Smart rings are quite an appealing tech wearable and the Oura ring 3
is arguably the smart ring to own having now worn the Oura ring 3 almost every day
since its launch over the last few months including abroad in Thailand
during this time i feel like i might have made a mistake with this purchase though
Hey friends, Andrew here hope you're well there's good reasons why i feel like this
purchase could be a mistake don't get me wrong there are things that i love about
this ring but there's quite a few pitfalls with the Oura ring 3 i feel like i should
share before we go over the positives so as much as i dislike having a pessimistic outlook let's
start with the negatives in this particular review and there's frankly a few to get through the first
thing you'll come across is of course the price it's not exactly cheap and pricing borders on
smartwatch territory the Oura ring i have here is a size 10 in heritage silver which will set
you back 299 us dollars the stealth black and gold finish will set you back an additional 100
it's a price point that isn't exactly cheap but not ridiculously expensive either given what's on
offer here which is a light compact stylish and detailed sleep and fitness tracker the pricing
in itself isn't exactly a negative but it's the new and controversial subscription model Oura has
now forced onto existing and new customers so we now have to pay six dollars a month to access the
insights and features that all ring one and two users had for free but are there any new features
that we get with the monthly fee well the new features like blood oxygen measurements and
improved sleep stage tracking aren't even yet available on launch and even three months later
we do get a small library of guided meditation and focus videos but that's hardly worth the monthly
fee and anywhere you cut it there's something off-putting about having to pay a monthly fee to
access our own health metrics and data i totally understand it's a business model at the end of the
day Oura is running an investor backed business but here is the thing that i guess irks me to
me with the subscription fee and delayed features Oura seems to be running a crowdfunding campaign
by buying or upgrading to the Oura rank 3 it feels like we're sort of financing what is essentially
an unfinished product they're basically leveraging and nudging the current customers
from the gen 1 and 2 rings to become investors into the gen 3 ring but i guess that aside
what if you're watching this as a current gen 2 ring owner what are the differences and is
it worth the upgrade well the largest difference is you're getting more sensors on the ring extra
infrared led sensors an advanced calibrated sensor and four extra temperature sensors this means more
accurate tracking and more features in theory they're set to be released in late 2022 which
by then would have been a year since the launch of the Oura ring 3. anyway those are the negatives i
feel like we've spent enough time on the negatives let's move on to a more positive note the design
of the Oura ring is arguably its selling point minimal sleek and distraction free it's literally
just a ring and a nice looking one at that the shimmer of the heritage silver the nicely edged
flat top it all adds to its allure as a piece of jewellery and this is coming from someone who
is absolutely not a ring person i've had next to nobody noticed this ring and that's a good thing
it's discreet just like it's intended to be there are no screens or notifications
to distract you and it's so comfortable to wear i forget it's on my finger entirely
these reasons alone is why i've worn the oil ring every day and that's what counts
to get real value out of your tech wearable you need to be well wearing it as much as possible
it's also really nice to have the choice to wear a mechanical watch with the ring or no watch at all
because i really need to get rid of this permanent apple watch tan that i got while traveling
but overall i cannot fault the oil rings terrific and understated design adding to its charm as a
piece of jewelry the battery life is by far the most durable out of any piece of tech i own right
now unsurprising given that it has such a small footprint but there's a freedom that's afforded
when you don't have to charge a piece of tech for days on end like i mentioned i was abroad for two
weeks at the start of the year and only had to charge it just once during that trip the ring can
be fully charged in just 30 to 40 minutes and it's worth pointing out that unlike the Oura ring 2
and the one the Oura Ring 3 monitors battery consumption and smartly conserves battery
based on consumption patterns the new charger now also includes an led light to indicate the
status of charging which is always useful the accompanying app is just as appealing as the
design of the ring itself i've always found the fitbit and even apple watch app interfaces to be
pretty ugly the aurora app is both aesthetic and informative on the home page you have
your daily summary which i check every morning and it gives me my sleep score and the famous
readiness score it's a score calculated based on readiness contributors such as sleep activity and
body stress i typically dive in deeper and look at the detailed readiness and sleep tabs in the app
and honestly it gives you more data than you know what to do with but once you dive deep
into the metrics and get an understanding of what each means it can be incredibly useful for example
i find the heart rate variability metric to be extremely useful and telling me whether
i'm under the weather before i even know it a high hrv means my body is running optimally
while a sudden drop in hiv overnight might tell me that my body is recovering
similarly the sleep metrics are very deep yet simple to read at a glance there is one thing that
i find extremely odd when comparing the o-ring to the fitbit and it's the fact that steep sleep time
and rem sleep seemed to be flipped so where are my fitbit i struggled to get an hour of deep sleep
i'm now getting two to three hours according to the oil ring and my rem sleep seems to now be
the metric that sits at an hour so it's basically flipped i will say this though and i hate to say
it but the sleep metrics on the fitbit seem to reflect how i truly felt in person when
i woke up in the morning more accurately than the oil ring i don't know if this is placebo
but i think there's something to be said about the fitbit and it's accurate tracking the good
news is Oura sleep stage tracking is set to be significantly improved as soon as they roll it out
but again this should have been completed before they launched the new ring in the first place so
overall honestly there are many great pros and likewise many cons with the Oura ring 3. it's a
beautifully packaged sleep and activity tracker that's incredibly robust in its data given its
form factor the beautiful app is also informative and stands above other health apps that i've used
but the fact we now need to pay a monthly subscription for our own health data that is
rightly ours doesn't sit well with me to add fuel to the fire if you're an early adopter
we're penalized due to the lack of new features that are currently in development
i can't help but feel like Oura has treated their new customers and even existing customers
as beta testers for their latest product and for these reasons i'm hesitant in
wholeheartedly recommending the oil ring but despite this and maybe ironically it's still
my favorite wearable because it's the wearable that i wear most the design is arguably what
draws me in and the robust tracking is what keeps a ring on my finger so if you're on the fence
here is my recommendation if you value health and sleep data as much as you value design and jewelry
for example then honestly this is the wearable for you maybe just wait until they've nutted out the
features and released everything they initially promised such as improved sleep stage tracking
blood oxygen tracking and workout heart rate those things will come so you might want to wait until
they've fully released all the features anyway drop the codeword comments smart ring if you've
made it this far into the video and i'll give it a like if you enjoyed this honest review
do drop a like and subscribe for more tech and business videos as always thank you for watching