Your menstrual cycle can significantly impact how you feel throughout the month. But wearables like a smartwatch or smart ring may not reflect those fluctuations when providing you with your energy or sleep scores — or they might consider those fluctuations as strain. Oura’s latest update to its Readiness Score aims to change that situation.
Also: Oura’s CEO wants its smart ring to be the doctor in your pocket
On Thursday, Oura announced a new and updated Readiness Score that factors fluctuations during a menstrual cycle into its scoring mechanism.
Oura members receive a Readiness Score out of 100 every morning with information about how their body recovered from the previous day’s activity load and sleep. The score also factors a user’s vitals data into the mix, notifying users when their body temperature was higher than normal or their heart rate was lower late into the night.
Also: I’ve tested dozens of smartwatches, but the Oura Ring 4 was first to show me I’m sick
Cycle-related hormone fluctuations impact vitals data. For example, heart rates tend to increase during the luteal phase and decrease during the follicular phase, thanks to variations in estrogen and progesterone released throughout the menstrual cycle. After ovulation, body temperature tends to rise. The algorithm has historically seen these fluctuations as signs of strain.
“[Scientific discovery] enables us to translate cutting-edge research into meaningful health insights and guidance that benefit both our members and the broader scientific community. Updating our Readiness Score to consider women’s cycles is the perfect example of this,” said Shyamal Patel, senior vice president of science at Oura.
The updated Readiness Score algorithm accounts for these cycle-dependent changes to deliver a more accurate daily score. About a third (35%) of its cycling members will see no impact on their daily score during the luteal phase, Oura said in its press release.
The update comes amid Oura’s launch of a study that will analyze “biobehavioral changes” during a person’s pregnancy to understand changes. The study aims to advance “public understanding and potential warning signs of conditions such as postpartum depression, risk for miscarriage, or preterm labor,” according to the press release.
Also: I tested this new smart ring with no subscription, and it could replace my Oura
“Wearable technologies have the potential to transform our knowledge of maternal health through continuous, real-world insights into the physiological changes that occur during pregnancy,” said Ed Ramos, co-founder of the Scripps Research Digital Trials Center and principal investigator of the study.
Source: Robotics - zdnet.com
