Maximizing battery life on your Oura is essential if you want to get the most out of the smart ring between charges – and we’ve got plenty of tips to help you do so.
After wearing the Oura Ring Gen 3 for a couple of years, we’ve found that our usage will typically see the ring’s battery last around four days. However, this can stretch to around a week if you employ some of our recommendations below.
We don’t tend to use all of these in conjunction, but they’re great tricks to have up your sleeve if you’re facing an extended period away from the charger. Let’s get into it.
Turn off blood oxygen sensing
While useful (find out why in our full guide to blood oxygen sensing), we’ve found in testing that these nighttime readings are also one of the most significant contributors to batter drain.
This is the first thing setting we turn off if we’re running low on battery or haven’t brought the Oura charger with us on a trip, and you can do so by following the steps below.
To turn off blood oxygen sensing on Oura:
- Open the Oura app.
- Tap the hamburger menu.
- Tap the ‘Blood Oxygen Sensing’ option.
- Toggle it off, then press the ‘X’ in the top-right corner to confirm.
Turn off Location Services
While we do advocate all users set up Oura’s Find My Ring feature (currently iOS-only), given it can help you locate a lost device, it also seems to contribute to reduced battery life (and also means our iPhone battery takes a hit, too).
To trade location info for battery life, you’ll have to change the settings in your iOS device.
Turn off Oura location tracking:
- On your iPhone, go to the Settings app.
- Scroll down to ‘Privacy & Security’ and tap.
- At the top of the list, hit ‘Location Services’.
- Find the Oura app settings, edit your settings to ‘Never’ or ‘Ask Next Time Or When I Share’, and turn off Precise Location.
Enable the ring’s ‘airplane mode’
If we’re desperate to squeeze battery life out of our Oura device, we’ve even been known to turn on the app’s airplane mode. Note that this differs from the airplane mode in your phone’s settings, but works the same way.
Enabling this will ensure that the Bluetooth connection is temporarily severed between the ring and your phone, which should result in reduced battery drain.
By default, it stays on for seven days, though you can reconnect your device by connecting the ring to the charger and waiting for it to link up with the app.
Below are steps to enable the mode in the Oura app:
- Open the Oura app on your iOS/Android device.
- Tap the ring icon in the top-right corner.
- You should see ‘Ring airplane mode’ as the top option – toggle it on.
Store your ring appropriately
While conserving battery life is paramount to some users, it’s also essential to understand how to maintain battery health for the long term.
That’s why Oura recommends placing the ring in its power-saving mode if you’re planning to not wear your device for more than two weeks.
Since there’s no dedicated mode for this, though, you’re going to have to perform a factory reset. This process involves some quirks to ensure it goes into the power-saving mode correctly, so consult our guide to storing an Oura ring correctly for full step-by-step guidance.
Run the latest software
This is a bit of a lame tip, granted, but it’s still important to check for maximum battery efficiency.
We’ve never specifically noticed any battery dips from not running the latest Oura software, this is pretty common with smartwatches and fitness trackers we test – particularly in the first version of major updates.
As of version 2.9.11 (released in November 2023), Gen 3 firmware now updates automatically. However, for this to work, you’ll need your Bluetooth to be turned on, your Oura device to be connected and the ring’s battery level to be above 30%.
You can check your firmware version by tapping the ring icon in the top-right corner of the Oura app, swiping left and viewing the ‘Firmware’ header. Then, cross-reference this with Oura’s update release log.
