I’ve been monitoring my sleep and restoration with the Oura ring for practically 5 years now, and in the present day I’ll share with you many of my favourite and most-overlooked options—together with one function it is best to flip off, and one function you need to use even when your subscription is expired. 

Flip off blood oxygen sensing to save lots of battery

The Oura ring makes use of considerably extra battery with blood oxygen sensing turned on. It could make sense to make use of this function you probably have a selected well being concern, however most of us don’t want it each day. 

You’ll discover Blood Oxygen Sensing beneath the hamburger menu, and might flip it off from there. You’ll lose the “common blood oxygen” and “respiratory regularity” metrics, however you’ll acquire an additional day or so of battery life. 

Sync exercises so that you don’t should log all of them along with your ring

I’ve mentioned it earlier than and I’ll say it once more: the Oura ring isn’t an incredible exercise tracker. Carrying the ring interferes with weightlifting exercises and it doesn’t have sufficient precision to noticeably monitor different exercises like operating. 

Oura is a superb companion to different exercise apps, although. If you happen to monitor exercises with one other system and even with a cellphone app like Apple’s Health app, you may make positive these exercises get synced correctly in order that they present up in your Oura timeline. Go to Settings, after which to Apple Well being (iPhone) or Well being Join (Android). Activate these integrations from there. 

Tag auto-detected exercises (and snicker, if applicable)

Apart from synced exercises, Oura will routinely detect exercises it thinks you’re doing. You’ll then see a card asking you to label the exercise. Don’t simply ignore these playing cards—Oura learns out of your tags. 

So when you went for a stroll, ensure that exercise is tagged as a stroll. However generally it can tag one other exercise as a exercise when it truly wasn’t. I’ve seen hair brushing and yarn winding tagged as varied types of train. Check out the time the exercise was logged, and assume again to what you had been truly doing on the time. (You possibly can dismiss the exercise if it wasn’t a exercise or isn’t one thing you care to trace.) 

Think about the charging case

The Oura ring solely must be charged a few times per week, however which means it’s arduous to get right into a routine of charging it often. I discovered that the right stability was charging it whereas I’m on the fitness center; some individuals desire to cost whereas they’re within the bathe. 

Quick top-ups each few days are perfect for battery well being. (Day by day charging is arguably an excessive amount of; solely charging when the battery is useless might be too little.) Oura recommends holding the battery between 25% and 80% more often than not, when you can. 

So work out the place and when is most handy to cost, and hold a charger there. That’s why the charging case is handy—you’ll be able to carry it in your fitness center bag, for instance. Sadly it prices an additional $99 to purchase the charging case, however no one ever mentioned proudly owning an Oura ring is affordable. 

The Tendencies merchandise within the hamburger menu is considered one of Oura’s finest hidden options. Faucet it and also you’ll have the ability to see issues which have modified over the previous a number of weeks. For instance, as I’m scripting this, I can see that my resting coronary heart charge has improved over the previous 8 weeks, getting again to my “baseline” after a while wherein it was greater than regular.

If you happen to’ve been diligent about tagging behaviors and life-style components, you’ll be able to see their results in your readiness, sleep, exercise, or stress. For instance, I’m curious whether or not my temper is healthier after I take a vitamin D complement within the winter. Temper isn’t one of many objects that Oura tracks, however I can faucet Tendencies after which select from Stress or Sleep and even Exercise (all issues that endure after I’m feeling down) and see whether or not the times I tagged “nutritional vitamins” are likely to correlate with greater or decrease ranges. 

Log meals with out monitoring energy

Meal monitoring was launched as a companion to glucose monitoring, however you don’t want to trace your glucose to make use of the meals function. Log your meals (you’ll be able to even snap an image of your plate) and Oura gives you suggestions on how wholesome the meal is, and hold monitor of whether or not you’re consuming on an everyday schedule or not. Calorie monitoring isn’t concerned. In reality, when you’d moderately hold energy out of your Oura app solely, take a look at the subsequent merchandise. 

Regulate your exercise aim

Oura gives you an exercise aim every day, normally a sure variety of energy. If you happen to really feel your objectives are too bold (or not bold sufficient), go to the Exercise display screen and choose Edit exercise aim. You possibly can select a special aim, and you may as well select whether or not you’d prefer to see this aim in energy or in steps. 

If you wish to keep away from seeing energy anyplace within the app, there’s a toggle for that. On the identical display screen, choose Calorie choose out. This units your goal to steps and ensures that calorie mentions anyplace else within the app shall be hidden. You too can entry the calorie choose out from Settings after which Exercise. 

Use Relaxation Mode for journey, menstrual cycles, and extra

Oura has a Relaxation Mode setting that’s meant for if you’re sick or recovering from an damage. (Oura might even immediate you to show it on in case your knowledge signifies you will not be feeling nicely.) 

Nevertheless it’s helpful for extra than simply that. Relaxation Mode pauses your objectives, and stops providing you with readiness scores. It’s nice for any time you don’t need the app to trouble you about what you have to be doing. I’ve seen Oura customers say they use it for days of their menstrual cycle after they aren’t feeling as much as their ordinary exercise; it’s additionally helpful for journey when you realize you’ll be caught in a automotive or airplane all day, or when your sleep will endure because of jet lag. 

Use Labs to take part in research (and get a sneak peek at new options)

If you happen to prefer to beta check new options, take a look at the Labs merchandise within the hamburger menu. The choices will change occasionally, however typically they’re new options within the making. Proper now, the one providing I see is a blood stress profile research, wherein Oura is gathering knowledge to hopefully supply blood stress estimates within the app sooner or later. 

Once I signed up for this, I needed to fill out a questionnaire and signal a analysis consent. (Not all Oura Labs objects are research, however they are often.) I can see that Oura thinks I in all probability don’t have hypertension (appropriate) and that it’s basing that partly on my good resting coronary heart charge and exercise degree. Different Oura options like meal monitoring and Symptom Radar first made their appearances in Labs. 

Obtain your knowledge from the cloud

That is considered one of Oura’s lesser-known options: an internet dashboard the place you’ll be able to view long-term tendencies, and a “membership hub” the place you’ll be able to obtain all of your knowledge. This spreadsheet obtain is obtainable even when you don’t have an energetic subscription, however you do want a subscription for the pattern viewer and for all the software program options I discussed above. 

For the online viewer, go to cloud.ouraring.com. Right here, when you click on on Tendencies, you’ll be able to see all your knowledge—5 years’ price, for me. You possibly can even examine two variables and see a calculation that exhibits in the event that they’re correlated. My sleep rating and complete sleep time are extremely correlated; my HRV and sleep time are usually not. 

To obtain CSV spreadsheets of your knowledge (with or with out a subscription), go to the membership hub and register. Choose Export knowledge after which Request your knowledge. You’ll get a zipper file full of spreadsheets you’ll be able to analyze to your coronary heart’s content material.