchen. My totals at the end of the day were 9,004 on the Oura Ring and 12,114 on the pedometer.

So what does this tell me? Well, I think it’s clear that it inflates your steps when you’re typing a little bit, as well as when you’re doing house work like cleaning/cooking/dishes/etc. On the flip side, it under counts steps when I’m working on my walking pad because my hands are up at my computer instead of down at my sides!

Again, I’m not that mad about it – I think it would be quite tricky to make sure that something you wear on your finger never tracks things like typing, wiping, stirring, chopping, etc as steps. Nor am I surprised that it can’t pick up steps in my arms aren’t at my sides when I’m walking.

(That being said, if you’re a walking pad girly like me, my pedometer has taught me that it takes around 1 hour and 40 minutes at 2.0 mph to reach 10,000 steps.)

Overall thoughts on Activity

All in all, with it’s flaws, I’ve still learned a lot from the Activity section. When the pandemic hit, I knew that I was generally moving a lot less because I wasn’t walking to the train or running around to meetings and other things like that. I’d do my workout, check movement off my list, and then sit the entire rest of the day.

Instead, this has helped me move more consistently! And I don’t always need to struggle through a super hard and long workout that will leave me feeling drained. Sometimes it’s better for me to pair strength classes and/or a shorter cycle or bootcamp class with just… walking. This shift has not only made me dread exercise SO MUCH LESS, but I also feel a lot better. And it shows up on my sleep and readiness scores too!

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Oura Ring Gen3 Review: Readiness

Last but not least, my favorite part of the Oura Ring: the Readiness score!! This score is determined based on your activity and sleep insights. For example, if you slept really well and your body has recovered from the activities you did the day before, your Readiness score will likely be pretty high.

They say that any score over 85 means that you have had a good balance of movement and rest based on your resting heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature and more. Seize the day, baby!

On the other hand, if you slept like crap, did a really tough workout, or just had a really long stressful day, your Readiness score will probably be lower and the app will tell you to take it easy. Your Activity Goal will be lower as a result, too. My low Readiness scores have been due to alcohol, lack of sleep, mental stress, and/or physical stress.

I personally love this feature because sometimes it’s hard to figure out when you need rest vs. when you just want to be lazy. But recovery and rest are SO important and shouldn’t be ignored! It can be completely counter-productive to push through when your body really just needs a second. It also takes your temperature every day, which can help predict if you are getting sick and need to slow down to focus on keeping your immune system strong.

Additional Features

Natural Cycles

Speaking of taking your temperature, I think Oura’s integration with the Natural Cycles app is one of the coolest things about it. Natural Cycles is the first FDA cleared birth control app. Your Oura Ring automatically syncs your temperature trend data that’s collected overnight into the Natural Cycles app each morning. You can also manually log other things like your period, if you’re sick or hungover, if you’ve had sex, if you’ve taken a pregnancy test, cervical mucus, sex drive, skin conditions, pain (cramps, headaches, etc), and more. 

Based on all of that information, Natural Cycle’s algorithm calculates your daily fertility status. You need to have an active Natural Cycles subscription in order to access all of this, so that’s another cost, but I paid $99.99 for the whole year which comes to around $8 a month. Since I’ve been focusing on regulating my cycle since going off the pill, and we might start trying soon, this cost is worth it for me. 

Meditations

Within the Oura app, there are a variety of mediations, breathing exercises, and sleep stories to choose from. If you’re having trouble falling sleep, their sleep meditations and stories range from under 10 minutes to over 30 minutes. They also have more invigorating meditations like awaken and focus, as well as quick breath work that is really nice if you need a reset in the middle of a stressful day.

My Overall Oura Ring Gen3 Review

It’s pretty obvious that I’m a big fan. I hate having things on my wrist so I’ve always known that an Apple Watch wouldn’t be worth the cost for me, but this is such a cool way to get insights about my health that is totally seamless for me. I forget that I have it on most of the time!

Do any of you have an Oura Ring? What do you think about it?

PS. You might also like My Walking Pad Review too!