The Oura Ring is about to be an even more powerful wellness tracker for women’s health. Already the best smart ring you can buy today, Oura is tweaking the algorithm behind the daily Readiness Score to take into account natural biometric fluctuations that happen during a user’s menstrual cycle.
So, whether you have the latest Oura Ring 4 or an older model, here’s everything you need to know about the Oura Readiness Score algorithm update and how the changes to menstrual tracking might impact you.
Oura’s new daily Readiness Score
Daily readiness scores, often on a scale from one to 100, are fairly common not just in smart rings but in smartwatches too. The latest Pixel Watch, Samsung Galaxy wearables and best Garmins all offer them. However, this metric is almost always based entirely on a user’s sleep and workout habits along with vitals readings. But natural hormonal shifts resulting from one’s cycle are rarely considered.
“The menstrual cycle has a profound impact on women’s health and overall well-being, which is why we’re dedicated to ensuring our app features accurately reflect the latest scientific understanding of the physiological changes women experience,” says Holly Shelton, Chief Product Officer at Oura.
With the new algorithm, Oura’s Readiness Score promises a smarter interpretation of changes in a user’s logged vitals signs. This means that those who have signed up for the device’s Cycle Insights will now be less likely to see lower-than-expected Readiness Scores because of biometric shifts resulting from their cycle.
Previously, a recorded lower-than-average heart or elevated body temperature at night might generate a warning for possible body strain, even when those fluctuations are completely normal.
For example, several days before ovulation during the follicular phase, it’s not unusual for a woman’s body temperature and/or heart rate to drop slightly. On the flip side, an elevated heart rate during the luteal phase is also normal. Now, those changes should be better anticipated and understood by Oura.
Ours says that the update should impact as many as 35% of users currently seeing lower than expected Readiness Scores and those folks should see their daily score increase by 3-4%.
Oura’s mental health pregnancy study
Along with the Readiness Score update, Oura also announced a new partnership with the Scripps Research Digital Trials Center to better understand physiological changes that women may experience during pregnancy. The partnership will see Oura collect data from 10,000 users who have worn their Oura Ring through pregnancy sometime in the last three years.
‘[The study] aims to advance public understanding of pregnancy-related conditions and identify potential warning signs of complications such as postpartum depression, miscarriage risk, and pre-term labor,’ according to an Oura blog post.
Users interested in participating in the study can enroll directly through the Oura app.
