Oura Now Lets Users Share Sleep, Health Data With Family, Friends
Oura Circles allows users to track their activity and sleep through the ring and also engage with loved ones for encouragement
Oura, the company known for the Oura Ring, has launched a groundbreaking social feature called Oura Circles, which aims to address the increasing issue of isolation and loneliness by allowing users to share their personal health journeys with friends and family.
“Isolation fundamentally affects our mental, physical, and societal health, which is why the U.S. surgeon general recently reported that chronic loneliness is a public health crisis, increasing the risk of cognitive decline by 50%, cardiovascular disease by 29%, and stroke incidence by 32%,” said Oura CEO Tom Hale.
Oura Circles allows users to not only track their activity and sleep through the Ring, but also engage with loved ones for encouragement. The Oura Ring utilizes advanced sensor technology to monitor biometric data including heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, blood oxygen and more.
These personalized health metrics are summarized into three scores each day: Readiness, Sleep and Activity, as well as in-depth insights into the data behind the scores. With the introduction of Circles, Oura members now have the option to share their scores from the past two weeks, allowing them to engage in meaningful conversations about their well-being and provide support to their Circle members.
Through Oura Circles, members can join up to ten circles of other users and choose which scores they want to share. They can also customize the level of detail they share, opting for either daily or weekly updates. In addition, members will have the ability to react to other users’ data using a set of custom emojis available within the app.
The release of Circles coincides with the launch of the new Sleep Staging Algorithm from Oura. The algorithm, now out of Beta and available to both iOS and Android users, is among the most accurate sleep staging algorithms in consumer wearables, Oura says.
The algorithm was developed using a comprehensive sleep dataset, incorporating almost two years of simultaneous Oura Ring and polysomnography (PSG) data from over 500 participants of various ages, genders and skin tones, totaling over 1200 nights of data.
“Sleep is not an isolated state of unconsciousness that occurs in a vacuum. It is intricately woven into the fabric of our social lives, profoundly influenced by the quality and strength of our connections with others,” said Shyamal Patel, head of science at Oura. “Just as a lack of sleep can erode our ability to form meaningful relationships, the absence of social connections can deeply compromise our sleep. Science reveals that nurturing social bonds is not only essential for our mental and emotional well-being, but also for the restorative power of sleep.”