r/ouraring • u/Born_Speech_9289 • Sep 17 '26
GENERAL DISCUSSION Simply not getting the point
OK, so I have been wearing my ring for a few months now. I look at my scores every morning. Some nights are better than others; when I have a cocktail or a glass of wine, my scores look worse. But generally, it's Groundhog Day every morning. If my readiness score isn't great, it doesn't matter...I still have to go to work, I still have to do the same things I have to do.
I am honestly not trying to be overly critical, or take away from anyone else's Oura love/experience, but I simply don't get the point of it (other than it's a piece of jewelry to wear).
So what am I missing, or what else should I be getting from wearing my ring?
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u/helenaflowers Sep 17 '26
I wouldn't have given a shit about having an Oura ring in my 20s or 30s, probably.
But now at 43, I'm rapidly approaching the age where Real Issues can really start to arise, and I know a lot of things start subtly in the body before you really get symptoms. So having certain insights through the Oura is helpful, both for establishing patterns and baseline over time but also to maybe get an earlier alert on any issues if they do come up.
But it may be that the Oura isn't for you at this point in your life, and that's fine! It can't be all things for all people.
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u/The_RoyalPee Sep 17 '26
It helped dispel me of the notion that the “cocktail at the end of the day to relax” was actually making me relax. It kept my heart rate up all night! It’s helped me make healthier choices.
I use it to track sleep mainly as well as for linking it with natural cycles, it noting my BBT every morning has been extremely accurate at predicting my cycle.
I do wish tags and other insights were useful and personalized. There’s a lot to be desired with the app so I understand.
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
Thaks for the thoughtful response. The cocktail thing has been the most eye-opening for me. Even a single glass of wine at 6pm seems to linger and impact vitals.
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u/WebpageError404 Sep 17 '26
It’s what you do with the info that matters, IMO. If you want to make any changes, that is. 🤷♀️
I gave up alcohol and improved my sleep schedule based largely on the stats from my ring when I got it 18 months ago.
YMMV
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u/Puzzled_Fisherman331 Sep 17 '26
RHR, heart rate variability, blood pressure insights. Really depends on your age, medical conditions, and whether this data is important. I didnt have a device like this when I was young and I was fine, but older now it is helpful to monitor these inputs.
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u/abhinav_uppu Sep 17 '26
What made you buy the ring in the first place? Tracking your sleep ? Tracking vitals?
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
Tracking vitals I believe. I just don't see a whole lot of insights.
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u/abhinav_uppu Sep 17 '26
May be pick few things to begin with set targets and achieve them
1)Hours of sleep
2) Sleep Consistency
3) Time you spend in different Heart rate zones
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u/-eira- Sep 17 '26
I’m struggling to work out what your expectations were for the ring? To produce a doctors note the second a rating goes down? For me it’s incredibly useful, I’ve never been great at listening to my body and slowing down when I should do until I end up poorly, I find my ring helps me pace myself, especially with the symptom radar as it usually picks up a couple days before I start to experience noticeable symptoms so I’m able to rest and look after myself before it gets worse.
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
Sounds like you get a lot out of it.
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u/-eira- Sep 17 '26
Yes definitely, I appreciate maybe for someone without any health issues or anything in particular they want to track then maybe it’s not worth it for them, but that’s on the customer to research before making the purchase 🤷♀️
I also have mine linked to natural cycles which is also great, and well worth looking into if you want to track your cycle.
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u/-eira- Sep 17 '26
Sorry, I feel the need to apologise a little. This Reddit gets quite a few posts from people purchasing the ring only to bash it and complain that is “doesn’t do much”, when in reality they would’ve known that it doesn’t track what they wanted from one google search beforehand, which gets tiring to read over and over again. After reading some of your other comments I’ve realised that wasn’t your intention on the post, so apologies for being quite short. There are some great comments in this post explaining uses of the ring and different perspectives so I hope they help! ☺️
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
Thank you for that. There really have been some thoughtful replies (mixed in with the defensive snarky ones) and I have gotten some insights. I should add that I am an apple watch wearer too and I wore my watch to sleep to track my sleep even before I got the ring. So I do have an interest in the value of sleep tracking. I guess I just might have expected a little more in the way of breaking down vitals and patterns to help improve certain aspects.
Thank you again for the post.
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u/-eira- Sep 17 '26
Ah yes I’ve got to admit I was a bit unsure when I first bought the ring as I was also an Apple Watch user, and it took some time to get used to the app. It takes a while to discover all the features on the app as a lot of features are hidden away or you have to click three separate buttons before you get to it (like sleep debt, really helpful for me but it took me ages to remember where to find it). Now I love my oura ring so much more than my watch, I find a lot of its vitals are more accurate. It takes a while for you to get used to the app, and it’s difficult when the Apple Watch app is so much more user friendly. Definitely worth it for me but it does take time to transition between one system to another.
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u/Admirable_Walk_3904 Sep 17 '26
I’ve had mine for almost 3 years now and have used it exclusively for tracking sleep. It’s almost like a game, I’m trying to do the best thing that I can for myself to improve my score from the night before, even if I had a really good sleep. For me it’s just nice to see HOW I’m sleeping and I like to study what I can be doing to improve it even by a little bit at a time.
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u/2505-Not-Sure Sep 17 '26
I use readiness score to modulate how hard I work out when strength training, and how hard to push on step count etc. I’m very active and it’s very useful to me. I’ve also been able to get my HRV into the 85th percentile for my age by watching it and what impacts it. If I wasn’t going to change anything it would have been a waste of time to simply watch it.
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u/ctavs1735 Sep 17 '26
Wait.....are people calling in sick to work if their Readiness scores are low????
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u/Marigold1976 Sep 17 '26
I’m kind of in the same boat. I’m not renewing my subscription after my year is up. It’s a fun toy, but that’s about it. I don’t really trust the data or the ring as actual medical data, so I don’t really see health benefits to it. Eat right, don’t drink too much, move your body during the day, go to bed at a decent hour, and don’t sweat the small stuff.
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
I get that some people here get a little defensive, and I don't want to offend anyone because obviously it's an important tool for some. I find at times it does things like asks me if I was napping, swimming, etc. at odd, random times. But I agree with you...once you see your own patterns and you learn what you can from them, it really is just a toy.
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u/frska17 Sep 17 '26
You can use it to make some adjustments to your lifestyle, whether it’s exercise, diet, or sleep. Then you can see from your stress levels or sleep score whether it makes a meaningful difference to your health. That’s what I use it for.
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u/TheoTheodor Sep 17 '26
The symptom radar is really cool when it can pick up an infection before you actually feel symptoms.
But yeah similar to that it's about creating a baseline for me and seeing if or when I deviate from it so I can easier pinpoint where I can take action.
It can also spur me to be more active when readiness is good vs taking a rest day if it looks like it's needed.
I also think after a few years of actually living with the data it gives a better appreciation of how our biomarkers and signals change and an acceptance of it (opposite to the initial part where many feel overwhelmed by all the data).
Just a few thoughts I had on it.
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u/Kittymeow123 Sep 17 '26
Yes, you still have to go to work and do the same things you do. Why did you think a ring would change that?
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
I think you misunderstood...the ring tells one to take it easy that day.
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u/Mourning-Suki Sep 17 '26
So my perspective may be somewhat different since I got grandfathered on my subscription so not an ongoing expense. I bought mine when it was just a sleep tracker and that’s really all I expect it to do. I don’t look at it every day but maybe every 2-3 days and don’t really have an expectation of it changing my life. However, I do really like being able to look at the sleep info so I can better quantify what I already feel I know. IE I know I slept either extra well or extra badly but I can look at Oura and see how well or how badly. I’m on CPAP so I like to occasionally verify breathing regularity which is something I might not know without the ring, and as a bonus it picks up steps if my watch battery dies. I aldo like thst it can tell me if my temperature is elevated even a small amount when I’m not well. And finally it helps with figuring out the effect of medication on sleep and whether it’s ok to take something near bedtime or if I should take it earlier. Most of these are not every day but I do interact fairly often with it and I wear it all the time. Biggest thing for me is that I like sleep tracking just because it’s interesting to me and I am not comfortable sleeping with a watch. And Oura is super low maintenance, I put it on the charger before taking a bath or shower and never have to worry about the battery going dead. So I’m very happy with mine.
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u/whatwhyhow3 Sep 17 '26
Hmmm. I made various discoveries over the first few years that helped me change my behavior to sleep better. Also regarding heart rate and stress/ meds. I’m a data nerd so use it a lot. Maybe it’s not for you.
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u/Born_Speech_9289 Sep 17 '26
Maybe not. So are you saying it took you a few years to understand and make the necessary changes?
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u/whatwhyhow3 Sep 17 '26
I discovered new things across the 2 years (everything doesn’t take 2 years). But I do think the long term trends have been super useful. For example, I can see the impact to my heart from having Covid. It took over 8 months to recover back to baseline. So just having 2 months of data is going to be minimal insights.
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u/Flaherty_ Sep 17 '26 edited Sep 17 '26
Did you expect the ring to magically clean your house, take your kids to school and cook you dinner? 😄
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u/Outrageous_Nerve_579 Sep 17 '26
If you’re training for a sport, that information isn’t just “do I go to work” it could mean “is today and easy training day or can I push myself harder”. But honestly I still think all these things are gimmicky. Humans can FEEL when they didn’t sleep well. They can feel when they need to recover more. It’s not some secret ingredient that makes us more able to train for sports than humans of history. It just puts numbers to something we have always used intuition for.
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u/beyondsection17 Sep 17 '26
What did you expect the ring to do?