Oura Ring 4 vs Garmin Vivosmart 5
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: 2024
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: 2022
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 is a discreet, ring-based health and fitness tracker designed for continuous wear, focusing on holistic wellness and providing nuanced insights into activity levels. It accurately tracks steps, calories burned, and overall daily activity, contributing to its comprehensive assessment of your physiological state.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Garmin Vivosmart 5 offers foundational activity tracking, diligently recording steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, and intensity minutes. It provides inactivity alerts to encourage movement and incorporates Body Battery energy monitoring, a valuable feature for optimizing daily activity planning based on physiological readiness.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: This device is an advanced physiological monitor worn on 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 detailed insights into recovery, sleep quality, and overall readiness, offering a deeper understanding of your body's signals.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Continuous heart rate monitoring is provided by Garmin's Elevate wrist-based technology, offering insights into resting heart rate trends and real-time heart rate zones during activities for enhanced fitness analysis. The integrated Pulse Ox sensor enables blood oxygen saturation monitoring, particularly relevant for comprehensive sleep analysis.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 offers a practical battery life of up to 7 days on a single charge, designed for uninterrupted, continuous wear. The included charging dock allows for simple and convenient recharging, minimizing downtime.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 boasts a robust battery life, lasting up to 7 days in smartwatch mode. This extended duration minimizes the need for frequent charging, ensuring consistent tracking of daily activity and sleep metrics.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: Advanced sleep tracking is a central function of the Oura Ring 4. It precisely tracks sleep stages (light, deep, and REM sleep) and provides in-depth analysis of sleep duration, quality, and efficiency. The Sleep Score provides a quick summary, complemented by detailed insights and personalized guidance within the app for optimizing rest.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Advanced sleep tracking on the Vivosmart 5 analyzes sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) to provide a detailed understanding of sleep architecture. The inclusion of the Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring blood oxygen levels during sleep, adding another dimension to sleep quality assessment.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 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.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: This device does not feature built-in GPS. However, it supports connected GPS, leveraging the GPS capabilities of a paired compatible smartphone to accurately track outdoor activities such as running and cycling, providing pace and distance data when your phone is with you.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: 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 understanding the physiological impact of activities on overall readiness and recovery.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 supports a variety of activity profiles, including walking, running, cycling, yoga, strength training, and swimming. It displays real-time statistics such as heart rate and calorie burn during these workouts, enabling users to monitor their effort and progress.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: 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 for a complete activity overview.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Garmin's Move IQ technology is integrated to automatically detect and record common activities such as walking, running, and swimming. This feature streamlines activity logging, ensuring that these basic exercises are captured without requiring manual initiation.
🍎 Compatibility
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 works with both iOS and Android devices, connecting via Bluetooth to the Oura app for seamless data syncing and detailed analytics.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 is compatible with both Android and iOS devices, connecting via Bluetooth. Synchronization with the Garmin Connect app provides a platform for detailed data tracking, analysis, and progress monitoring.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura app is the central interface for the Oura Ring 4 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, optimize their daily routines, and track their progress over time.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Garmin Connect app serves as the central interface for the Vivosmart 5, offering detailed health insights, workout summaries, and long-term progress monitoring. It also facilitates synchronization with popular third-party fitness platforms like Strava and MyFitnessPal, allowing for data integration into a broader fitness ecosystem.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 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 focused on collecting and presenting comprehensive health and performance data through the companion app.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Essential smart notifications for calls, texts, and app alerts are delivered with vibration, keeping users connected. Additional features include music control for a paired smartphone and a find-my-phone function for added convenience.
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: With a water resistance rating of up to 100 meters, the Oura Ring 4 is suitable for swimming, showering, and daily wear, making it a durable companion for various activities and environments without requiring removal.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: With a water resistance rating of 5 ATM (up to 50 meters), the Vivosmart 5 is suitable for swimming and showering, making it a durable companion for everyday wear and aquatic activities.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 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, maintaining its discreet form factor.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Featuring a larger OLED touchscreen display compared to its predecessor, the Vivosmart 5 offers improved visibility and usability for reviewing stats and notifications directly on the wrist.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: 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 complex health metrics simple and seamless.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 utilizes a swipe-based touchscreen interface complemented by a physical button, providing a user-friendly navigation experience. Wireless syncing with the Garmin Connect app ensures effortless data transfer and tracking.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 features a sleek, lightweight, and minimalist design, worn comfortably on the finger. Made from durable materials, it is designed for continuous wear throughout the day and night, blending discreetly with personal style while providing advanced physiological monitoring.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The design of the Vivosmart 5 is slim and lightweight, featuring an interchangeable silicone band that contributes to comfortable all-day wear. The band can be easily swapped for personalization.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: The Oura Ring 4 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.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring of SpO2 blood oxygen levels, particularly emphasized during sleep tracking, providing insights into respiratory well-being during rest.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: It is important to note that the Oura Ring 4 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: It is important for potential users to note that the Garmin Vivosmart 5 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) monitoring.
🧘 Stress Tracking
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: While not explicitly labeled as "stress tracking," the Oura Ring 4 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 and improve resilience.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Stress levels are tracked based on heart rate variability (HRV). The device includes guided breathing exercises, offering a practical tool to help users manage stress and promote relaxation throughout the day.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: Recovery tracking is a core function of the Oura Ring 4. 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, helping optimize training and rest.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Body Battery energy monitoring feature provides insights into the body's energy levels based on HRV, stress, and activity data. This assists users in optimizing their daily energy management and making informed decisions about when to prioritize rest and recovery.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: ✅ A mandatory paid Oura membership (subscription) is typically required to access the full range of data, insights, and advanced features within the Oura app. While some basic functionality may be available without a subscription, the comprehensive value is realized through the membership.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: A key advantage of the Garmin ecosystem is that no subscription is required to access the full feature set of the Vivosmart 5. All data and insights are available through the free Garmin Connect app.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Oura Ring 4: $399.00
Check Oura Ring 4 Price *2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: $149.95
Check Garmin Vivosmart 5 Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you