in today's video i'm going to be
reviewing the aura ring
and my experience with it over the last
two years the aura ring is a sleep and
activity tracker that measures
everything from your sleep cycles
to your steps to your heart rate and
heart rate variability
it uses this data to help you determine
how well rested your body is
and how hard you can push it during your
next workout
but does it live up to the hype and how
does it compare to
other wearable devices that track sleep
and activity
i've been wearing the aura ring for over
two years now
and i have a lot to say about it some
good things
and some not so good things so in
today's video i'm going to break it all
down
and let you know if i think it's worth
the hefty price tag
hey guys welcome back to my channel if
you're new here my name is kate i'm a
health coach and i post videos on a high
fat nutrient-dense way of eating
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every single day i'm going to start
today's video off telling you about what
the aura ring
is and how you can use it then we will
get into what i like about it and what i
don't like about it
and i will finish off by giving you my
final verdict
the ora ring is a wearable device that
you wear on your finger
it monitors your body's pulse movement
and temperature
and uses this data to help you track
your sleep activity and recovery
through a mobile app every day the aura
ring app will give you three scores out
of 100
a sleep score an activity score and a
readiness score
the sleep score of course is based on
how well you slept
it takes into account the duration of
your sleep the timing of your sleep
how long it took you to fall asleep how
many times you woke up during the night
your resting heart rate your heart rate
variability
and how long it took your heart rate to
stabilize the activity score
sets a goal for how many calories you
should burn during the day
based on your sleep and readiness if you
have been meeting
this daily goal how active you are
throughout the day
your training volume and your recovery
time and then the readiness score is
based on
your sleep score your resting heart rate
your heart rate variability
your body temperature compared to your
baseline how recovered you are
your previous day's activity and your
sleep balance
and when you get a score of 85 or above
in any of these categories
you get a little crayon to reward you
this doesn't really do anything but it
does make you feel
pretty good now because you wear this
device on your finger
the tracking is more accurate than
wearable devices that you wear
on your wrist this is partly to do with
the placement on your wrist it is more
likely to move
but it also has to do with the fact that
the sensors in the aura ring
are a lot more advanced than most
watches on the market
one of the metrics aurarin can track
that most wearable devices can't
is heart rate variability or hrv hrv
is the variance between your heartbeat a
higher hrv score indicates your
heartbeats have more variance
while a lower score indicates less
variance
and you might automatically think that
lower would be better
but it's actually the opposite a higher
hrv with more variance
means your heart is responding quicker
to changes
in summary high hrv is associated with
rest and digest
general fitness and good recovery
whereas a low hrv
is associated with fight or flight
stress
illness or over training now your
baseline hrv is highly individual
so there's no standard for what you
should aim for aura ring
will tell you how your hrv compares to
your baseline
and will use that in its calculations
there is also a new feature as of 2019
called movement which takes you through
a guided or unguided meditation
and can help you to get your heart rate
down and hrv
up all right so i basically told you
that aura ring gives you a lot of data
but what can you use this data for there
are a lot of different ways you can use
the oral ring to improve your health
number one you can use it to track your
sleep
this is what the aura ring is most well
known for
sleep tracking or ring is able to tell
when you are in different sleep cycles
awake light sleep deep sleep and round
sleep
this is super handy because while you
may be getting enough sleep time wise
the quality of that sleep could be
lacking
it is so important to make sure you are
getting the right amount of deep sleep
and rem sleep especially deep sleep is
when your body is doing the most
recovery
human growth hormone is released during
this sleep cycle allowing your tissues
to repair and grow
whereas rem sleep is important for your
brain it stimulates the areas of your
brain that are essential for learning
and making or retaining memories if you
are lacking in either one of these
your health will suffer number two
tracking activity
aura ring also tracks your steps and
your heart rate throughout the day
if you wear it during exercise it will
also be able to give you an idea of how
much
energy you exerted after you're done
number three
tracking recovery putting the sleep and
activity data together
will give you an idea of how well
recovered you are heart rate variability
which we touched on before
and also your resting heart rate are key
here
high hrv and low rhr means you are well
recovered
low hrv and high rhr
mean you are still recovering there are
other factors that could be a sign of
good or bad recovery as well
some of which being how long it took you
to fall asleep your body temperature
and your sleep timing now i know this
seems like a lot of data
but you don't have to dig into it all if
you don't want to
because the aura ring does that for you
every day when you open your app there
will be tips and suggestions
based on your results for example if you
had a poor night's sleep and your body
is not fully recovered
or a ring will suggest you take it easy
and maybe skip the gym that day
on the flip side if you had an amazing
sleep and have a high
hiv signaling you are well recovered
aura will suggest
it is a good time to have a hard workout
number four
monitoring trends aurang will also track
trends over time
and allow you to view this data in
graphs you can view this data for pretty
much every metric or ring uses
from total sleep time and time in each
sleep cycle
to your resting heart rate and hrv you
can also add tags on different days
and track trends with those as well for
example
every time you have a glass of wine in
the evening you can use the alcohol tag
and this will give you a better sense of
how alcohol affects you
number five tracking your menstrual
cycle this
only applies to women of course but this
is one of the most handy things about
the rrn
as hormone levels change throughout your
cycle your body temperature varies as
well
in the luteal phase of your cycle just
before your period
your body temperature goes up and i'll
talk a little bit more about this
in just a second okay so that was a
pretty in-depth
summary of what the aura ring is how it
works
and how you can use it now we'll get
into
my thoughts what i like about aura ring
number one the sleep tracking feature
hands down the sleep tracking is my
absolute favorite feature
and as far as i can tell from my
experience and from what i've read
the sleep tracking is very accurate and
aura ring has allowed me to see how
different things i'm doing
affect my sleep alcohol for example
horrible for my sleep less rem
less deep sleep my hrv tanks my resting
heart rate goes up
sometimes my body temperature goes up as
well
and i know some people say that having a
glass of wine or having a beer helps
them to sleep
while it may help you to fall asleep
that doesn't mean
that it's helping your sleep quality and
aura ring
makes this pretty clear number two is
the heart rate variability tracking
like i said before most wearable devices
do not track this
and why it's so important is for
recovery
it really is a key metric engaging how
recovered you are
now if you don't exercise that much then
this might not matter to you
but if you are someone who works out
regularly then
this is just so great number three
tracking my cycle as i mentioned earlier
during your menstrual cycle
your body temperature varies in the
luteal phase
just before your period your body
temperature will go up
and this can help you to predict when
your next period will be
when i see my body temperatures start to
rise
i know what's on the way number four the
simplicity
i really like the layout of the app and
how easy it is to navigate
right from the home page you can see all
three of your scores and you can click
on any one of them
for further details aura provides you
with a lot of data
but the simplicity of the app makes it
not overwhelming
and number five is that it is a one-time
purchase
yes the price tag is pretty steep coming
in at 400
us dollars minimum but it is a one-time
purchase
one of our rings biggest competitors
whoop which offers similar tracking
for sleep and activity uses a
subscription model where you must pay
thirty dollars a month
in order to use the device and the app
this adds up to three hundred and sixty
dollars a year
so less than aura in the first year but
beyond that
it adds up pretty fast what i don't like
and now what i don't like about the aura
ring
number one the activity tracker
honestly the activity tracker is not
great
the steps are not accurate it doesn't
allow you to start and record a workout
it records based on when it thinks
you're working out and the activity
you're doing
and you can change the activity type
after
and this means that you can't upload the
stats of your workout to an app
like strava which is a bit of a bummer
and you can't see any data while you're
working at
such as the duration of your workout
your heart rate
and your respiratory rate all of which
would be good to know the other problem
i have is something
i'm not sure of the solution to because
it is a ring
if you're doing any weight lifting it
can be quite uncomfortable
when i'm doing deadlift for example the
barbell and the ring
pinch my skin together which isn't great
the good news here is that the app will
sync with google fit
or apple fit so if you record your
workout elsewhere
like on a watch or other device then it
will
upload to aura and will use that data
when calculating your different scores
so this is kind of a workaround
but it does defeat the purpose of the
aura ring being an
activity tracker number two is the
battery life
on aura's website they say the battery
can last up to seven
days before needing a charge and i will
say that for the first year
my ring would probably last about four
to five days before i had to charge it
but after that i couldn't go more than a
day and a half
so because of this and also because it's
just not a great activity tracker
i've stopped wearing my ring during the
day entirely and i only wear it at night
which is fine i use my watch to record
my workouts and
like i said it does upload to the aura
app
but i mean it's not ideal
all things considered i do really love
my aura ring
it's become a big part of my routine to
wake up
check my scores and plan my day from
there there's been days where i was
going to work out but the ring has
convinced me that i probably need a rest
day
and on the flip side there have been
days where
i kind of wanted to skip my workout
and aurang convinced me not to it has
allowed me to see how different factors
affect my sleep
working out in the morning first working
out in the evening eating one hour
before bed
versus eating three hours before bed
wearing my blue light blocking glasses
or not
i get noticeably more rem when i wear my
blue light blockers from
sunset until i'm going to bed and i also
fall asleep
easier and like i said before aura
provides a lot of data
but the simplicity of the app makes it
not overwhelming
the design of the ring is also very
minimal making it easy to wear day to
day
without being obnoxious i do really wish
the fitness tracker was better because
i would prefer to wear just this than to
wear my watch every day
but in summary i think that if you are
someone who is looking to improve their
sleep
or to track their recovery the aura ring
is awesome
this would be great for you but if
you're looking for an
activity tracker not so much anyways
guys i hope you enjoyed this video and
that it helped you to decide whether the
aura ring is right for you or not
i mentioned earlier in the video about
the woop band i think it's called the
loop band
which is one of oroving's competitors
and i actually just purchased one and
signed up for a six
month subscription so i'm gonna be
trying that out
let me know if you would like a review
on that once i've tried it out for a
couple of months
i'm really interested to see how it
compares to the ring which
like i said i do really love this
especially for sleep
let me know in the comments down below
if you have tried the aura ring
and what your thoughts are if you
enjoyed this video you might also like
my video on the benefits of red light
therapy which you can check out here
if you want to catch up on my most
recent upload you can click here
and if you want to check out my keto and
carnivore diet coaching programs you can
click here
thanks again guys i'll see you next time
[Music]
bye