Adieu Oura
It was nice wearing you so long.
They stopped shipping to India. I guess due to regulations. I had an Oura ring since Dec 2018. Good 4 years. If my memory serves me right, the first one I had was a Gen 1 Oura ring? . It was on me every moment since I got it, except for the days when a replacement was on its way after about 10 months and I couldn’t use it etc. I got the Gen 2 due to battery issues, if I’m not wrong.
I got upgraded to the Get 3 during the pandemic in 2021. This was mostly a forced upgrade, the battery wasn’t lasting more than 3 days and Oura was advertising the 3rd gen very heavily. I got the one shipped to my friends place in the US to collect during my trip there. I think, they had stopped shipping to India in 2020 as I was able to get them previous ones delivered while paying a small customs fee. Furthermore, I didn’t like the monthly subscription model for the gen 3, but they had forced it upon all of us. Being a loyal user, I continued with the subscription running hoops, circumventing RBI regulations on subscriptions using regular Indian credit cards. They didn’t charge me for 6 months, as promised, as they were still launching features and what not.
Software and firmware upgrades were very prompt, and that’s when the battery continued to deteriorate. Usually, these rings last at least 5 days if not 6 or 7, but as they added sensors and features, the ring and battery life continued to dwindle. While the workout feature was great, nobody perhaps everybody was tracking their workouts using the ring. What’s the point of tracking if there isn’t a display, and you can’t monitor the workout in real time like using an Apple Watch/Garmin etc. At least in my case, I had an Apple Watch/Garmin recording the activity. So that feature didn’t matter much. I was always only interested in the sleep tracking feature.
By Sept 21 the battery was so bad that I had to charge the watch twice in a day to get one full day’s worth of tracking to go through. Guess what?, It was some battery draining bug in the firmware. The firmware improved subsequently, but the battery was already depleted badly that it could last only a day, unlike the claimed 5–7 days. I reached out to support and as usual, they were very helpful and processed a new ring my way. Only this time that replacement ring couldn’t get that delivered over to me in India, and they promptly processed a refund of the order when I reached out on no delivery of the replacement ring that was promised.
Well, since the ring didn’t last enough, it didn’t make sense for me to continue the membership, they had charged at least 4 months by then, so I cancelled in December. The app features lasted for a month since my cancellation, as they retried charging me for a few more weeks and the app became useless as of yesterday. They just show me a day’s worth of a readiness score. No other information whatsoever. The ring had tracked my sleep, HR etc. Displaying one day’s worth of data was fine, but not giving me the recording of that one day was the issue, just a number doesn’t cut it. I called it quits and removed the ring.
It was a decent 4-year relationship. It had its ups and downs, they replaced 2 rings, their support was excellent and helpful for the most part. Their sleep tracking was top-notch. It blew my mind every time that the ring was able to tell me so much about my sleep and heart, and their scores were near accurate about how I felt when I woke up. The scores were helpful to decide, how I should take my day. It helped to review my progress with trainings, workouts, etc. Sadly, this relationship had to end. Using this ring from a country that has too many regulations to get the ring delivered and then pay the monthly fees is too much work. At some point in a relationship, delivery to US despite living in India, PayPal payments in USD because Indian credit card limits with subscription payments and what not was too much to last forever.
To top it all off, the Apple Watch Ultra sleep tracking is definitely acceptable, if not on par with Oura. IMO, Ultra’s HR tracking is certainly better, and I can only say that their sleep algorithms are going to only get better as more users onboard and continue using it. That’s where I am now. Apple Watch ultra delivers my metrics and I’m reliant on apps like Welltory, Athlytic, and AutoSleep for my needs. I don’t get a readiness score like Oura does, but it’s still me getting used to the scores from Athlytic.
