Oura Ring gets better fitness metrics, and more integrations with Apple Health and more - 9to5Mac

Oura Ring (shown) gets better fitness metrics, and more integrations with Apple Health and more

Oura Ring has announced a raft of upgrades intended to provide better fitness metrics, along with new integrations with Apple Health and more.

A key strength of the Oura app is the way it helps users make sense of trends across time, and the company has added a new active time trend view …

Oura explains:

Now rolling out: A new Trend view shows active minutes, empowering members to understand how their daily, weekly, and monthly active time connects to their holistic health.

That activity data should also now be more accurate, thanks to a couple of new features. A key challenge with all fitness trackers is distinguishing steps from other moments, and the company thinks it’s now improved the Oura Ring’s performance via a significantly better algorithm.

Real Steps is the next iteration in Oura’s step counting algorithm. Rather than estimating step count using generic movement, Real Steps enables Oura to act more like a pedometer, using a more advanced machine-learning model to more accurately determine when ring movement is a step. This means you will likely see a change in your step count than you may be used to, with members seeing an average decrease in step count of 20%.

A more sophisticated algorithm is also being used to calculate active calorie burn, with heart rate zones used to help credit you with more burn in high-intensity activities.

If you’ve forgotten to categorize an activity, for example specifying that you were playing football rather than just running, you can now edit activities from anytime in the past seven days, rather than having to do it by the next day.

For walks and runs, the app is now able to access your iPhone’s GPS directly, rather than relying on it being captured by other apps like Strava and Beeline.

Finally, there are more integrations. This includes the ability to import target heart rate zones from the Apple Health app, as well as partnerships with The Sculpt Society, CorePower Yoga, and Technogym.