On trial: Oura Ring 4

Forget checking out engagement rings, these days everyone is looking out for an Oura ring. As well as being eye-catching, it’s quite the conversation starter; the comprehensive health tracker monitors your activity, body temperature trends, sleep, recovery, stress and heart rate with its built-in research-grade sensors, offering plenty to talk about.

When it comes to the tester, I’m 32, exercise three to four times a week and I walk as much as possible. I’ve worn a lot of fitness-tracking watches over the years, but this is my first ring. For optimal accuracy, Oura recommends wearing your Oura Ring on your index, middle or ring finger. First impressions? I love that it doesn’t stand out. It has a sleek, fully titanium design and is water-resistant, meaning it can be worn at all times – even while you swim, shower and sweat.

In case your very first question is ‘what is an Oura ring?’, put simply, it’s a health-tracking smart ring (although the brand’s CEO prefers to describe it as a ‘holistic health tool’). The Oura Ring 4 is the next evolution of the revolutionary smart ring Oura Ring Gen3, designed to help you get up close and personal with your health. It’s built around a breakthrough sensing technology, Smart Sensing, which adapts to your finger to deliver accurate, continuous data.

This data is all captured and communicated via the Oura app, which is incredibly easy to set up: all I had to do was download the app and create my account (name, address, password etc). The first month of Oura Membership is free for new members, then it’s £5.99 a month or £69.99 for the year in the UK. Within the app, you personalise your account by selecting the activities you do from a lengthy list (which even includes housework!), as well as entering the usual height, weight, sex and date of birth details. Additionally, you are asked to add your goals – for example, to improve health, manage stress levels, be more focused.

Activity: it can track 40 different workouts, how many calories you’ve burnt, plus your step count.

Stress: the Daytime Stress feature monitors your heart rate, motion and skin temperature trends to measure stress responses.

Sleep: it directly measures skin temperature trends and a detailed graph categorises your sleep staging into light, deep and REM. Oura’s CEO Tom Hale claims it’s more accurate than watches due to the finger placement, where it can monitor blood flow more efficiently. It’s also more comfortable to wear to sleep than a watch (in my opinion). 

Women’s health: it can accurately calculate your monthly fertility window and track your cycle, so you can predict when you’ll start your period.

Material: the Oura Ring 4 swaps the clear material insides of its predecessor for shiny titanium.

Size: there is an expanded choice of 12 sizes and six finishes, including black, stealth, gold, silver, brushed silver and rose gold.

Comfort: the three small sensor domes on the inside of the Oura Ring Gen3 ring have decreased in size, making the latest version more comfortable to wear and easier to get on and off over knuckles.

Sensors: upgraded sensors allow the Oura Ring 4 to better adjust to your finger’s shape, skin tone and orientation, increasing tracking accuracy and reducing gaps where it couldn’t correctly detect a pulse or other metric.

The Oura Ring 4 looks less like a piece of futuristic tech and more like elegant jewellery. I get on well with smartwatches but, let’s be honest, they’re designed for practicality, not style or comfort. The light-as-air Oura Ring 4 is incredibly comfortable and goes with everything. I used to take my smartwatch off for weddings or special events where I knew there would be photos – now I don't have to do that, so can always track my day. In fact, when I wore the Oura Ring to dinner no one realised it was a smart ring and I couldn’t have been happier.

I can see how some people prefer a smartwatch as it allows them to directly track their activity throughout the day through a display screen. However, I enjoy going about my day without constantly tapping a screen, all the while knowing my data is recording and that I can check the app at any time.

Battery life could be better (it’s up to eight days), but it’s quick to charge (although the station is unique to your Oura Ring size, so you can’t use a friend’s). That said, the Oura Ring does send charging notifications to my iPhone, so you’re less likely to get caught out. I sleep in it, exercise in it and swim in it – I very rarely take it off. 

And I love the ‘Readiness Score’ feature; I’m able to see in the morning how ready I am for the day, because of how I’ve slept and my activity from the day before. Plus, I now know whether to give myself more time to rest and recover fully. As you may guess, a complete picture of health gets five stars from me.

★★★★★