Oura’s Readiness Score Finally Takes Into Account Menstrual Cycles
Oura, the smart ring , finally takes menstrual cycle data into account when assigning readiness scores—a feature whose absence has confused users for years. The ring app was notorious for producing lower-than-expected scores during the luteal phase of user cycles, but that’s changing thanks to an update to the readiness scoring algorithm Oura announced this week .
If you don’t have a menstrual cycle or you have one but don’t track it, you probably won’t notice anything special about your readiness scores. But this update makes a big difference for anyone who uses Cycle Insights , a feature of the Oura app that uses temperature data to track ovulation, menstruation, the fertile window, and the follicular and luteal phases.
Why many users had incorrect readiness ratings
To explain why this is a problem, I’ll zoom out and give you a little biology lesson. The monthly cycle, sometimes called the menstrual cycle, is not just menstruation, which is bleeding that lasts a week or less. Instead, the cycle is a phenomenon that lasts the entire month, with distinct phases in the first and second half of the month.
To be clear, this cycle does not happen to everyone. In particular, this phenomenon occurs in people who have regular periods and who are not taking hormonal birth control. If you fall into this category, you can use the Cycle Insights feature in the Oura app to track when you are in the first half of your cycle (follicular phase) and the second half (luteal phase).
(Important note: Every time I write about menstruation or hormonal cycles, someone writes to me that “women” and “people who menstruate” are synonymous. Let’s take a moment to discuss the fact that this is not the case. Not only can we acknowledge the existence of transgender people, non-binary people, and the odd species of people known as “girls”, but it’s worth remembering that a significant percentage of women do not have a period! This includes women who already passed the cycle. menopause and women using hormonal contraceptives.)
When your cycle begins on the first day of your period, you are in what is called the follicular phase , as the ovarian follicle (which will produce the egg) develops over the course of about two weeks. In the middle of the month—textbook day 14 of the cycle—this follicle releases an egg, ending the follicular phase. The release of an egg is called ovulation .
At this moment, the body temperature rises by about half a degree. This slightly elevated temperature will remain until the end of the cycle, and the Oura ring can detect the temperature change. The empty follicle remains in the ovary, secreting hormones, and becomes the corpus luteum , which is Latin for “yellow creature”. (Scientists are so creative.) In her honor, the second half of the cycle is called the luteal phase .
Temperature is not the only difference between the follicular and luteal phases; All sorts of hormonal and biological events happen throughout the month, some of which have catchy names like “menstrual flu,” but that’s a discussion for another time .
What’s changing in the Oura algorithm
As Oura notes in her change statement , the luteal phase tends to have a few notable differences from the follicular phase (in terms of the ring):
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Skin temperature rises
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Breathing rate increases
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Resting heart rate increases
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Heart rate variability (HRV) decreases
These are all things that, if they were not related to the menstrual cycle, would indicate that a person is stressed or perhaps sick. And so the algorithm (at least sometimes) treats this data as an indicator of your readiness. Forums discussing the Oura ring are full of threads with titles like “PSA for Oura: Luteal Phase Is Not a Disease” and “Anyone else experience terrible readiness during the luteal phase?” (according to comments: yes).
With that in mind, Oura finally takes your cycle phase into account when calculating your availability metrics. They predict that 35% of users who track their menstrual cycle will no longer receive “disproportionately negative” luteal phase readiness scores. They expect these people’s scores to be four to five points higher, and there will be 81% fewer days with scores that are too low.
How to get updated readiness ratings
To take advantage of the new algorithm, you need to use the Cycle Insights feature. To do this, you enter your menstrual start dates and it detects temperature changes to determine when you are in the luteal phase.
To turn on Cycle Insights, tap the menu icon in the app, then Settings and Women’s Health . There’s a toggle to turn on Cycle Insights, and below you can enter some background information: whether you use hormonal contraception, how long your typical cycle is.
So, yes, this means the app will need to track when you’re on your period and when you’re ovulating. If this makes you uncomfortable in the current political climate , I don’t blame you, but you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth getting a little more accurate data. Ura published a blog post about their approach to reproductive data privacy , noting that they are subject to GDPR rules (as they are based in Finland) and that they plan to fight any data requests from legal authorities. The Cycle Insights support page includes instructions on how to remove your cycle data from the app , which you can do at any time.