Why You Can Trust CNET Oura's New 'Labs' Mode Lets You Be the Judge of New Smart Ring Features
The first experimental feature is called Symptom Radar and is available on iOS now.
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Oura, the smart ring that gives you notes on your sleep, measures your stress, helps you track your menstrual cycle and more, is pushing your hand even further into health tracking. The company behind the smart ring on Wednesday announced Labs, a platform in the Oura app that will allow you to test out wellness features and give feedback to researchers while they're still in the research and development phase.
Oura Labs is only available on iOS for now. The first feature to roll out if you opt into Labs, starting today, is Symptom Radar, which Oura says is designed to monitor for "significant changes" across the different trends of biometric data, including body temperature, respiratory rate, resting heart rate and heart-rate variability.
If anything seems off, Oura says you'll get a notification in the Home view under Readiness Score. Once enabled, Symptom Radar will replace Rest Mode prompts.
Like other wearable features that track deviations in your health data, Symptom Radar shouldn't be used for diagnoses and should instead be used as a tool to better understand your body's patterns.
How to put Oura Labs on your Ring
The feature is only available to iOS users right now. If that's you:
- Find Oura Labs on the upper-left side of the home screen.
- Opt into features to test. (Right now, it's just Symptom Radar, but Oura says users will be notified when there are new features to test if they opt into Labs.)
Features rolled out in Oura Labs may be removed at any time. If one you were testing is taken away, you'll receive a notification and will be able to provide feedback.
If you're an Oura Labs tester, your feedback and questions will be given directly to the product and engineering teams, Oura says. You'll also be able to take part in things like focus groups and surveys.
While Oura Labs won't be for everyone, it's one way you can have a small say in just how "smart" smart rings and other wearables are becoming when it comes to your body.
The Oura Ring starts at $299 and requires a $6 monthly subscription to access most of the ring's in-depth features.