Oura rings will now track step counts more accurately

Following the debut of the Oura Ring 4 last October, which featured improved accuracy for blood oxygen tracking and heart rate readings, the company has announced it’s introducing additional algorithm improvements that will deliver more comprehensive and accurate movement tracking. First announced last month, the updates are now “rolling out to members globally” and include a new step-counting algorithm called Real Steps that makes the Oura Ring function more like a pedometer. Instead of estimating your step count using generic movement data, an advanced machine-learning model will now more accurately determine when ring movement is the result of a step, although the company warns that users may see a decrease in step count of up to 20 percent as a result of the changes. Oura’s active calorie burn estimates will also now factor in the intensity of your movements during exercise using heart rate measurements. As with the potential changes in step count, the company says that during more intense workouts users may see that they’ve “burned more calories than previously shown,” or have burned fewer calories during low-impact exercises like yoga or walking, when heart rates don’t tend to dramatically increase. The wearable’s all-day activity tracking is being expanded to work all night as well, including between the hours of 12AM and 4AM, so that late-night activities such as dancing at the club until the early morning are tracked and taken into account. And if you forget to add a workout, you can add or edit activities from the past seven days in the Oura app — not just the current day — with Readiness and Activity Scores being automatically adjusted to reflect those changes. New fitness metrics are being added to the Oura Ring’s Automatic Activity Detection, including running splits that leverage GPS data from a connected smartphone to show walks and runs in more detail. And heart rate data will now be included when importing activity data into the Oura app that was collected by third-party health and fitness apps, including Apple Health, Strava, and Android Health Connect. In addition to these upgrades, Oura has announced new partner integrations with CorePower Yoga, The Sculpt Society, Technogym, and Open, whose respective apps will “tailor training and recovery recommendations” based on a user’s Oura Readiness Score and other biometric data captured by the smart ring, including sleep, stress, calories, and heart rate variability.