I believed I was sleeping well, this fitness ring revealed just how wrong I was
While I write on technology and often have a ringside view of all that is happening in the world of personal tech and AI, I
While I write on technology and often have a ringside view of all that is happening in the world of personal tech and AI, I am not an enthusiastic user of tech. In fact, I tend to avoid it. I believe I know personal tech too much, too well. And as the saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. In the world of tech there are way too many “solutions” roaming around in search of problems. I mostly don’t have the kind of problems that some gadget or app can solve. Read Full Story Yet, recently I was proven wrong by a piece of technology — a fitness ring. To be specific, the one called Oura Ring 4, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. Although I sensed the potential and usability that the Ring would have for some people, I believed it would not be terribly useful to most. It looks nice and expensive on the finger with its titanium body and all the gadgetry inside it. Yet compared to something like Apple Watch, it is also limited in its feature set. But a bigger reason why I did not give the Ring 4 its full due in that review was also my belief that we have no need to collect so much data on ourselves and our bodies. With these devices, so often flaunting the latest tech and collecting data becomes the end goal. For example, taking 10,000 steps becomes the goal instead of feeling better and lighter. Similarly taking deep breaths and recording it in an app every hour becomes more important, sometimes even turning into an obsession that adds to, and not reduces, stress. Then there is esoteric data most people, who are generally healthy, don’t need to know. For example, you don’t need to track your blood oxygen level every hour, or every day, or even every week. Or your VO2 max. Or your gait length.
And so on. Long story short, I am not sold on cool gadgets and gazillion sensors. So, I put the Oura Ring 4 on my finger with skepticism. Several weeks later I believe that 24-hours fitness tracking is still somewhat unnecessary but if you must do it, maybe try to do it with the Ring 4, or something similar. It is the least intrusive way to do it, and arguably the most useful given how well the Ring 4 tracks sleep. Sleep. That is the main reason why I am now an evangelist for a good fitness ring. Before I started using the Ring 4, I only tracked my sleep once or twice, as part of reviewing a smartwatch or two. In general I find it cumbersome to wear something on the wrist while sleeping. But the Ring 4 is different. It is, given its size and shape, nonintrusive. And the data it collects is genuinely useful. The Oura Ring 4 collects a lot of useful data during sleep. It also proved me wrong. I have never been a great sleeper. But I also have not been particularly bad at it. Before I started using the Ring I believed I was sleeping between 7 to 8 hours every night, which meant adequate sleep. When I looked at the data, the Ring 4 told me I was wrong. Instead, it recorded that I was spending between 7 to 8 hours in bed but was sleeping only around 6 hours, which is apparently on the lower side. Before falling asleep and after waking up, while still in bed, I was scrolling news on my phone for tens of minutes. I knew it but never realised the extent of it until it was laid out as an irrefutable fact in the Oura app. Additionally, the Ring 4 collects data on quality of sleep. This is measured across several parameters. This data too helped explain why some days even after spending 8 hours in bed I woke up feeling groggy and lethargic.
The BriefWire