Is Oura Ring Without Subscription Worth It? What Will You Miss Out?

My first month of the Oura subscription came free with the ring, and it was all fun and exciting till that free subscription expired. The difference between the Oura Ring with and without the subscription was massive.

It is already enough that I had to cut out a hole worth $299 from my pocket. On top of that, the $5.99 monthly subscription stings me and only feels worth it sometimes. But there’s no going around it.

The Oura Ring did not really suit me without the subscription, but you can read this article to decide what worth the Oura Ring will be for you without the subscription.

Does Oura Gen3 Work Without Subscription?

The Oura Gen3 does work without a subscription, but in my personal opinion, it is worthless. The three daily scores (Sleep, Readiness, and Activity), ring battery, just basic profile information, the explore content menu, and app settings don’t sound very fair to me for $299.

I lost access to most of the ring features and my own data even though the ring was still tracking everything. That not only felt disappointing but suspicious also, as I did not like Oura denying me access to my own data even though it’s still tracking every bit of it.

The reason why Oura Gen3 became worthless for me after my subscription expired was because it no longer served the purpose I brought it for, i.e., Self-improvement. 

I am not even exaggerating when I say that for the first week without Oura subscription, I became desperate to get my hands back on my old Oura Gen2. But it was long gone already.

It was careless of me to miss the features of the Oura subscription. But my previous Oura Gen2 was also responsible for that. There might be no match for the Oura Gen3’s accuracy and features, but the Oura Gen2 offered almost all the same features but without the limitation of the subscription that comes with Gen3.

What Features Are Available in Oura Without Subscription?

I cannot thank Oura enough for letting the Explore content menu work without a subscription. During the first month, in the heat of excitement, I grooved to sleep on Oura’s sleep audios every night. 

So, when I started facing unavailable features with the expiry of my subscription, I almost panicked, imagining myself struggling to sleep without the same audio files. 

Other features like sleep analysis, heart rate and temperature tracking, and blood oxygen tracking are all rendered useless without a subscription. 

In my own experience, I did not find my scores of any use at all without the detailed analysis and suggestions that were available with the subscription. That was not the case when I used Oura Gen2, as there was no concept of subscription there.

On the other hand, if I had used the ring for long enough to know how it works, I am sure that I would have been able to predict my data analysis with only the daily score. The daily score on Oura Ring is a representation of your sleep score, activity score, and readiness score. 

On a busy day, just the score is fine to give me an idea of my routine. But in the end, I had to commit to the monthly subscription to get my purpose of buying the ring served.

Oura Gen3 Features That Are Inactive Without Subscription

Just to share a glimpse of my disappointment after losing the Oura Ring Gen3 monthly subscription for the first time, given below are the features that went inactive on the expiry of the Oura membership:

1. Detailed sleep analysis
2. 24/7 heart rate tracking (Daytime, Nighttime, Workout)
3. Integration with third-party health and wellness apps like Strava
4. Advanced temperature monitoring
5. Blood Oxygen Sensing (SpO2)
6. Cycle Insights
7. Pregnancy Insights
8. Daytime Stress
9. Resilience
10. Dynamic activity goals with Automatic Activity Detection
11. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly, and anniversary reports
12. Oura API

What Do I Miss About My Oura Gen2?

The Oura Gen2 did not have constant temperature tracking, daytime stress, or pregnancy insights, but still, I would choose Oura Ring Gen2 over the Gen3 any day. The reason I feel this way is because of the availability of data and insights regardless of a subscription.

There is no need to explain that the Oura activity insights matter much more than just the numbers. Each insight on Oura, from the Readiness score to something as small as the Rest Time, means more to me compared to the ambiguity faced on Oura Gen3 without a subscription.

It was a part of my routine to self-reflect each morning on my daily habits with the help of Oura’s insights to improve my lifestyle. On the Oura Gen3, though, I am left clueless about what it is that I did wrong to get such scores. 

Even with such a large variety of features, all that Oura has been to most people is a sleep-tracking device. To me, it does not matter whether Oura Gen3 tracks 24/7 activity or Oura Gen2 tracks only nighttime stats; both are meaningless without the insights that go missing after the expiration of a subscription in Oura Gen3.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wrap Up

In conclusion to this article, I will once again force your attention to the fact that you lose access to every detail in the Oura app without a monthly subscription. You will only get your daily scores in terms of numbers, which didn’t matter to me as it teaches nothing and totally negates what compelled me to buy the ring in the first place.