Learn how Oura tracks your steps and daily activity to give you a complete picture of your movement.
How Oura Measures Steps
How Oura Measures Activity
How Oura Calculates with METs
What Is Active Calorie Burn?
What Is Total Burn?
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How Oura Measures Steps
The Oura Ring registers all your daily movements and their intensities, from light housework to heavy workouts. From the gathered data, Oura's activity algorithms are fine-tuned to recognize steps from the rest of your daily movement. Oura is able to identify step patterns within a very small window of time (30 seconds) and with a high level of precision from your finger.
Since total activity includes both step-based and non-step-based movements, it can vary based on several factors. Increasing or decreasing your step count, engaging in different activities each day, or wearing an Oura Ring on your dominant vs. non-dominant hand can all impact your daily activity.
Other wearables or apps may show different step estimates because they use different methods of categorizing steps. Many trackers set a different threshold for what counts as "activity" while others categorize all movements as steps.
How Oura Measures Activity
The Oura Ring uses a 3D accelerometer to track activity, measuring movement in all directions. While it captures most daily activities well, accelerometers can have difficulty with activities that involve limited hand movement in one direction (for example, using an elliptical or lifting weights), no hand movement (for example, cycling), or intense movement isolated to your hands (for example, drumming).
For more accurate activity tracking, make sure the ring's sensor bumps are on the palm side of your finger. For non-step-based activities that are more difficult to measure (for example, yoga), manually adding your activities on the Oura App can improve the accuracy of your Activity Score.
On iOS, you can import your activities from Apple Health, and on Android, you can import activities from Health Connect by Android.
How Oura Calculates with METs
Oura calculates your daily energy expenditure using METs or Metabolic Equivalents. MET is a common measure used to express the energy expenditure and intensity of different physical activities. If an activity has a MET value of 4, it means you're burning four times as many calories as you would burn while resting.
The time you spend doing activities with specific MET values can be expressed as MET minutes. For example:
- 30 min x brisk walking (MET value = 3) = 90 MET minutes
- 30 min x jogging (MET value = 7) = 210 MET minutes
One MET corresponds with Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR), or the total number of calories burned while your body is completely at rest. This is part of what your body needs to sustain itself while you're awake. To provide accurate insights, Oura uses 1.5 METs as the lowest threshold for activities that contribute to your daily active calorie burn. This ensures you're only tracking calories burned through physical activity, not the calories your body uses while at rest.
Sedentary vs. Physical Activities
Sedentary activities, like sitting or watching TV, range from 1 to 1.5 METs. Active calories, on the other hand, such as activities like household chores, walking the dog, or dancing, have METs above 1.5.
By using 1.5 METs as the threshold for active calories, Oura prevents you from logging large amounts of calories from low-intensity activities. This helps increase the accuracy of your Activity Score and other activity metrics without overstating calories burned during rest or light activities.
What Is Active Calorie Burn?
Active calorie burn is an estimate of the calories you burn over the course of the day through exercise or other activity. It captures the calories you've burned while walking, training, or partaking in other physical activities.
Tracking your active calorie burn can help you balance your activity output and calorie intake. Active calorie burn can be found on the Oura App's home and Activity screens and appears as the numerator in your Activity Goal Progress.
If you're looking to boost your activity levels in general, or achieve higher fitness goals, monitoring active calorie burn by paying attention to your Activity Goal Progress can help. When this numerator is higher, it means you've engaged in more intentional movement and activity. Paying attention to days when your active calorie burn is higher can also help you recognize the need for additional recovery time and refueling through proper nutrition and hydration.
What Is Total Burn?
Total burn, on the other hand, is the total number of calories you burn over the course of a full 24 hours, resting or otherwise. Every day, Oura begins calculating your total burn at 4 AM as your metabolism starts to gear up for all daytime functions and activities. This initial calculation is done using your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), which is the number of calories your body needs to sustain itself and all your vital functions (i.e. breathing, digesting, circulating blood, etc.). Additional calories are added to your total burn count as you continue to move throughout the day and complete any form of exercise.
Total burn can be found on your Activity screen, above your step count.
Keep in mind that if you don't wear your ring while engaging in physical activity, your active calorie burn may be slightly off. This is why we recommend manually adding activities or importing your activities from third-party apps to ensure that your active calorie burn is reflective of all your effort.
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