Could the Oura smart ring be the key to stopping spread of COVID-19?
In a world of Fitbits and Apple Watches, wearable tech like the Oura Ring are standing up and being given serious notice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We’ve written about various smart rings in the past, and were impressed with Oura long before the arrival of a nasty coronavirus.
With a 7 day battery life, and 250,000 measurements taken per day, the water-resistent Oura could be one of the best candidates in the fight against COVID-19. Researchers at the West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute have developed software that allows the Oura smart ring to detect COVID-19 symptoms up to 3-days before the become apparent.
Oura focuses on measuring your well-being from three perspectives: Sleep, Readiness, and Activity by measuring everything from heartrate, movement, temperature and more.
The artificial intelligence developed by the researchers detects fevers, coughing, breathing difficulty, and fatigue and uses guided models to forecast and predict a potential COVID-19 infection with over 90% accuracy.
One fascinating indicator that coincides with a COVID-19 infection impaired lung function and dangerously low oxygen levels that the patient is oblivious to. If Oura is able to integrate blood oxygen monitoring (as Fitbit is doing with the Charge 3, Ionic, Versa, and Versa Lite and Versa 2 models) it could become a significant weapon in fighting the spread of COVID-19.
In addition to the Oura app on your smartphone, and the digitial platform being developed by the WVU researchers, Oura can also share it’s data to the Apple Health app, offering up even more opportunities to process and predict the state of your health.
With ringing endorsements from users like Prince Harry, to adoption by the NBA, which chose Oura to help monitor athletes as they safely return to play.
Not only do we expect to see many more health-conscious consumers opting for the Oura smart ring, we also forecast this smart ring will be prominent in our news feed looking ahead.
You can learn more about the Oura smart ring at Ouraring.com. Purchase is available exclusive from the Oura website as users are recommended to use the Oura sizing kit to ensure proper sizing before buying.