The Oura Ring is upgrading its existing features to better assist you if you're pregnant or perimenopausal, a new demographic for the ring. Oura is well known for its holistic sleep and wellness insights and already supports pregnant individuals, but this upgrade improves its data insights to help you look at everything from the gestational stages, trends related to temperature, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and more.
Oura's traditional data markers based on readiness, sleep, rest mode and recovery mode are included for pregnant members. They will also be able to tag their symptoms if they experience cramps, nausea and cravings, for example.
Users will also have access to pregnancy-aware cycle insights that contain reproductive health history, which looks at previous cycles and current pregnancy, to help better understand how the data changed before, during and after pregnancy. This could be particularly helpful if you're looking to get pregnant again and want to compare your pregnancy and postpartum experiences to determine the best way to take care of yourself.
Oura is targeting the perimenopausal crowd with its newest standout feature, which will be available through Cycle Insights found in the Oura app. Over the past few years, there's been an increased interest in perimenopause and menopausal stages, a topic often under-addressed in the wellness space. Now, people are interested in learning how to spot the signs you're in perimenopause or menopause, how to prepare for them and how to make it a more tolerable experience, since these stages often come with uncomfortable symptoms such as mood changes, hot flashes and sleep disturbances.
The new Cycle Insights feature provides a 12-question assessment that quantifies symptoms to give you an "impact to quality of life" score. With all this data, Oura provides a PDF report that can be shared with your doctor so they can view insights on symptoms and other data.
Additionally, Oura has teamed up with wellness apps that connect you to expert care through Maven, Midi Health and Evernow, to name a few. These apps allow you to explore treatment options, hormone therapy and other methods to keep you supported during perimenopause and beyond.
I previously tested the Oura ring, and it's one of my favorite smart rings on the market because it's constantly striving to improve its software and takes into consideration the types of people attracted to its technology. These improved features make it more inclusive toward parents-to-be and individuals going through menopause. I could see other smart wellness wearables following suit, since this is a growing demographic. Having this type of information will make it easier for those in these life stages to better understand how these changes are affecting their bodies, and the data can be easily shared with medical providers.