Smart ring maker has devised a system for personalised wellness routines
Smart ring maker Oura has is looking to offer guided wellness routines, which are designed to alleviate user’s health conditions.
In a new patent filing spied by Wareable, the company outlines how it will leverage data from the heart rate sensor, combined with user input, to identify conditions.
The Oura app would recommend exercises, routines, or practices (such as using a massage gun) to aid recovery and symptom relief.
In the filing, Oura explains the trial period for a wellness routine would assesses the efficacy of various workouts by comparing the heart rate data against the established baseline, further user input, and consultation of the plurality of data from the Oura community.
Depending on the results, the system could tweak the wellness routine.
Identifying health conditions
In the filing, the company explains how the system could “identify one or more health-related conditions associated with the user based at least in part on the PPG data collected via the wearable device, a user input received via the user device, or both.”
From there, the device would “transmit an instruction to cause the graphical user interface of the user device (i.e. smartphone) to display a prompt including one or more candidate wellness routines configured to alleviate the one or more health-related conditions.”
Via a companion app, wearers would input pre-workout feelings like pain (neck, back, headache, etc.) and how they felt post-routine. For example, whether their stress, pain or relaxation levels went up or down.
This could result in other workouts being suggested, or the routine being tweaked somewhat. Modifications could also be informed by sleep data and, for female users, current stage of the reproductive cycle.
Further collection of data and rounds of user input would establish whether those recommendations resulted in a routine beneficial to the health condition of the wearer.
It’s easy to see where Oura is going here. There are many advanced devices for athletes – from the likes of Whoop and Garmin – that coach wearers on how hard they should push and their readiness for exercise. These metrics are geared towards athletes and provided as additional insight.
Making Oura more personalized for those living with injuries
Within the patent filing Oura has identified a large gap for serving potentially less active people living with injuries or health conditions and providing them personalised recommendations that could improve their lot, based upon how their body responds to the routine.
The filing explains the current quandary it is trying to resolve (patent language slightly simplified by us): “A user device may receive physiological data for a user from a wearable device and may use the data to determine various health metrics.
“However, some user devices may not provide any information about how the user can improve the health metrics or health-related conditions associated with the health metrics. In other words, some wearable devices and user devices may be used to report physiological data to the user but may not provide any guidance as to how the user can improve their physiological data and overall health.”
An Oura spokesperson told Wareable: “At ŌURA, it is our mission to help customers achieve better body literacy through customized health insights. Whether consulting your daily sleep, readiness and activity scores, your resilience levels, or your Cycle Insights, we aim to arm our users with the information necessary to guide decision making, and optimize their health and wellbeing. While we can’t comment on future plans or features, our team is continuing to explore how to deepen and expand the personalized guidance fundamental to the ŌURA experience.”
Oura, one of the more thoughtful and innovative companies on the wearable scene judging by the regular documentation of its IP, could change this paradigm somewhat ensuring there are more informed workout recommendations for those looking to improve their wellbeing without further agitating pre-existing conditions.
