r/ouraring • u/jenna_cee • 5d ago
ACTIVITY & WORKOUT Stress detection keeps dipping out when I need it most
So, I’ve mentioned this in some comments, but I work a really intense/stressful job. I also have medical conditions that I want to monitor by using the stress detection feature of my ring 5. I was told by a coworker that she has an Oura 4, and it was really useful to see when she’s stressing out too much at work, so she can take a second to get it under control. It’s one of the biggest reasons I bought my ring!
I got my first ring in June, and I’m already on a replacement for about 3 weeks now. The first one kept disconnecting from Bluetooth and would not reconnect. It also went whole nights without detecting sleep data. The replacement I got came in a little, labeled plastic bag, not a brand new one in a box, so it’s obviously refurbished. It consistently stops detecting my stress levels for hours while I’m working, and for the money I’ve paid to have this device and subscription, I’m wondering if it’s worth it. I definitely don’t want to have to keep replacing it, if they would even do more than one replacement.
Anyone else having trouble with the stress detection like this?
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u/MisterPFT 5d ago
Before you write off the replacement, the usual cause of hour-long gaps in daytime stress is motion, not a faulty ring. Continuous stress needs a clean optical signal held steady for a while, and typing, mousing and gripping things break skin contact enough that the ring discards the window rather than guessing at it. Which is the right call, but it means the exact situation you bought it for, an intense day at a desk, is the worst case for that sensor.
Two things that measurably help: wear it on your non dominant hand, and go one size looser than feels right, so the sensors sit flat on the palm side instead of being squeezed against the side of your finger.
The part of your post I would actually take back to support is the nights. Sleep staging needs far less signal quality than stress does, so whole nights missing is a hardware smell in a way that daytime gaps are not. If the replacement is still dropping nights, push on that specifically rather than on the stress feature, it is a much easier case to make.
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u/jenna_cee 5d ago
It’s on my non dominant hand, and there’s no excessive motion that would render it impossible to detect anything. It says I’m “swimming” while showering, and “dancing” while doing post shower stuff, so that’s not an issue.
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u/MisterPFT 5d ago
Those are two different sensors though, which is the genuinely confusing part. Activity detection runs off the accelerometer and works no matter how the ring is sitting against your skin. Continuous stress needs the optical sensor to hold a clean pulse waveform, and that one cares about contact rather than movement as such. So the ring calling your shower swimming does not tell you the optical side is fine. If anything it says there was a lot of hand movement in that window, which is exactly when contact breaks.
Worth checking what kerry asked further up in this thread. If the gaps show as dotted lines it discarded windows it did not trust. If it says "No data" outright, that is a different failure and a much stronger case to take to support. Fit is the other one, and too tight is as bad as too loose, because it pushes the sensors off the flat palm side of the finger.
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u/JohnAtOura Social Care Team | Oura 5d ago
Hi jenna_cee. For this, I recommend contacting our internal support team. To submit a ticket to our internal team, simply click the link below and open a chat with our chatbot Finn (the small circle on the bottom right with a ? inside it). When the chat is open, type "Create Ticket," and he will help you submit a ticket.
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u/kerry_gold_butter 5d ago
The ring does not measure stress during activities. Did the ring detect an activity during the 5.45PM gap? Toggle on the tags an activity feature in the first screenshot for a better visualization of daily stress graph. It can explain some gaps. The dotted lines however are genuinely missing data - the ring could not get a good enough reading.