Does It Actually Matter Which Finger You Wear an O...

I’ve at all times most popular to put on my Oura ring on my ring finger. The corporate says that “for optimum efficiency and accuracy,” it’s greatest to put on it in your index finger, however that any finger can work. And in case you ask longtime Oura customers, you’ll get quite a lot of opinions. Does it actually matter which finger you employ? I spotted I’ve the right strategy to take a look at this—I’ve two gen 3 rings that match my index and my ring fingers. I wore each for almost two weeks to check their readings and reply the query as soon as and for all. 

How I arrange my experiment

As I defined in my four-year retrospective, I’ve worn fairly a couple of Oura rings over time. My present unit is a gen 3 ring (the marginally older mannequin) that I put on on my ring finger. I additionally had a gen 3 that match my index finger, so I may put on each to mattress for a couple of days and evaluate their readings. 

I really wore three rings, however left certainly one of them off my outcomes as a result of it turned out to be redundant. This one was a replica of the one I had on my ring finger, so I wore it however’s ring finger. It was a nearly-dead one which I had changed when its battery wore out. It nonetheless had simply sufficient juice to make it by every night time’s sleep as long as I charged it the following day. The readings had been just about the identical as my different ring finger, although, so I left this knowledge off my outcomes chart for readability’s sake. 

For this experiment, I wanted to pair every ring to a distinct account on a distinct telephone. The issues I do for you, pricey readers. Because the accounts had been all working from completely different (or nonexistent) baseline knowledge, I averted any scores that the app calculates based mostly in your private historical past. I caught with readings like resting coronary heart price, coronary heart price variability, and sleep time. The one rating I saved was sleep effectivity, since that mixes a number of measurements from the identical night time.

My outcomes

Credit score: Beth Skwarecki

I’ve at all times felt like my ring finger readings are pretty much as good as my index finger readings, however now I’ve knowledge to show it. Take a look at these charts! The readings are sometimes equivalent, and at all times shut. There was sooner or later the place the 2 readings differed—it is the final day, with completely different respiratory charges and sleep effectivity. On that day, my second ring-finger ring (knowledge not proven) matched the opposite ring-finger ring, suggesting that it is the index finger that was the outlier.

Total, the completely different fingers give readings which can be a lot nearer to one another than the completely different units from this comparison (for that experiment, I wore Oura, Garmin, Whoop, Apple, and Fitbit units on the identical time).

Any of the three placements I used could be completely good for each day put on. So why does Oura say your index finger is greatest? I reached out to the corporate for extra data.

What Oura says 

The gen 3 and 4 Oura rings work on any finger, an Oura spokesperson advised me by e mail, as long as the ring suits “tightly and securely” across the base of the finger. So why the desire for the index finger? It seems that’s the finger the place most individuals have the best time getting an excellent match. 

Particularly: “We advise avoiding fingers with giant knuckles the place the bottom is considerably narrower, which may have an effect on match and sensor contact. This is the reason we typically suggest the index finger. If that’s not comfy or most popular, the center or ring finger are additionally good options. All three fingers have bigger blood vessels, which assist optimize PPG pulse monitoring.” (PPG refers to photoplethysmography, the optical sensor system that picks up your pulse out of your finger.)

So in case your ring finger has an enormous bony knuckle, you’ll want a bigger dimension ring to recover from the knuckle, and that ring received’t be capable of sit snugly towards the bottom of your finger. I’ve no downside getting a safe match on my ring finger, however I can see that my thumb has a big sufficient knuckle it in all probability wouldn’t work properly with the ring. 

One other difficulty with sizing is that the Oura ring doesn’t are available half sizes, so chances are you’ll not be capable of discover the right dimension to your most popular finger. That stated, the gen 3 rings really feel a few half-size smaller than the gen 4 rings on the identical numbered dimension, so taking part in round with each sizing kits might assist you to search out the right match in case you’re not choosy about which version of the ring you find yourself with.