Oura is currently being sued over its claims that the ring measures your sleep. Both the law firm bringing the class action suit and Oura itself have released statements giving their opinion on the matter, and I’ll dig into those today. I also want to talk about the underlying issue here—how much can we trust our wearables when it comes to sleep data?
Oura Ring 5 $499.00 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $499.00 at AmazonA press release from the law firm summarizes the problem like so: “The product cannot measure any of the physiological signals required to determine sleep quality or sleep stages. Instead, it delivers only AI-generated guesses that, according to the Complaint, are no more reliable than a coin flip.”
Beyond the suit being filed and both sides stating their position, nothing has officially happened yet, and it may be a while before we hear anything else. The case has not gone to trial, there has been no judgment, and Oura rings are still on the shelves for the foreseeable future.
Why you shouldn't read too much into your sleep data
As I write about fitness tech, I keep coming up against a fundamental problem: Companies make their devices report numbers, and device users want to know if those numbers are “accurate.” I do my best to judge the answer to that question, but it’s often impossible to answer.
But most things a wearable reports are not, strictly speaking, measurements. They may be calculated from other data. The amount of time you were asleep is calculated from start and end times, and an algorithm had to “decide” when those start and end events happened. Similarly, even for something simple like counting steps, the device has to “know” what movement of the device should count as a step. That’s why we can get different step counts from different devices. And since a watch only has access to movement data from your wrist, it doesn’t know what your feet are doing. Indoor running mileage is also an estimate for those same reasons.
Let’s take this back to the basics. What is happening on the ring itself? An Oura ring can shine red and green (and infrared) LEDs on your skin, and its sensors pick up reflections of that light to get a decently good sense of your heart rate and an estimate of your blood oxygen. The ring has motion sensors, so it can tell when you (or at least your finger) are moving around. There is also a temperature sensor for skin temperature.
So, the lawsuit is technically correct in saying that Oura doesn’t actually know your sleep stages. But Oura may be able to successfully argue that it’s as correct as you can expect a wearable to be.
We will probably never know how accurate a wearable’s sleep data is
Companies that make wearables don’t share their algorithms publicly. (Maybe there’s an exception to this rule, but I can’t think of any.) Both the device itself, and the software that interprets its readings aren’t subject to any thorough, public accuracy or validity testing before a device makes it to market.
Sometimes scientists do proper studies, especially on devices that are popular or that might have uses in the clinic or for research. I’m glad for these studies, but they just don’t happen on a schedule that makes them useful to regular folks who want to know if a new device does what it says it does. By the time a paper comes out telling us how the Garmin Fenix 6 did at measuring heart rate during sleep, Garmin is already selling the Fenix 8. By the time you hear about it—perhaps today?—we're already on to the Fenix 9.
The best and worst points from the lawsuit that I think are worth thinking about
Something that doesn’t ring true to me is the claim from the lawsuit that “sleep happens in the brain, not on one’s finger. It is defined by brain electrical activity, eye movements, muscle tone, and other signals...” That quote almost had me in the first half, but sleep isn’t defined by EEG readings and such. It’s measured that way in the lab.
Oura points out in their “Standing Behind Our Science” blog that several scientific and medical teams have published peer-reviewed papers on Oura’s sleep data. I commend Oura for encouraging teams to study its devices. That said, lots of familiar problems crop up when you start looking at the studies.
And that's where I find myself after reading both sides' claims: A smart ring (or watch) is a tool that can report its measurements, estimations, and inferences. Some of these may be useful. But none of them are ever guaranteed to be accurate. Perhaps we should all forget about chasing accuracy and pay more attention to old-fashioned things like making sure you have a good bedtime routine.
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