There are many fitness devices on the market today and more are coming. One of the newest shape points is the wise ring, and the Finnish company ŌURA is preeminent in this area. I sat down to talk with the company’s CEO, Tom Hale, to ask him about fitness metrics and how he sees the impact of Samsung’s newly launched Galaxy Ring.
A smart ring has several advantages over a phone or watch. For starters, it’s with you 24 hours a day, silently recording data. You may wear a watch on your wrist while you sleep, but a ring is much more discreet. “Well, it’s a philosophical choice,” Hale says, “being kind of a calm technician, it’s not about asking for your commitment. I’m joking that it’s not another virtual mouth to power, and the fact is that battery control is another one in a gadget with a screen.
Sleep tracking is key for ŌURA, and Hale explains why: “We sleep soundly. There’s a strategic explanation for this, and that’s that the knowledge you gather when you sleep, your structure is more or less in the same physical state: you’re sleeping, you’re in your bed most of the time. It’s a peaceful environment with few gentle distractions. You don’t have to deal with other points like a stressful day or climbing stairs. All those things that can disturb what is general to you. And that’s powerful, because when we track your sleep, we can make comparisons over time, and what feeds the data is deviations from your baseline, which is general for you.
And the tracking done through the Oura Ring is silent and recorded in the background. “Passive tracking is power,” Hale tells me. I think in the future everyone will have a smartphone and then have a device on their frame that will monitor their fitness. I just think that’s how other people will live their lives, because it’s too hard not to know what their physical condition is. Physical condition is or if it is evolving. If you get sick, you get pregnant, no matter what.
Oura Rings have something called cardiovascular age on all Generation 3 models. “This is a new feature we just launched which compares your cardiovascular age to your real age. What’s interesting is that the main way people have tracked heart health is resting heart rate. I think, you know, people started learning that if you had a lower resting heart rate, that was good. And if you had a high resting heart rate, maybe you should be working harder. But what is the moment at which you measure it? We look at something different.”
The metric the company takes into account is PWV, pulse wave velocity, which is essentially the speed at which blood flows through its formula. “If your formula is young, flexible and healthy, it expands and contracts, so your PWV deserves to be lower. If it is clogged or less flexible, your PWV will be higher. And we can compare the PWV for you with that of others people who are like you, the same age, the same history, etc. , and not that assessment of your cardiovascular age. The fact is that this is changing: it is not a static measurement like your resting core rate. .
This is a new metric that, like others introduced through ŌURA, only appears on your Android phone or iPhone. Some features, such as Oura Labs, are express for iPhone. Oura Labs includes the ability to stumble upon when you get Covid or another flu. -Like a disease. A set of rules stumbles upon a trend breakout and can then let you know that you’re probably about to get sick. “Would we say that he contracts Covid? No, of course not. Because Covid and a bloodless can simply manifest in the same way. But what we can say is that you will probably replace your habit now and get more sleep, drink more fluids, and try to take it easy. All the things you can do to avoid getting sick.
Samsung recently unveiled the Galaxy Ring. Me I ask what Hale thinks of this, and I notice that he doesn’t seem concerned about a giant logo encroaching on his domain. “I think it’s massive validation for the category,” he says, “and I think it’s telling that it’s a smartphone vendor that’s pushing this concept of entering the ring space. It has definitely taken a step forward in the awareness of our logo and has increased the number of other people who perceive us, and we are the leader in the category. What happens now is that we know how complicated it is. We have been committed for 10 years not only to engineering, but also to the science of knowledge and the creation of algorithms and artificial intelligence to perceive and interpret, so that we can deliver the right message at the right time.
There’s a great explanation for why it’s not a concern, I’d say: while it’s a huge success, the Galaxy Ring is compatible with iOS, so for the not insignificant number of people who own an iPhone, the Oura Ring is still the apparent choice.
And while Samsung doesn’t charge a subscription for certain features and metrics like ŌURA ($6 per month) does, the Galaxy Ring costs more upfront, selling at $399. As for the subscription fee, Hale says, “The truth is, it’s a very modest amount of cash to pay for your health. And what we’re seeing in our retention rates and in our visitor satisfaction metrics is that other people are getting a great price from them. They replace their behavior. They go to bed earlier. They eat their food earlier in the day. They are much more conscious of their health, and the price of that is incalculable.
No CEO will talk about their company’s roadmap, but I wonder if adding new features like cardiovascular age means there’s even more to come. “This site on the human body, the finger, is a wonderful position to measure, so that there are a lot of things that, honestly, haven’t even been explored. We can see something called pulse morphology, which is the actual shape of the pulse. So what data is encoded in this, that hasn’t been guessed yet, because, frankly. Has anyone been able to take a look at this?
Again, Hale explains how some metrics may be less useful. “If you take a look at the ECG, for example, a lot of things can alter the data: what the environment is like, etc. , but when we follow up at night, we can see essentially consistent features in their center frequency signal. And from there, I think we can extract some literally compelling data because from the fidelity, the frequency of the pattern, and the data encoded there, we can outline things. And again, it’s custom designed for you, it’s precision, it’s your moment in time. I think it’s a position where we haven’t fully explored all the opportunities yet. There will be some new and interesting things in the long run for Oura. Ring.
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