Big trends in healthcare are wellness, consumerism, and wearables.  These things come together in various kinds of monitors which you wear, which tell you, as a consumer, how well your doing.  These include smartwatches, various bracelets, and rings, and a leading ring monitor is the Oura.  I've had one for about eight months, and after eight months ... meh, not sure what to think.

Yes, I did register a 98 sleep score once, but I actually did not sleep for 10h 26m and honestly didn't even feel like it was a great nights' sleep after...

The Oura "works": insofar as it measures various vital signs and tracks them, and let's you view the result.  Heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, etc.  And it's comfortable, has reasonable battery life - charge about once a week, for an hour or so - and it's attractive (I have a black one).  It sort of makes a statement: I'm wearing a smart ring, I care about my wellness, I'm hip, etc.

I do wonder about the value though, on an ongoing basis.  I can't say that anything the ring tells me has changed my behavior.  It's more like I check the ring scores to see if they're right :)  If you took it away from me I wouldn't fight hard to get it back.

There is a preventative medicine aspect to these devices; if something changes or goes wrong, you will know sooner and can alert medical professionals to take a closer look.  That might be valuable.  And if a physician wanted to see my heart rate history or something like this, then I would have it, and that would be valuable.

I'd say this is a transitional technology.  Someday we'll have implanted monitors and they'll be more comfortable, more accurate, and more useful.  For now, they provide a reasonable excuse for a blog post.

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