What you need to know
- Oura has partnered with Natural Cycles, an app used to determine fertility.
- Oura Ring owners will be able to track temperature trends without using a basal thermometer.
- Oura will share sleep data with the Natural Cycles app through a new Oura Mode.
It almost seems like there's nothing the Oura Ring can't do, and the company behind the discrete wearable is now partnering with Natural Cycles to help users plan their pregnancies.
Natural Cycles is an app that helps users track their body temperature to determine fertility. That's because it changes during a user's menstrual cycle, which can be used to pinpoint a fertile window. It usually requires that users measure using a basal thermometer which is then entered into the app. However, thanks to the new partnership (and FDA approval), users will be able to track their temperature automatically while they sleep using the Oura Ring's temperature sensors.
"We have been actively working on delivering a seamless measuring experience for our users and we were thrilled when we received FDA clearance to use the Oura Ring with our algorithm," says Dr. Elina Berglund Scherwitzl, co-founder and CEO of Natural Cycles. "We are proud to officially launch this partnership and work alongside a company that is similarly committed to delivering advanced health tools to women at a time when it has never been more important. With the help of Oura data, Natural Cycles is powering the future of birth control."
What makes the Oura Ring ideal is its thorough measurements. Despite its small size, the Oura Ring is easily one of the best fitness trackers, offering impressive health tracking, measuring sleep patterns, heart rate, activities, and other metrics. Oura Ring recently gained the ability to measure blood oxygen levels.
The Ring's temperature sensor is capable of generating 1,440 data points a day, giving Natural Cycle's algorithm plenty to work with to help users plan (or prevent) pregnancy. Users can sync this data with the new Oura Mode in the Natural Cycles app. Oura ensures that the data goes one way, so while a user's temperature trends, HR, sleep length, and sleep stages will be shared with Natural Cycles (provided a user gives consent), the data from Natural Cycles won't be shared with Oura.
