Sleep tracking sounds like a dream. You get a gadget that tells you how you slept and then gives you tips to sleep better and — boom — you’re getting better rest. As a parent of a young child, I know this isn’t how it’s going to work for me, but I’ve been feeling desperate lately. If I’m sleeping less, maybe a wearable helps me sleep smarter.
That’s how I was drawn to the promise of the Aura Ring, a $350 device you wear on your finger to track various health metrics, including sleep. You probably did See a celebrity wearing one Mark Zuckerberg in the tabloids Wear one to optimize his sleep.
The big problem is that wearables don’t come with any guarantees. This fall, we’ve seen gadgets like these gain new capabilities Identifying sleep apnea And Acts as a hearing aidWearables seem more and more like medical wonders However, research over the years has shown that doctors currently do not find very useful information from these devices in the clinical setting and, left to their own devices, consumers may feel worse when using wearables. The positive effects of sleep trackers, in particular, are hard to nail down.
But if I want a few data points to guide me to better habits, a little ring certainly can’t hurt. After days of poring over medical journals to make better decisions about what a wearable could do for my sleep, however, I now feel more tired than ever. Buying a new gadget won’t fix this for a number of reasons Still, if you’re thinking about using wearables to improve your health, it’s helpful to know where the marketing stops and the proven benefits begin.
Despite marketing advice, very few wearables are FDA approved
Aura Ring 4, out this weekIt uses a variety of lights and sensors to measure your heart rate, breathing rate, blood oxygen, temperature and movement. For an additional $6 monthly membership fee, you get access to things like detailed sleep analysis, advanced temperature monitoring, and reproductive health insights. The ring does not have a curtain; It connects to your phone via Bluetooth so you can view all your health data there
The Aura Ring is “not a medical device.” That’s the first thing the company’s PR team told me when I reached out to them for this article. In its marketing, however, they often bring up potential health benefits and this Promoted by its Medical Advisory Board Featured on his website. Jason Russell, Ora’s vice president of consumer software, explained that the company is tapping into a real need.
“People want to understand their bodies and live longer and healthier lives, but they don’t want another technology device controlling them,” says Russell, flagging the Ora Ring’s discretion.
You can too Use your Health Savings Account (HSA) and Flexible Spending Account (FSA) funds To buy an Oura ring, which is confusing because you’re only supposed to use them For medical and dental expenses. The Oura Ring does not have FDA clearance, though Can be used with the FDA-cleared Natural Cycle app For tracking menstrual cycles. According to some critics, it is Especially useful for women This is why. natural cycle describes himself as “A hormone-free alternative to the pill that is 93% effective in normal use.”
This maze of regulations and approvals makes it difficult to know whether an ora ring is being marketed As a device that can improve your healthBrings real medical benefits. The same is true for other wearables like the Apple Watch, which recently Received FDA clearance to diagnose sleep apnea. It’s on top of the device FDA-cleared To detect irregular heart rhythms and record electrocardiograms. (Smartwatches and fitness trackers from Google, Samsung, and Fitbit have similar clearances.) Even Apple AirPods Pro received FDA clearance this year for a new feature that turns them into “The first over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aid software device“
None of these devices are FDA approved. There is a difference between FDA approval, which is a highly involved process, and less stringent FDA clearance. There is also a third designation called “de novo classification” reserved for low-risk devices that do not already exist on the market. (The new hearing aid feature on the AirPods Pro recently received this designation.) The FDA admits that its name has been tossed around confusingly, so much so that it A full explanation of what FDA approval actually means.
So even though I could use the remaining FSA dollars this year to buy an Aura Ring, the FDA has not put its stamp of approval on the device. Thanks to a partnership with Natural Cycles, the Oura Ring enjoys a bit of that FDA-cleared aura, but the rest of its features have nothing to do with it.
Regardless, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a device you can buy with Allocation of funds for health care expenditure That’s from a company NAME-FDA Tested His press release will be health benefits. In the case of wearables, this is not always the case.
What wearables do for our health
At the end of the day, you may not need a government agency’s stamp of approval to know if a gadget is right for you. I bought an Apple Watch not because I wanted something to alert me of an irregular heartbeat but because I like getting notifications on my wrist. It’s easier to glance at a text message on my watch than to pull out my phone. The fitness tracking that comes with the watch is a bonus, and I can confidently say that I move my body more because of my watch. tell me.
Research suggests that smartwatches and other fitness trackers are best at this. A systematic review covering nearly 200,000 study participants Published in The Lancet 2022 showed that wearables actually improve physical activity and help people lose weight. On average, people who wear fitness trackers walk an extra 1,800 steps per day. But they had little effect on other health markers, including blood pressure and cholesterol. A small meta-analysis BMJA peer-reviewed journal from the British Medical Association, Show similar conclusions: More than 1,200 extra steps a day. Fitness tracking, it seems, leads to better fitness.
Sleep tracking is not so clear. Whether it’s on your wrist, under your mattressOr wrapped around your finger, a sleep tracker will measure everything from your movement and body temperature to your heart rate and blood oxygen to determine how long you slept and how well you slept. The idea here is that by providing more detail about how you slept, you can link what you did before bed — say, vigorous exercise, drinking or doomscrolling on your phone — to the quality of your sleep. If a bad habit leads to bad sleep, you can stop the bad habit.
Many sleep trackers will crunch all that data through an algorithm that produces a score. (Aura Ring’s app Gives you three scores(one for sleep, one for daytime activity, and one for “readiness,” which tells you on a scale of 1 to 100 how ready you are for the day.) Experts caution that these scores can be arbitrary, If not outright useless. Also, most trackers cannot directly measure brain activity, which is ideal for diagnosing sleep disorders. Furthermore, obsess over sleep data, scores and metrics Can actually increase anxiety and lead to poor sleepAccording to a recent study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
It is possible that some of these data may be useful in a clinical setting. The new Apple Watches can do an ECG that’s as good as what you’d get at the doctor’s office, According to a study. The problem is, for now, It’s not always easy Doctors to get access to data collected by wearables. That doesn’t mean doctors aren’t optimistic about a future where they can access that data. many doctors Ask their patients to buy wearables And use them to help manage diseases, especially heart problems that devices like the Apple Watch are designed to detect.
Medical devices or not, all wearables come with advantages and disadvantages, depending on how you use them. I fell down the Aura Ring rabbit hole and feel more confident about how I’m using my own wearable, my Apple Watch. It also talked about buying an Aura Ring.
To be clear, I haven’t tried the new Oura ring, and for now, I’m holding off. Even if I have some FSA funds to spend before the end of the year, I think the sleep-tracking function will worry me in the long run.
At this point in my life, sleeping smart isn’t exactly an option. I just need more hours in the day, and that gadget hasn’t been invented yet.
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