TL;DR After more than a year of wearing this device, of using the subscription for a year, the ring with no subscription, customer support experience, and overall experience wearing it. This is not a device for everyone, but I use it everyday.
The Good #
- Comfortable all the time: Wearing a smartwatch to sleep is not for everyone. This is a huge factor on why I love it. I never forget to bring it and I carry it with me everywhere.
- Workout tracking: It doesn’t get in the way of your workout at all*. While wearing the Apple Watch or the Withings Scanwatch my workouts were constantly interrupted due to the crown button being pressed by my wrist.
- Lasting Battery: I don’t have to charge the ring everyday.
- Fashionable: It’s a good looking accesory that does a function other than looking pretty.
- Customer Support: When I had an issue, they replaced my ring quickly.
- Practice Rings: They offer a practical sizing guide kit, and it really helps. Because this ring is thicker than normal, your normal ring size might differ.
- Aesthetically pleasing app: The app is beautifully designed (only if you pay the subscription though).
- Stress measurements: It’s silly to think you need an app to know you are stressed, but it certainly helps justifying taking a break when it validates your stress.
- Cool metrics: I don’t necessarily know what most of these metrics are, but it just somehow makes one feel calm and relaxed.
- Automatically records workout activity: Most of the times it will capture your workout activity without having to put in any input.
- Meditation and breathing exercises: Effective sessions and a feature I wasn’t looking for but was happy to find and use.
The Bad #
- Subscription to use hardware you already paid for: It stings having to pay $5.99usd a month (as of the time of this post) if you want your ring to provide more data than any $5 fitness tracker from Temu. Especially knowing it can perfectly do it.
- Proprietary charger to the max: You have to use their proprietary charger to charge the ring, even if you have another of their chargers for the same model of ring, it won’t fit (this due to ring sizes). I just feel there could’ve been a better solution to this other than selling you a $59usd charger (as of the time of this post)
- I had to learn what Ring Avulsion was: Long story short, it’s dangerous to wear rings while lifting weights which was one of the reasons I wanted it.
- While it automatically records activity: I will still go manually Record workout HR just to really make sure it gets recorded.
- Some of the features like a “symptoms radar” feel kind of fake but also hard to debunk.
The caveat #
- Battery degradation: Almost everyone I know has had to replace the ring due to the battery. Fortunately their customer support is easy to go through.
Oura Ring 4 vs Apple Watch 11 #
These two devices overlap in price and functionality. I will list the highlights from each one of them against the other.
Oura ring highlights #
- Undisputably most comfortable to wear everyday
- More comfortable to work out with.
- Easier to sleep with.
- You can wear multiple accessories.
- You don’t have to charge it everyday.
- It’s fashionable, you can keep recording your metrics without an omnitrix on your wrist.
- Technically cheaper if you don’t consider subscription costs.
Apple Watch 11 highlights #
- Way more features, really in another league, good screen and notifications.
- More widely integrated everywhere. (i.e. my gym tracker has an integration with apple watch and fitbit but not oura)
- Quick swap bands to satisfy fahsionability to some point.
- Full functionality without subscription.
- Cheaper in the long run due to no subscription.
The Verdict #
If you care about metrics, wellness, fashionability, comfortability and don’t mind a monthly subscription, this is perfect for you! If you don’t care a lot about detail and just want to see a number, this is still a good device for you. When people ask me about it they’re all on board and excited until they hear about the subscription. I really have more positive things to say about it than negative with the subscription being a deal breaker for most people which is understandable. At the end of the day, it’s an awesome device that deals with all of the inconveniences of a smartwatch.