I got an Oura Ring in June 2021 to replace a clunky Fitbit. The biggest revelation was that time in bed does not equal time asleep. In my naive earlier days, if I went to bed at 10pm and woke up at 6am, I calculated eight hours of sleep. Not so, says the Oura! In fact, on a recent night only six hours and 32 minutes registered on the Oura app’s bar graph, mapping my deep, REM, and light sleep in shades of sea blue.
Wearable sleep trackers are one thing; high-tech mattresses are another. I was especially eager to try the Eight Sleep, so beloved by La Ligne’s Howard, which uses water to heat and cool its separate halves. The intensive installation of the Pod Cover, which goes over your current mattress, itself induced a good night’s rest . Eight Sleep’s temperature modulation created a perfectly calibrated cocoon and eliminated my nightly 3am manoeuvre where I jut my leg outside the covers to cool down.
I also tried the Therabody SmartGoggles, which resemble a VR headset crossed with an eye mask and delightfully massaged my temples and heated my face. Then there is the mysterious Somavedic device that looks like a giant jar of expensive skin cream but apparently neutralises digital pollution through its core of crystals and other minerals.
It’s all a bit overwhelming. “We have to be careful. Many of the wearables have never been validated, so we can’t rely on their data,” warns Krieger, noting that the metrics for measuring deep sleep can vary from device to device. TV producer Karah Preiss returned her Oura Ring within a month. “When you wear these biometric costumes, all of a sudden you’re so aware of what you are lacking,” she tells me. “It’s like having a scale. Scales don’t make losing weight easier.