Oura Ring makes sharing health data a social thing with ‘circles’

Ever wanted to know how well your friend slept last night? Not just on their own word, but with the receipt to prove it? Now you can with Circles, a new feature Oura announced Thursday for its app that lets you share various health data with up to 10 “circles” of people.

Circles will share standby, sleep, and activity with people you allow in your circle—up to 20 per circle. You’ll be able to choose what kind of data to share with each group, so one circle can get more information about your health than another.

The three results are summaries of the health data the ring collects, including temperature, heart rate and blood oxygen readings. Oura said it plans to expand the type of information that can be shared in the future.

To start a round, open the Oura app, scroll down the main menu and select ‘Circles’. You can then name a circle, decide what results you want to share, and also decide whether you want that data to be daily or weekly averages. To invite people to the circle (they must be other Oura users), you’ll send them a one-time link.

Once you start your round, you can see their results and “react” with emojis if you choose. Everyone must sync their rings to keep the results visible.

For people who like to collect health data (and maybe brag about a good healthy week), Oura’s Circles features are a good way to do so with other Oura users. However, according to a press release, the company is positioning Circles as another way to check in and connect with each other, which is becoming an increasingly important public health goal amid an epidemic of loneliness that is impacting sleep, mental health and physical illness.

“Our mission at ŌURA has always been to improve the lives of our members through a compassionate approach to health, and this new feature is just the next step in providing a personalized experience that allows our members to connect not only with their bodies, but also their friends and family,” Oura CEO Tom Hale said in a statement.

Oura’s Circles announcements come as the company advances its sleep-detection algorithm out of beta mode, meaning anyone who tracks sleep stages with Oura will receive data from the new algorithm, which Shyamal Patel, head of science at the company calls “huge accuracy improvements” in sleep data. The new algorithm has a 79 percent match with polysomnography sleep tests done in a clinic, Patel told CNET.

Compared to Oura’s older sleep tracking algorithm, ring wearers may experience slight changes in the amount of time Oura tells you you spend in deep sleep versus light sleep versus REM sleep.

“Those numbers are probably going to change a little bit,” Patel said.

For more on the Oura ring, read more about how the tracker can tell you if you’re a morning person and how the Oura ring compares to the Apple Watch as a sleep tracker. Also, here’s our in-depth review of Oura, the wearable that can tell when you’re sick.