 |
|
|
|||||
Smart rings have been a niche inside a niche in the wearables world for more than a decade. But in the last few years, theyve enjoyed a renaissance as more attention and hype brought bigger names to the category. Finnish company Oura has been around longer than most and is now the class leader despite fierce competition. At the end of last year, Oura released the Ring 4 to address the flaws of its predecessor and keep ahead of its now many imitators. Its easy to say that it remains a technological marvel, but harder to say if its worth a decent chunk of your hard-earned to get one. Hardware Daniel Cooper for Engadget Oura put a lot of effort into nipping-and-tucking the Ring 4, like ditching the epoxy resin interior for a full titanium body. The Ring 3, especially once it moved beyond its squared-off side, already looked like a fashion ring, and the Ring 4 continues in that vein. I wear my Oura Ring on my left index finger with a Vitaly Grip ring on the right to balance the look. And nobody can tell the difference between the two, which is just how it should be. Unlike a watch strapped in place, rings have a knack of turning on your finger through the day. To combat this drift, Ouras previous rings housed their sensors in raised domes on the inside surface to maintain contact with your flesh. I never found them uncomfortable, but it was an issue for some, which is why Oura has worked to re-package the sensors to fit flush. In lieu of that, theres now an ugly-ass notch on the ring to indicate the side that should be facing your palm at all times. Since it's easy for the sensors to be out of alignment, youre constantly at risk of poor quality data or, worse, gaps. Oura upped the number of signal pathways from eight on the Ring 3 to 18 here in order to maximize data collection. Plus, a new algorithm hunts for the most efficient way to pull data from those sensors to hopefully ensure gaps are a thing of the past. The Ring 4 is available in a wider number of sizes than its predecessor, fitting fingers from size 4 to 15. With a re-engineered ring comes a re-engineered charging dock thats a lot nicer, too. Unfortunately, its also slightly bigger and heavier, which is a burden when youre taking the ring on a trip lasting longer than seven days. If you already own an Oura Ring 3, then Id say that while the Ring 4 is nicer, more comfortable and more useful, its not so compelling to make you ditch an existing unit in good working order. In use Daniel Cooper for Engadget One downside of Ouras iterative update is that much of what I wrote about the Ring 3 remains true about the Ring 4. Once its on your finger, it should very quickly fade into the background of your day, and its plenty easy to forget. Naturally, youll do all of your interacting with the ring via its mobile app, which is one of the best available for a smart ring. Youll get regular notifications telling you how far through your daily activity goal you are, plus advice on when to get ready for bed. Itll also send the occasional reminder to get up and move if the ring feels youve been sitting for too long. Open the app and youll first be presented with a row of numbers showing your Readiness, Sleep, Activity, Heart Rate and Stress scores. Scroll down and youll get panes with more information about your activity goals, stress metrics and heart rate. If theres an issue, youll also get additional commentary about the problem and suggestions on how to improve. For instance, my resting heart rate dropped in the late evening because Id gone to town on a very big bag of Doritos. The ring knew, and told me that if I kept eating close to my bedtime, Id ruin the quality of my sleep. Keep scrolling and youll find your activity timeline, based on what the ring thinks youve been up to that day. Sadly, in my experience the system will frequently assume youre exercising when it sees movement plus an elevated heart rate. Itll often accuse me of doing some form of rigorous workout when, in reality, Im just going up and down stairs while I get my kids ready for school. If youre doing one type of activity, then itll pick it up as such but if youre chopping and changing for instance by doing circuits then itll be labeled as other. If, in fact, it gets labeled at all: I have had instances where walking to and from my gym was recognised, but nothing I was doing when I was actually working out counted. The app has a number of hidden depths, including the Explore section which hosts a small library of meditation content. Theres also Oura Labs, which is where the company shares its not-ready-for-prime-time features before theyre added to the platform proper. At present, the company is testing Oura Advisor, a conversational AI that gives you the same advice the app would anyway, just in a chat box format. Its also testing an AI-based food-tracking algorithm thatll discern what youre eating from a picture of your meal. Well get into the economics of this down in the Price section, but Oura paywalls a number of key features behind its Membership program. If you dont cough up, you wont get 24/7 heart-rate tracking, temperature monitoring, menstrual cycle insights, SpO2 and VO2 Max analysis. All of these features are essential if youre looking to get even the basic use out of your Ring 4. As for battery life, I wear a size 10 ring and over the last two months Ive fairly regularly wrung seven days out of the device before Im advised to find a charger. Naturally, the bigger rings have a bigger battery, and so your mileage may vary, but the company is promising up to eight days. Having lost a significant amount of weight in 2024, I would often find my Ring 3 sliding clean off my finger. Thankfully, if your rig is paired with your smartphone, youll now be able to see its last-known location through the app. Unfortunately, this is just using your phones GPS, so while youll be able to know if its in your home (or further afield), its no help finding which couch cushion it fell under. Consequently, itll still be worth picking up third-party developer Andreas Assermarks Find My Ring app, which will use the Bluetooth signal strength to help you pinpoint its location. Tracking activity, sleep and stress Daniel Cooper for Engadget Ive never believed wearables, or any consumer-grade health device, can or should be held to the same standard as a clinical model. The smarter approach is to trust the trend and look for patterns rather than obsess if you did 10,000 or 10,001 steps in a day. Especially as, for most people, if youve had a rough night or youre feeling like hell, you probably already know. What Oura offers is a lot of data which, if youre not happy with a single aggregate score, you can drill down into. Thanks to a British Airways snafu, I wasnt able to get my intended flight out to CES on January 4 and was waitlisted for the following day. That was a pretty stressful time given Id be letting the Engadget team down on a pretty crucial and busy week. Looking at the data now, I can see my resting heart rate spiked on Saturday and didnt settle for a few days. Oura also provides a metric for Daytime Stress, which aggregates your heart rate, HRV, motion and body temperature through the day. Whats interesting is that even if the ring is keeping an eye on my heart rate, there are several instances where it stops collecting stress data. For instance, that stressful Saturday, my heart was racing but theres no Stress metric from 7:45 to 11:15. A few days after I had some distressing personal news and while my heart rate spiked to 158bpm, the stress metric disappeared entirely. Ive already griped about the issues with automatic activity detection, even if it gets the bulk of its calls correct. I am often vexed, however, that itll often have a delay between you starting an activity and it beginning to track it. For instance, one of my regular lunchtime walks is to a local landmark 0.8 miles away from my home and back again. But often, the ring wont notice that Im out for a walk until Im a way down the road, curtailing my stats, even if it has my phones GPS to help. These are minor gripes but ones worth knowing if youre thinking about using the ring for more intensive insights. Nobody in their right mind would think about buying a smart ring in place of a smartwatch, but be aware the data youll get is not perfect. Theres one thing that Im very intrigued by, even if Im not in a position to test it right now, which is the recent tie-up between Oura and (Diabetes biosensor company) Dexcom. The partnership, announced November 2024, will see the two companies share data between their respective platforms. Plus, Dexcom has put $75 million behind the ring maker, pushing its valuation north of $5 billion. Price and the Competition The Oura Ring 4 is available for $349 if you opt for the default silver or black colorways. Should your taste extend to brushed silver or stealth, then youll need to pay $399, while the gold or rose gold paint jobs are $499. Before you buy, youll need to order a sizing kit the existing sizing kits are not compatible with the Oura 4 and are available in Size 4 through 15. As explained earlier, key features arent available for use unless you pay $5.99 a month or $70 a year for Oura Membership. Oura has been charging this fee since the launch of the Ring 3 and is, for now, a key plank of its business model. Now, plenty of companies will sell you their hardware and paywall off additional features for you to subscribe for afterward. I suspect the reason the Membership rankles so many people is that the features held back arent just nice to have, theyre essential. On a pragmatic level, small hardware businesses cant survive without the lifeblood recurring revenue from existing customers brings in. $70 a year is, to be blunt, your insurance ensuring that Oura doesnt go belly-up, turning your smart ring into a dumb one. Oura has been good at regularly adding more features to its platform, and allowing users to beta test them in Labs on the way. Plus, the company has been working with academics to help refine its data collection and prove its methods are sound. But the approach of charging for what should be basic features is always likely to rankle the users. And it gives Ouras rivals, which may not be as well-equipped, an easy stick with which to beat the current market leader. Samsungs Galaxy Ring isnt as good as Oura, but it retails for $400 without any additional monthly charges. Ultrahuman, Circular and RingConn all boast they wont charge you xtra to use their rings hardware and software features. Wrap-up Daniel Cooper for Engadget The Oura Ring 4 is a stellar piece of hardware, an engineering marvel and a useful companion as you go about your day. If I sound like Ive been nitpicking, its because the overall package is so good that its hard not to focus on the specs of dirt on the otherwise clean plate. The ring and its companion app are well-developed and muscular, offering a useful way to sum up your day. If youre looking to buy a smart ring, then theres little need to explore the wider market unless you are particularly predisposed to buying a Samsung. If theres a downside, its that Oura remains forever constrained by the limitations a smart ring imposes. As I wrote last year, theres only so much data you can collect reliably from such a small device worn on the finger. Not to mention, theyre designed to fade into the background of your life, keeping an eye on your vitals and offering some post-facto tips. If you want something more comprehensive, then its likely a smartwatch is a better option, but for everything else, theres this.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/oura-ring-4-long-term-review-out-ahead-of-its-rivals-150047874.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Uber app users in Austin can now get on an interest list for a chance to match with Waymo autonomous cabs, according to The New York Times. The rides arent available yet, but theyre coming to a 37 square miles area of the city in "early 2025" according to Bloomberg. Uber once had self-driving ambitions of its own, but sold off its "Advanced Technologies Group" to Aurora in 2020. Since then, it has slowly deepened its relationship with Waymo. Driverless cabs became available through the app to customers in Phoenix starting in 2023, and driverless deliveries spun up there in early 2024. Waymo, on the other hand, has kept some markets like San Francisco, where driverless rides can only be booked through the Waymo One app tightly guarded. This makes it somewhat surprising to see Waymo partnering with Uber exclusively in Austin and Atlanta. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/uber-opens-waitlist-for-driverless-waymo-rides-in-austin-144551425.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
There's a reason I didn't pick up my first pair of over-ear headphones until last year: they're expensive. But, that's where nice sales come in handy. And, there's a very nice sale going on right now, with the Beats Studio Pro down to $180 from $350 a 49 percent discount. It's not as low as Black Friday's $160 deal, but the sale is available on every model except the Earth color. The Beats Studio Pro came out in mid-2023 and got an 81 in our review. We were impressed with its improved sound quality over its predecessor, good transparency mode and solid voice performance. However, they're not the most comfortable option and don't have automatic pausing. If you want over-ear headphones for even less money then check out the Beats Solo 4. They're currently half off at $100 from $200. We gave them a 79 in our review, as they offer a boost in sound quality and up to 50 hours of battery life (10 more than the Beats Studio Pro). But, they're also not the comfiest fit and again don't offer automatic pausing. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-beats-studio-pro-headphones-are-back-on-sale-for-180-142729183.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||