A different kind of championship ring for the NBA
Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic
Enter the virus…
A show-stopping, world-altering tour de force that caused everything to halt in its tracks.
The 2019-20 NBA regular season has been frozen in carbonite like all other professional sports due to the covid-19 pandemic in March. It is scheduled to restart July 31st in the home of Disney, Orlando, Florida. One major step to ensure the safety and health of all involved will be usage of the Oura ring; all staff will wear one, and all players off court will wear one. It is being used to monitor temperature, a key differentiator of this ring, and a key flag for the coronavirus.
The Oura is a finger worn piece of wearable tech from Finland that summarises health data into three meaningful scores every day - sleep, readiness, and activity. A Fit bit, Jawbone, or Whoop wearable focuses on activity - but Oura locks in on sleep and recovery markers. It tracks sleep quality, stages of sleep, ECG level resting heart rate and variability as well as body temperature during the night. The readiness score is based on trends in resting heart rate, heart rate variability, respiratory rate, and body temperature. Activity scores are taken from periodic monitoring of your heart rate and how much the ring bearing hand is moved.
There is also a feature called ‘moment’, which acts as a ‘check-in’ to pause and slowdown during the day. This feature gives the mind a nudge to unwind, breathe and relax - it is a nice feature for the ‘new normal’ we are all facing post-lock down.
The Oura educates the wearer on the importance of, and the value of quality sleep. Each morning the first thing an Oura wearer does is look at their readiness and sleep scores to validate how well rested, energised, or tired they feel. It makes a difference here by visually depicting the peaks and troughs of the sleep cycle during the night…with a longing for that ‘ideal’ U-shape, a nice mix of light, deep and rapid eye movement sleep. People who recognise that they are burning the candle at both ends, burnt out - and not having the best sleep hygiene routine will find this product valuable. It makes you think about how to sleep more, and deeper…to feel ready and prepared for the next day.
The Oura ring has many advanced sensors including infrared LED’s, temperature sensors, an accelerometer and a gyroscope all wrapped around a single finger. It is lightweight, robust and water resistant. The battery life is impressive, with a single charge lasting a week. It is comfortable to wear, easy to maintain. Disappointingly however, despite all the data information it provides, there is little given in the way of actionable tips to make improvements. For example, Oura could potentially do a simple regression to show a correlation between exercise during a certain part of the day and the impact of that timing on sleep. Perhaps we will see this upgrade come soon from the tech-savvy team at Oura HQ.
The NBA, the top basketball league in the world, is a league renowned for innovation in performance, sports medicine, and sports science - not just three pointers, slam dunks and off-court entertainment. It is no wonder the NBA would try to find something to give it an edge to get back to where it needs to be, with players playing on court…with player safety at the heart.
The Oura ring can help facilitate this happening next month in Florida.