There couldn’t be a better time for wearable technology to
shine. In the coronavirus era, we’re all concerned about our well-being. So
wearable computers with tiny sensors that offer insight into our health seem
particularly useful.
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One such gadget that stands out as intriguing is the
third-generation Oura Ring, which was unveiled last November. It’s a tiny $300 health-monitoring
device worn on a finger as if it were a piece of jewelry.
The ring, according to Oura Health, offers the unique ability to
measure minute changes in body temperature to help women accurately predict
their menstrual cycles and potentially detect when a person is getting sick.
That might even reveal early symptoms of COVID-19, the company has said.
Who wouldn’t want that these days?
The Oura Ring has also made a splashy debut. You may have seen
it in a recent episode of “And Just Like That,” the reboot of “Sex and the
City.” Prince Harry, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Aniston have been seen wearing
one. And ads for it have surfaced on Instagram and other social media,
portraying the ring as a replacement for devices like the Apple Watch.
Despite all the hype, I’m disappointed to report after two weeks
of wearing an Oura that it was a letdown. The ring failed to accurately measure
basic data like my footsteps, which raised broader questions about my general
health data. (More on this later.) And while the charts about my heart rate and
sleep patterns sure looked neat, I didn’t feel more enlightened about my
overall health.
I also can’t confirm whether the Oura can detect COVID-19 or any
disease because I (fortunately) haven’t gotten ill.
For a second opinion, I turned to Dr. Ethan Weiss, a
cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who owns an older
version of the Oura Ring that he used to track sleep, body temperature and
fitness activity. Weiss said he had stopped wearing it years ago.
“It didn’t give me anything I could use to help me,” he said. “A
lot of these technologies are looking for problems to solve. This is one of
them.”
There might be some people who would like the Oura Ring — body
hackers and competitive athletes who are striving to optimize their fitness
levels jump to mind — but I wouldn’t recommend it for most of us.
Here’s what I found.
Off on the Wrong Foot
Getting started with an Oura Ring is a multistep process. First,
you order a free sizing kit from the company’s website to measure your finger.
Then you tell the company your size. When the ring arrives, you place it on a
dock to charge it and sync it with a smartphone app. Once worn, it takes about
two weeks for the software to calculate the baseline of your health data and
make accurate estimates.
After Week 1 of testing, something unusual came up. A relative
needed help with an emergency, so I hopped on my motorcycle and rode 50 miles
to his house.
After I rode home, I opened the Oura app. It said I had walked
20 miles. This was obviously wrong. I had walked only a mile that day when I
took my dogs out for an afternoon stroll.
It was clear what had happened. The Oura had incorrectly logged
a portion of my 100-mile motorcycle ride as footsteps.
A quick web search revealed that Oura customers complained about
this issue last year with the ring’s previous version. The company’s response
at the time, posted on Reddit, was that the ring falsely detected “excess
motion” from motorcycling as a fitness activity, and it suggested removing the
ring and putting it in a pocket while riding a motorcycle.
Chris Becherer, Oura Health’s head of product, told me that the
company was aware of the problem and researching a fix. He suggested that in
the meantime, I could go back and delete workouts to inform the app that I
wasn’t walking.
This didn’t work. The app had permanently recorded my movements
as walking, and the data could not be purged. I ride motorcycles regularly,
including for errands around town, so that meant nearly a week of activity data
was ruined. Having to manually edit my data would also have defeated the
purpose of an automatic tracker.
For comparison, I also wore an Apple Watch while testing the
Oura. Even after my 100-mile trip, the Apple Watch correctly reported that I
had walked only about a mile and had not exercised much that day.
Days later, I wore the Oura again while riding my motorcycle to
the gym. The app reported that I had walked about 6 miles in 3,500 steps.
The Good
Some aspects of the Oura are interesting. The ring’s battery
lasts about seven days, much longer than devices, like the Apple Watch, that
need to be recharged every other day. That longer charge means the ring can
stay on your body longer, which then enables it to collect more data about you
over time, including detailed information about your heart rate and sleep.
Each day, the app tallies up those various measurements to
calculate a “readiness” score. A high readiness score indicates that you have
recovered well from the previous day’s activities. My readiness scores were
probably inaccurate in general because of my motorcycle riding — but for
nonriders who are athletes, this could be a useful way to determine whether to
do a hard workout or to rest for the day.
I also liked the way the Oura app visualized data for sleep. It
showed a chart illustrating when I was in different stages of sleep and when I
was awake. It also showed my lowest heart rate while asleep — a higher heart rate
could be the result of stress or having a late meal. Finally, the app offered
advice: When bedtime approached, the software recommended against caffeine and
alcohol consumption to get a better night’s slumber.
At the end of the experiment, though, I asked myself if I
actually needed technology to be aware of my habits and health. After I removed
the Oura and stopped checking the app, I didn’t feel that I missed out on
anything.
Bottom Line
My experiences aside, Oura’s greatest failure is reflected in customer
feedback. The second Google search result for “Oura Ring” is a collection of
overwhelmingly negative customer reviews for the product. Dozens of angry
customers complained about a support team that refused to respond to questions
or solve problems.
That suggested Oura Health had underinvested in customer
support. This is something I hate to see. How a company treats its customers is
part of the experience of owning a product, and a brand’s service reputation is
always in the back of my mind when I review products.
Becherer acknowledged the negative feedback and said the company
had struggled to build up its customer support operations as its product
evolved. He said the company had been unprepared to handle the volume of
customer queries after it recently added a subscription plan, asking customers
to pay $6 a month for the app’s services after a six-month trial. (Previously,
the software features were free.)
“It’s getting better,” Becherer said about the support
operations. “We monitor that stuff very closely. It was a very significant
load.”
The upshot: Let’s wait and see if this product improves. For
now, there’s a cheaper way to find out if you’re sick with
COVID-19: rapid
at-home test kits, which the U.S. government has started offering free.
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