Oura Ring vs Apple Watch Fitness Tracker
If you could only use the Apple Watch, or the Oura Ring, which would be the best fitness tracker for you? Tom's Guide's face-off the Apple Watch and Oura Ring in a series of tests for activity and sleep-tracking to find the strengths (and weaknesses) of each device.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00In the year plus that I've been using an Oura Ring,
00:04it has served me several ways in my day-to-day life.
00:06But more than anything, it's a conversation starter.
00:09When people see this smart ring on my index finger,
00:12they want to know whether it's worth it
00:14and what the Oura Ring can do for me
00:15that my Apple Watch can't.
00:18Still, after using it for over a year now,
00:20I've learned there's plenty that I like
00:22and also don't like about the Oura Ring.
00:24But the real question is,
00:25how does it compare to the Apple Watch?
00:27Two of the main functions of the Apple Watch
00:29and the Oura Ring are sleep tracking
00:31and activity tracking.
00:32However, there are pros and cons to doing so with each.
00:35First off, I'm heading to Human Apex Performance
00:38to take some tests and get measurements to compare
00:40against data that my Apple Watch and Oura Ring also collect.
00:43Now, to be perfectly clear,
00:44this is not going to be a test of my fitness.
00:47Instead, I'm going to see how the Apple Watch and Oura Ring
00:50compare to the professional tools in a sports lab.
00:55Hey, I'm Kate.
00:56Nice to meet you.
00:56Hey, Kate, nice to meet you.
00:57So we're gonna do two tests.
01:00We're gonna start with the resting metabolic rate piece,
01:01and then we're gonna go to a VO2 max test after that.
01:04All right, ready to go?
01:06I sound like Squidward.
01:11I actually do have an Apple Watch, which I'm wearing now.
01:14I like to know my heart rate zones,
01:15kind of how much I push myself that day.
01:18The Oura Ring doesn't measure heart rate
01:20throughout the day.
01:20It only gives you a snapshot every 15 minutes or so,
01:23but I do sleep with the Oura Ring,
01:24and that helps me kind of dictate, you know,
01:26what time to go to bed, what time to wake up.
01:29I like kind of keeping track of my deep sleep
01:31and my REM sleep.
01:32Sleep is one of the most important things we have.
01:34If I had to pick between an Oura Ring and Apple Watch,
01:37personally, I would use the Oura Ring,
01:39but I do know both together is the complete matrix of health.
01:43So the number you see here, 20, 30 kilocalories per day,
01:47is basically how many calories
01:48her resting metabolic rate is,
01:50meaning if she laid down on this table
01:52doing absolutely nothing all day,
01:53that's how many calories she needs
01:54to just sustain life function.
01:57My throat's dry.
01:59I'm so nervous.
02:01How long am I gonna be running for?
02:03We're trying to get you to maximal heart rate
02:04and also maximal oxygen uptake,
02:07and then once you finish the test,
02:08we're trying to see how your heart rate
02:10goes from high to low.
02:12While I'm running the test,
02:13you'll see the numbers on the machine,
02:15but I'm gonna be having my two iPhones here.
02:17One is hooked up to my Oura Ring,
02:18one is hooked up to my Apple Watch,
02:20and that way you'll be able to see
02:21my live workout heart rates on both.
02:24While the Apple Watch can give you your VO2 max,
02:26based on your activity throughout the day,
02:28it cannot give you a live VO2 max reading,
02:30so we're gonna take a look at that once my run is done.
02:33All right, so now if you're ready to get started,
02:34we're gonna get you hooked up to the mask,
02:35and then we can start going.
02:38No turning back now.
02:44Put in a good position.
02:49So we're starting at a light jog, 0% incline,
02:52and then at about two minutes in,
02:53we're gonna increase the grade about 2%,
02:55and then the speed about three to 5%.
02:59Keep going for as long as you can stay
03:00in the front of that treadmill.
03:06Good.
03:07Now you're gonna begin the heart rate recovery period,
03:09so you're just gonna breathe here.
03:11See if your heart rate goes naturally down.
03:15All right, congratulations.
03:17You can breathe now.
03:19Oh goodness.
03:21That was harder than I was expecting.
03:22Yeah.
03:24As you can see, the blue here is the heart rate.
03:25I kind of jumped around a little bit.
03:27Once you put on the mask,
03:28and it feels a little bit like breathing is harder,
03:31and your heart rate usually jumps up a little bit,
03:32and then it kind of steadies out.
03:34I see a little up and down.
03:36The maxes on both of these tests,
03:38it had about 174 for the Oura Ring and the Apple Watch,
03:42and then on our tests,
03:42we had about 168 for your max heart rate.
03:45One thing to note is that these could overestimate
03:48the actual heart rate a little bit,
03:50that it thinks you're working harder
03:52at the pace that you're going,
03:54which means that this could underestimate your VO2 max.
03:58Okay, so if I were an athlete,
04:00I'd really want an accurate reading.
04:03It's like what I need to be looking for when I'm training,
04:06but if that's not me,
04:07do you think I'm still getting accurate enough data
04:09from my wearables?
04:11I'm impressed that the Oura Ring and the Apple Watch's data
04:14were so similar to what we actually got on the test.
04:17When I did research on how valid the Oura Ring
04:20and Apple Watch's VO2 max measurement was,
04:23it was definitely a little bit of a margin of error
04:26off from what our actual value was,
04:29so I was a little surprised
04:30to see if the heart rates were so accurate
04:32because then you can get the heart rate zones
04:34from that result.
04:36I was definitely prepared for the worst,
04:38so the test was not as bad as I was expecting,
04:40but that also could be the fact that I was interested
04:43to see how my fitness wearables would perform.
04:46You know, I'm not a runner,
04:47but I do track my physical activity with these devices,
04:50and it's important to know that I'm getting accurate data.
04:53Now, I can leave here with a bit of peace of mind
04:55knowing that when it comes to heart rate,
04:57both my Oura Ring and my Apple Watch
04:59are giving me the measurements
05:01that I need to go about my day.
05:03You have no need to be skeptical
05:04about the data you're getting.
05:05So again, if that heart rate data
05:07is what's most important to you,
05:08you could just be using your Oura Ring
05:10to go about your workouts,
05:11but if you wanna get a closer look
05:12at those heart rate zones,
05:14that's when you might wanna look at an Apple Watch.
05:18Even in the controlled environment of the test,
05:20I still found myself glancing down at my Apple Watch.
05:23I still wanted to see my metrics,
05:25which is something that the Apple Watch can do
05:26during fitness tracking while the Oura Ring cannot.
05:29But I wouldn't count the Oura Ring out just yet.
05:31I'm gonna bring both my devices to a place
05:33where the Oura Ring really thrives.
05:38Sleep tracking is something
05:39that both the Apple Watch and Oura Ring can do.
05:42Each device tells you basic data
05:43like how much time total you spent asleep
05:45and even how much time you spent in each sleep stage cycle.
05:49But in my experience,
05:50the Oura Ring does take things one step further.
05:53For starters, the Oura Ring actually gives you a sleep score.
05:56Now your sleep score is a measure
05:58of your overall quality of sleep,
05:59but it pulls in some interesting data
06:01such as how much time you spent in bed,
06:03your sleep efficiency.
06:05That way you can kind of quantify how well you're sleeping
06:08and that gives you an actual number
06:09that you can track over time.
06:11The Apple Watch doesn't have a sleep score
06:12and I'm not saying that everything needs to be gamified,
06:15but it's a good way to track your trends over time
06:18if there is some actionable changes
06:19that you are making to your sleep.
06:21And for all the points of measurement that I mentioned,
06:23in the Oura app,
06:24there are information buttons pretty much everywhere
06:27so you can read further
06:28about what that data actually means.
06:30The Apple Health sleep section also has some literature,
06:33but it's not as thorough.
06:34And not only is the Oura app in general more thorough,
06:37but there's a lot of intuition
06:39built into the user experience.
06:40The best example of that is the bedtime window feature.
06:44Based on how well you slept the days before,
06:46your activity for the day,
06:47and kind of your general sleep trends,
06:49the Oura ring will send me a notification to my phone
06:52that also shows up on my Apple Watch
06:54telling me a couple hours
06:55before it thinks I should go to bed.
06:57And it makes that recommendation
06:59relative to how well I slept the days before,
07:01my activity for the day,
07:03how my sleep cycles have been generally,
07:05things like that.
07:06In comparison, Apple's sleep schedule feature
07:08is set by the user
07:09so you get the reminder at the same time every day
07:12when it's time to wind down for bed
07:14with no concern for how you slept the days before.
07:17My heart rate, my HRV.
07:22So as expected, the Apple Watch and the Oura ring
07:25both gave me my notifications
07:27to start getting ready for bed.
07:29So I actually acted on them
07:31and am winding down for the night.
07:33I had a really long day,
07:34so I know I'm hoping for a good night of sleep.
07:36Now, I don't know if you can tell by my choice of PJs,
07:39but being comfortable when I sleep is so important for me.
07:43So when I'm sleeping with wearables,
07:44that's something I have to consider.
07:45For the Apple Watch,
07:46I have to make sure I have the right band on.
07:48Some bands are just not comfortable to sleep with.
07:50I also need to make sure that it's in the sleep focus mode,
07:54otherwise the screen might go off
07:56and that's super disturbing in the night.
07:58Now, I don't have to worry about that with the Oura ring.
08:00Super discreet, forget it's there.
08:02The only thing I will say is sometimes
08:04if I'm sleeping on my arm weird
08:05or my finger gets swollen overnight,
08:07it might get a little uncomfortable.
08:08But overall, I'd have to say the Oura ring
08:10is the less invasive sleep tracker.
08:16Here we go.
08:19That's my snooze going off again.
08:23Yeah, good morning.
08:24It was honestly a bit of a struggle to get up this morning.
08:27I am super interested to take a closer look
08:31at the sleep tracking data from my Apple Watch
08:33and my Oura ring.
08:35But first, let me make sure the devices are charged.
08:37Let me get ready for the day
08:39and I'll catch up with you soon.
08:50So I've just had a look,
08:51and the first thing that I can see
08:52is that the Apple Watch and Oura ring
08:54have slightly different times
08:55for how much sleep I actually got.
08:57The Apple Watch says I got about nine hours
09:00and 15 minutes of sleep.
09:01The Oura ring puts me closer to eight hours and 50 minutes.
09:04A 25 minute difference or so
09:06seems like it would make a difference to me,
09:08but I should say that there's no way to know
09:10which one was actually accurate.
09:11This isn't something that we tested in a sleep lab.
09:13It's just kind of my perception of my overall rest.
09:16To that point, both devices give me different estimates
09:19of how much time I spent in each sleep stage cycle.
09:22For example, the Apple Watch says I spent two hours
09:24and 45 minutes in REM sleep,
09:26while the Oura ring says I spent just two hours
09:28and 15 minutes in REM sleep.
09:30But something that I see on both devices
09:33and is something that I look for
09:34when I test wearable devices
09:35is that they picked up that time in the middle,
09:38the night where I happened to wake up,
09:39and I can see that just before 4 a.m.,
09:42both devices detected that I was awake.
09:45Some other data that I can see from my sleep
09:47for both the Apple Watch and the Oura ring
09:48are my average oxygen saturation and my heart rate overnight.
09:52Now, I actually don't care much day to day
09:54about what those numbers look like,
09:56but for times that I'm not really taking care of myself
09:59or I'm traveling or I feel like I could be getting sick,
10:01I actually do wanna know that data.
10:03As of the Apple Watch Series 8,
10:05both devices have a skin temperature reader.
10:08But where the Oura ring actually uses that data
10:11for actionable advice is the readiness score.
10:14According to the Oura ring,
10:15my readiness score for today is an 81,
10:17which is good, not great.
10:19That could have to do with the fact
10:20I had a hard workout yesterday.
10:21I've been traveling quite a bit.
10:23So today I am gonna get some movement in,
10:25but I'm not gonna push myself too hard.
10:26For me personally, this readiness score means everything.
10:30I don't wanna get hurt.
10:31I don't wanna get sick.
10:32I wanna take care of myself
10:34so that I can be my best person every single day.
10:36And if I'm not sleeping right or recovering properly,
10:39I need to know these things.
10:41And I guess that's why I'm so surprised
10:43that the Apple Watch doesn't have a feature
10:44like this of its own.
10:45So when it comes to sleep tracking,
10:47I think the Oura ring has more to offer
10:48than the Apple Watch.
10:49And if I could only choose one device to sleep with,
10:52it probably would be the Oura ring.
10:54So in the end, I think that this test
10:56proved to be a bit more anecdotal than scientific,
10:58but I found the Apple Watch is the better activity tracker.
11:02It's better in the moment.
11:03You can see your data on the screen.
11:05And that's before digging into all the other features
11:07available through the Apple Watch
11:08with connectivity to the iPhone, mobile payments,
11:11things like that.
11:12The Oura ring on the other hand is the better sleep tracker
11:15because it has that recovery data.
11:17It's more discreet and comfortable to wear.
11:19Me, I like having both.
11:20I think I like to know both kinds of data.
11:23However, if you only could have one of these devices,
11:26consider activity tracking or sleep tracking,
11:28which is more important to you.
11:30Be sure to let me know in the comments
11:31which device you would pick.
11:33And if you're curious about whether the Apple Watch Ultra
11:35could replace your iPhone, check out the video up here.
11:38In the meantime, see what we're doing on social,
11:40Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at Tom's Guide.
11:42And as always, I'm at Kate Kozich.
11:44Thanks for watching.
11:45I'll catch you next time.