Smart rings are better than smart watches when it comes to sleep tracking. They are easier to use, less obtrusive when you move around in bed, have a longer battery life, and don’t have a screen. All of these factors make them a lightweight and discreet wearable device that will easily track your sleep.
This Oura Horizon Ring is a competitive sleep tracker, with insights into everything from sleep efficiency, rest, readiness, latency, and more. I’ve been using the Oura Ring for a while now, and it’s not only given me deeper insight into my sleep, but it complements those data points with explanations behind the numbers. Oura claims it accurately tracks sleep cycles, total sleep time, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, and movement.
Each morning I get a sleep score for the previous night’s sleep, I can see my heart rate, my sleep efficiency, and my suggested bedtime range for the day. The sleep score helps me understand my energy levels for the day and understand my activity bandwidth, like whether I should exercise or rest. The ring’s lightweight construction makes it a perfect bedtime companion — I barely notice it on my finger when I fall asleep, and I wake up excitedly each morning to check my sleep data and get my score. But it’s not just deep sleep that it can track and flag — the Oura Ring can also detect the shortest of naps and factor them into your sleep score for the day. Plus, the sleep tab in the app offers insights into sleep efficiency, rest, REM sleep, deep sleep, latency, and time, so you can dig deeper and go beyond just seeing a sleep score and your time in bed.
As if there weren’t enough sleep-friendly features on the Oura Ring, Oura also introduced a body clock feature that teaches you more about your circadian rhythms and body clock. The feature measures my sleep chronotype, calculated from my body temperature, sleep-wake cycle, and physical activity, and through this collected data, I am most productive during the late morning hours.
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Battery life is masterful. It charges quickly and stays charged for days at a time. The only downside to the ring is that you have to pay an additional $72 for an Oura subscription per year, on top of the $350 you just spent on the ring itself.
Best Buy users say the ring has helped them improve and better understand their sleep, and they appreciate the ring’s lighter design compared to smartwatches like the Apple Watch. Reddit users also agree that the Oura Ring, as a sleep tracker, is worth the money. “If you struggle with sleep quality, overtraining, or anything else that impacts recovery, I’d say it’s worth it,” one user wrote in a thread on the topic. However, one Best Buy user noted that the ring doesn’t offer half sizes, which could be an issue if your fingers swell, because the ring won’t accurately measure your biometrics — so keep that in mind when shopping for a sleep tracker.
Oura Gen 3 Horizon Ring Specifications: Up to 7 days of battery life | Sleep cycles | Bluetooth | 7.9mm wide, 2.55mm thick | Water resistant to 100m | Blood oxygen sensor, skin temperature, heart rate monitoring | Compatible with iOS and Android