Earlier this year, Oura’s activity team began work on what Maris Jameson, the team’s Product Lead, nicknamed “Compassionate Product.” The goal in developing these new features was to empower Oura members — regardless of their ability, goals, or circumstances — to experience movement in their own way.
“I chose the word ‘Compassionate’ to signal the sense of mission and purpose I feel in my work,” Jameson says. “Sport saved and changed my life, and I chose to work in digital activity many years ago to help others to experience the power of movement.”
Now, Oura is proud to share the result of months of hard work: the release of two new features, Personalized Activity Goals and Calorie Opt-Out. These features are the first in Oura’s efforts to make activity features better fit our members’ lifestyles and support all types of movement.
Personalized Activity Goals
This new feature comes after extensive user research and analysis. Many members felt their activity goal didn’t align with their current lifestyles: “People told us their activity goal was too low, given hours of specialized sport training, or that their activity goal was too high during certain circumstances, such as having a new baby at home,” Jameson explains.
You asked, and we listened: We created an adjustable baseline Activity goal to better fit our members’ lives. Activity goals at Oura are no longer one-size-fits-all; now, the power is in your hands to choose your baseline goal. Activity goals are a combination of your baseline goal and that day’s Readiness Score. You can now increase and decrease your baseline goal based on how you feel and your circumstances that day.
Your Activity goals continue to be dynamic. This means that on days when you receive an “Optimal” Readiness Score, your Activity goal increases, and on days when you receive a “Pay Attention” Readiness Score, your Activity goal decreases.
Learn how to adjust your Activity baseline goals here.
Calorie Opt-Out
We also clearly heard members asking to change their type of activity goal. Some members strongly prefer to use Oura to track their holistic health — not calories burned. Other members prefer to count steps as their daily goal.
Now, you can opt out of seeing calorie counts by changing your activity goal type to steps, not calories. If you change your goal type to steps, you have the option to opt out of calorie metrics throughout the entire Oura App. Jameson explains: “This means that your Activity goal type will be steps, workouts won’t have a calorie estimation in the post-session screen, and any workouts imported from third-party apps such as Strava, Apple Watch, or Google Fit won’t include calories either.”
“We know that this opt-out may not apply to all members, but we know it’s deeply desired by those who would like to unsubscribe from a very old narrative of prescription and restriction,” Jameson says.
Looking Forward for Our Members
There is a tidal wave of much-needed change happening in the digital activity space, Jameson notes: A prescriptive, singular way to move, look, and be is out; the pursuit of holistic health and self-care is in. By giving our members the power of choice, Oura is delivering on the first of many promises to help Oura’s activity measurements better fit your lifestyle (and not the other way around).
As for what’s next? “The future of activity at Oura is personalization,” Jameson says. “We are aiming for effortless activity tracking, and we’re continuing to show members how they are building fitness and balancing recovery in the context of their own relative health. We’re also going to meet more Oura members where they are — look out for us on even more of your favorite platforms in the future.”
About the Oura Expert
Maris Jameson leads Activity product at Oura and is based in Encinitas, CA. Prior to Oura, Maris worked in connected product at Under Armour and most recently was a senior product manager with Nike’s connected product & activity tracking apps. Maris believes deeply in the transformative power of movement and also in Taylor Swift.