Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) vs Oura Ring 3rd Generation
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): 2023
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: 2021
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) is a top-tier multisport GPS smartwatch designed for demanding athletes and outdoor enthusiasts, featuring a vibrant AMOLED display and extended capabilities. It provides precise activity tracking for steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes with customizable daily goals. Its extensive range of activity profiles and advanced performance metrics cater to a wide array of sports and adventures, offering detailed data for performance analysis and improvement.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation is a discreet, ring-based health and fitness tracker designed for continuous wear, focusing on holistic wellness rather than just activity volume. It accurately tracks steps, calories burned, and overall activity levels throughout the day, providing insights into your daily movement patterns.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): This device features continuous heart rate monitoring, advanced physiological metrics including VO2 max estimation, real-time stamina, and training status. It also tracks respiration rate, Pulse Ox for blood oxygen saturation, and offers in-depth sleep analysis, providing critical health and recovery data essential for optimizing training and overall well-being during intense activities.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: This device excels in continuous physiological monitoring from the finger, capturing highly accurate data on heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate, respiratory rate, and skin temperature. It includes SpO2 monitoring for blood oxygen levels. These metrics are used to generate comprehensive insights into recovery, sleep quality, and overall readiness, offering a deeper understanding of your physiological state.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Epix Pro (Gen 2) delivers impressive battery life, offering up to 20 days in smartwatch mode and up to 60 hours with continuous GPS tracking. The integrated solar charging capability further extends these durations with sufficient sunlight exposure, enhancing its utility for prolonged expeditions and multi-day events.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation offers a practical battery life of up to 7 days on a single charge, designed for continuous wear without interruption for charging. The included charging dock makes recharging simple and convenient.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): Advanced sleep monitoring on the Epix Pro (Gen 2) meticulously tracks sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) and utilizes the Pulse Ox sensor to monitor blood oxygen levels during sleep. This provides valuable data for assessing recovery quality and informing training decisions, crucial for athletes managing demanding training loads.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: Advanced sleep tracking is a primary focus of the Oura Ring 3rd Generation. It precisely tracks sleep stages (light, deep, and REM sleep) and provides detailed analysis of sleep duration, quality, and efficiency. The Sleep Score offers a single metric summarizing your night's rest, complemented by insights and recommendations for improvement.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): Equipped with advanced built-in GPS capabilities, including multi-band GNSS support, the Epix Pro (Gen 2) provides highly accurate outdoor activity tracking and navigation without requiring a paired smartphone. It offers detailed preloaded mapping features, essential for precise route planning and navigation in diverse and challenging environments.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation does not have built-in GPS. It relies on connected GPS via a paired smartphone to track outdoor activities and distance, allowing for mapping and pace data when your phone is with you.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Epix Pro (Gen 2) supports an extensive and customizable range of multisport and individual workout modes, including profiles for running, biking, swimming, hiking, trail running, skiing, strength training, and many more. Its comprehensive real-time data screens provide detailed metrics for immediate feedback and post-activity analysis across virtually any sport.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: While not offering extensive discrete workout modes like a sports watch, the Oura Ring tracks general activity and can classify various exercises based on movement and heart rate data logged through the app. Its primary focus is on the physiological impact of activities on overall readiness and recovery.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The device includes automatic exercise detection for common activities like walking and running through its Move IQ feature, ensuring seamless recording of basic movements within the overall activity log, complementing its specialized sport profiles.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The device automatically detects common activities like walking, running, and cycling based on movement and heart rate data, logging them within the Oura app. More complex workouts can be manually tagged or imported from other fitness apps.
🍎 Compatibility
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Epix Pro (Gen 2) is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for seamless data synchronization and smart notifications, ensuring users remain connected and data is readily available through the associated mobile application.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation works with both iOS and Android devices, connecting via Bluetooth to the Oura app for seamless data syncing and detailed analytics.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): Synchronization with the robust Garmin Connect app is fundamental, providing in-depth analysis of all tracked data, performance metrics, training insights, and recovery recommendations. The app facilitates the creation and syncing of detailed training plans and courses, along with extensive customization options for the watch settings.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura app is the central interface for the Oura Ring 3rd Generation experience, providing in-depth analysis of sleep, readiness, and activity data. It offers personalized insights, trends, and educational content to help users understand their health metrics and optimize their daily routines.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): In addition to its core athletic functionalities, the Epix Pro (Gen 2) includes practical smart features such as on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts. It supports Garmin Pay for contactless payments and offers on-device music storage with compatibility for streaming services, providing convenience during both training and daily use.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation is designed for unobtrusive health monitoring and does not include traditional smartwatch features such as on-ring notifications for calls, texts, or apps. Its functionality is entirely focused on collecting and presenting health and performance data through the companion app.
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): With a robust water resistance rating of 100 meters (10 ATM), the Epix Pro (Gen 2) is engineered to be fully suitable for swimming, showering, and various water activities, making it a reliable and durable device for triathletes and those who train in or around water.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: With a water resistance rating of up to 100 meters, the Oura Ring 3rd Generation is suitable for swimming, showering, and daily wear, making it a durable companion for various activities and environments.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Epix Pro (Gen 2) features a bright and vibrant AMOLED touchscreen display with high resolution, offering stunning colors, deep blacks, and exceptional brightness. This display provides excellent readability in various lighting conditions, including direct sunlight, enhancing the visual experience for mapping and data review.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation has no display on the device itself. All health and performance data, insights, and analytics are viewed exclusively through the comprehensive Oura app on a paired smartphone or tablet.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The device offers a dual interface with reliable buttons and a responsive touchscreen, providing flexible and easy navigation through menus, data screens, and mapping features. This dual interface is designed for intuitive operation and quick access to critical information during both activities and daily use.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The device is designed for effortless, continuous wear on the finger with no on-device interaction needed. The user experience is centered around the intuitive and data-rich Oura app, making tracking and understanding health metrics simple and seamless.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Epix Pro (Gen 2) features a premium and durable design with a high-quality titanium bezel and stainless steel or DLC coating, built to withstand extreme conditions while maintaining a comfortable fit for all-day wear and extended outdoor use. The design balances robust construction with aesthetic appeal.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation features a sleek, lightweight, and minimalist design, worn comfortably on the finger. Made from durable materials like titanium, it is designed for continuous wear throughout the day and night, blending discreetly with personal style.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for on-demand spot checks and continuous monitoring of blood oxygen saturation levels. This feature is particularly valuable for acclimatization at altitude, monitoring sleep quality, and assessing overall physiological status during demanding activities, with solar charging supporting continuous data collection.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: The Oura Ring 3rd Generation includes an SpO2 sensor for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during sleep. This feature provides valuable data that contributes to the overall sleep analysis and offers insights into respiratory function during rest.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): It is important to note that the Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: It is important to note that the Oura Ring 3rd Generation does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
🧘 Stress Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The Epix Pro (Gen 2) tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability and offers guided breathing exercises to help users manage stress and promote mental well-being alongside physical training and recovery.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: While not explicitly labeled as "stress tracking" in the same way as some devices, the Oura Ring provides insights related to stress through its continuous monitoring of heart rate variability (HRV) and its impact on the daily Readiness score. Analyzing trends in HRV helps users understand their body's response to various stressors.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): The device provides advanced recovery insights, including a daily readiness score, recovery time advisor, training status, and training load focus, offering detailed guidance to help athletes understand their recovery needs and optimize their training schedule to prevent overtraining and improve performance.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: Recovery tracking is a core function of the Oura Ring 3rd Generation. It provides a personalized daily Readiness Score based on key metrics including sleep quality, heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate, and body temperature. This score offers actionable guidance on how prepared your body is for physical and mental demands each day.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): A key benefit of the Garmin platform is that all features and data tracked by the Epix Pro (Gen 2) are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for core functionality, advanced training analysis, or mapping features, providing comprehensive value for a premium, performance-oriented device.
2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: ✅ No subscription is required for basic functionality and lifetime access to your data and core insights. However, premium features offering more advanced analysis, personalized guidance, and exclusive content are available via an optional Oura Membership.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2): $1,099.99
Check Garmin Epix Pro (Gen 2) Price *2️⃣ Oura Ring 3rd Generation: $399.00
Check Oura Ring 3rd Generation Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you