Apple Watch Ultra and Aura Ring
Jason Hinar/ZDNET
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I have been wearing an Apple watch every day for the last decade and I have been using it every night to track my sleep every night. Over the years, I know more and more friends, family and colleagues for smart rings rather than smart watches to track my health. I have also tested the OURA ring, Samsung Galaxy Ring and Ultrahman Ring Air personally.
But finally, I keep taking off the ring and come back to the Apple Watch as my only health tracker.
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The funny thing is that I wore a watch for years before the Apple Watch came in 2015, only preferred to use my phone to keep the track of time. But during the last two years, I have worn Apple Watch Ultra – The biggest and heaviest clock in the lineup.
So why do I like Apple Watch too small and more prudent smart rings? It comes down for three reasons.
1. Rest
When I sleep, despite wearing heavy apple watch ultra, I am so accustomed to wearing an apple clock that when I am on my wrist, I am not very conscious about it – either during the day or when I sleep.
I cannot say the same for smart rings. The OURA Ring 3 and 4 and Ultrahman Ring Air is particularly heavy for rings and is not very comfortable to wear when I am sleeping. The Samsung Galaxy ring is a bit better because it is thin and light. It is surprising how many techniques are packed in these small rings, but I still seem much more noticeable and uncomfortable to wear them compared to my wedding ring, for example.
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I believe that it is possible that I will get used to these rings over time the way I have with Apple Watch, but I have worn a smart ring for weeks and months for a time for testing and yet have distracted them to wear to sleep and I always felt that when I was testing the ring, they were relieved.
2. glassable information and quick actions
People who know that people who love smart rings often say that one of the things they appreciate is that the rings do not have screens, which is less distracted by them. However, I really contact it to another direction. Apple Watch does many things to protect me from taking out my phone throughout the day.
To be clear, I have established the Apple Watch Ultra to do much. I use modular ultra watchfase and have eight different complications that you can set – as well as I also use a shortcut to customize the action button. So I get a total of nine things that can show and do apple watch ultra: time, date, weather, battery life, activity, activity, workout, mindfulness, hydration, and my custom shortcuts to track heartily with supernatural workout apps on Meta Quest.
I regularly catch important information on Apple Watch that I am likely to miss on my phone. To be clear, I do not get all my information on the clock, but I have tuned the watch notification settings so that the most important ping my wrist. In other words, Apple Watch is more than telling me time and tracking my activity.
Apple Watch Ultra Watch Face on Ultra.
Jason Hinar/ZDNET
3. Low health stress
Smart rings can surely offer better sleep and stress tracking than Apple Watch and other smart clocks, as the ring usually provides more information about both sleep and stress. And you can argue that a person can use that data to change some of his habits so that they can get more and better sleep, or for example, start a guided breathing session to help relieve their stress.
However, there are some realities in practice that are difficult to shift, and an app on your phone repeatedly reminds you that you are not getting enough sleep and/or not to manage your stress very well can be more harmful than really helpful. This is what I found.
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I also came to know that some measurements and insights that were made smart ring, shallow, or are not very fine. For example, I get more sleep than normal than one night and then the next night is less, and so I will feel very normal overall. Meanwhile, the ring app would highlight light with red information that I was required to accommodate my sleeping schedule. And so I thought, “Maybe I am more tired than what I thought?” But I was not. And when I stopped wearing the ring, I felt that my stress level had really gone down.
Dosual: Low actionable insight
One thing I want Apple Watch to do like the best smart rings, and it offers more actionable notifications and coaching tips. For example, in my review of Samsung Galaxy Ring I noted that it did an excellent job of correlable and providing a useful recommendation between two data points.
In that case, the Galaxy Ring mentioned that my “energy” was one of the factors reducing the score when my “previous day activity” showed “medium-from exercise time” which was much below the average of 33 to 87 minutes above my average. It was a good reminder that the first day is not getting enough cardio is a factor to reduce my energy level – and it was tracked with my living experience. It was also something that was more manageable for me to change.
Apple Watch can produce a ton data point in the Apple Health app, and it does a good job of showing changes in “trends” such as relaxing heart rate, miles or gone, steps, exercise minutes, and more. But what it does not provides a sleep score, energy score, or other types of ratings, and it does not correlated its trends with potential results. (It is reported that Apple will add sleep score to this year’s Apple Watch Series 11.)
If the Apple Watch took inspiration from smart rings in the field, it can certainly provide a lot of actionable insight that can help us get even more utility from the clock – especially for those of us who are providing health data not only months but years.
