How about a wearable for your wearable?

Apple embraces Oura with widgets and complications

Jan 25, 2023

I’ve been using wearables for decades and for a couple of years I have been fascinated by the engineering of the Oura Ring. This unobtrusive wearable captures health and wellness data with no effort on your part with interesting trends and reports.

While the Oura application is available for Android phones and iPhones, the experience is better on the iPhone. With iOS, Oura brings in more information that is consolidated in the iPhone application and I find myself using the Oura Ring with the iPhone for the optimal performance of the ring.

Today, Apple and Oura make the experience with iOS and watchOS even better. With an Oura Ring, an iPhone, and an Apple Watch you can do the following:

Add Oura Ring widgets to your iPhone lock screen
Add complications showing Oura Ring metrics on your Apple Watch
Access a companion Oura Ring app right on your Apple Watch

These widgets and complications shows the Sleep, Readiness, and Activity Scores that are created from your Oura Ring data. You can also view ring battery status, activity goal progress, and more.

You may be wondering why someone would need an Oura Ring if they already have an Apple Watch that can also track sleep details. That’s a fair question. I personally rarely sleep with an Apple Watch, even though I have the Apple Watch Ultra with two-day battery life. The Oura Ring will last you about a week and since it is a ring that fits on your finger then it will not affect your sleep.

My Apple Watch is a bit bulky and it gets hung up on my pillow at times as I roll around and could also knock my wife out if I rolled over too quickly at night. If you are looking for details on your sleep, the Oura Ring is an excellent companion to the Apple Watch and an iPhone.