Oura can now tell you if your body prefers early starts or late nights

Oura has delivered a substantial update to its sleep tracking, with its smart ring users now able to access chronotype analysis and body clock alignment estimates. 

It represents another big change to the company's sleep tracking, following the arrival of a new sleep staging beta in September, with the latest additions closely resembling Fitbit Sleep Profiles and Samsung's Sleep Symbol Animals.

The most significant is the introduction of chronotypes - or, to you and me, what we typically refer to as "being a morning person" or a "bit of a night owl".

Instead of leaving you to guess which one you might be, Oura is now attempting to use existing data to define it.

Oura

Based on body temperature fluctuations, sleep-wake times and your physical activity over a 90-day period, Oura will let you know whether your body prefers mornings or evenings - and also whether this is a generic leaning or whether you prefer the early or late portions of these parts of the day.

So, for example, night owls under Oura's chronotype definitions could be an 'early evening type', 'evening type' or 'late evening type'. 

This is paired with the other new major addition we mentioned, body clock analysis.

Using your chronotype as a reference point for your ideal sleeping window, the Oura app will also tell you how your current sleeping trends align with this. 

The company also indicates that another update is in the pipeline to expand this further - one that will zero in on specific pockets of time to advise focus, activity and rest. 

That's not all, either, with a small addition also fleshing out the app's Sleep, Activity and Readiness sections.

Wareable

Now, instead of having just blue ('Optimal') or red ('Pay attention') indicators within the app, Oura is adding a yellow indicator to represent 'Fair'. We've already started seeing this in our own data, as shown above.

And, specifically relating to the Sleep section, Oura will now also be logging Sleep Scores for broader ranges of sleep - not just traditional-looking ranges.

"Irregular sleepers, shift workers, and polyphasic sleepers can also now gain a comprehensive understanding of their unique sleep patterns and needs, leading to a more personalized and effective approach to sleep management," the company says.

Finally, a new Readiness metric, 'Sleep Regularity', has joined the list. This simply gives you a grade on how consistently you've slept over the previous two weeks.

All in all, then, this appears to represent a very solid set of upgrades to the Oura experience - and ones that we think will ensure it remains one of the best wearable sleep trackers available. 

We're looking forward to seeing how robust the likes of chronotype analysis and body clock alignment prove after our 90-day baselines have been collated, so stay tuned for a more in-depth breakdown.