Activity Heart Rate – Oura Help

Activity Heart Rate is available for:

Gen3 or later with active membership
iOS
Android

This feature is not available on Gen2 or older.

What Is Activity Heart Rate?
How to Use Activity Heart Rate
Automatic Activity Detection + Heart Rate
Manually Record HR
Edit or Delete Activity
More Information

What Is Activity Heart Rate?

The Activity Heart Rate features record heart rate readings while you exercise and — in combination with daytime heart rate measurements, Live Heart Rate, Daytime Stress, and nighttime Resting Heart Rate (RHR) — presents you with a complete, 24-hour heart rate graph.

Note: Activity Heart Rate is not the same as passive daytime heart rate measurement. Activity Heart Rate uses a higher sampling rate to accurately record your pulse during exercise. Daytime heart rate measurement takes a reading of your pulse at lower intervals throughout the day.

Upon completion of your activity, the Oura App will display detailed graphs of your activity heart rate and heart rate zones. If you take your phone with you with location services enabled, the app will display a map and route of your completed activity (see Location Services for Activities for more information). On the daily heart rate graph, activity heart rate is displayed as an orange line.

Calorie Calculation

The calorie value associated with an AAD or Activity Heart Rate-recorded session is calculated from the selected activity type, duration, and intensity (based on heart rate). If heart rate is not available during the session, the intensity defaults to "moderate" and the calorie value is calculated based on average calorie burn rates for that type of activity. Activity intensity cannot be edited for AAD or Activity Heart Rate sessions.

For manually added activities, the calorie value is calculated from the selected activity type, duration, and intensity (easy, moderate, or hard, as selected by the user). Manually added activities can be edited afterwards to adjust their intensity levels.

What Are Heart Rate Zones?

Heart rate zones are a measure of activity intensity. Oura uses six heart rate zones, and uses an age-based estimate of your maximum heart rate to assign ranges to your heart rate zones.

Zone 0: ≤ 49% of max HR. You're either at rest or moving slowly
Zone 1: ≥ 50-59% of max HR. You're moving at a light, steady pace
Zone 2: ≥ 60-69% of max HR. You're moving at a light-to-moderate pace that may cause mild strain but feels sustainable
Zone 3: ≥ 70-79% of max HR. You’re expending moderate-to-high amounts of energy and feeling more strain
Zone 4: ≥ 80-89% of max HR. You're exerting near-max effort—moving with high intensity and really challenging your body
Zone 5: ≥ 90-100% of max HR. You're working at an all-out effort, and your heart and respiratory system are working at maximum capacity

If you know your max heart rate, you can edit it in the app in order to calculate more specific heart rate zones:

Tap the menu in the upper-left of the Today tab
Select "Settings"
Select "Activity"
Select "Max heart rate"

Time spent in all six heart rate zones can have positive impacts on metabolic processes. Rigorous exercise is important, but even low-intensity activities and everyday movement can improve energy, weight management, and insulin sensitivity over time.

Activities in higher heart rate zones have metabolic and cardiovascular benefits. You can learn more about heart rate zones on our blog.

How to Use Activity Heart Rate

If you want to record route and distance details, make sure that location services are turned on before you begin your activity, and take your phone with you. Otherwise, you can leave your phone at home and the ring will still record your other activity details.

Automatic Activity Detection + Heart Rate

Activity Heart Rate works with Oura's Automatic Activity Detection (AAD) feature to record your heart rate during many activities, without any further action required on your part. An activity must last at least 10 minutes to be automatically detected, and your ring must have at least five percent battery.

To conserve Oura Ring battery life, you can turn off heart rate tracking with AAD:

Select the menu in the upper left of the Oura App's home screen
Select Settings
Select Activity
Select the toggle next to Activity heart rate
- When the toggle is off, AAD information will still be shown in the app, but will not include heart rate information.

After you have confirmed a detected activity on the app's "Today" screen, you can tap on the activity to view more details.

AAD captures most types of movement, but if you find that your particular activity is consistently not showing up in the Oura App, you can instead manually record your heart rate during an activity (see steps below), or you can manually add an activity after you've completed it. This will ensure that you receive credit for all of your daily movement.

Manually Record HR

Tap the + button in the bottom right of the Oura App's Today tab
Select Record workout HR

Select activity type
Hit record to begin. You can pause and resume your activity recording at any time
When you're finished, tap "Pause" and then "End activity" to stop recording heart rate
- Remember to stop your activity in the app when you’re done, otherwise the ring battery charge may be affected. You will receive a reminder notification if your activity has been running for more than three hours
View activity details, including your heart rate zones and heart rate graph
You can edit your activity the same way you would edit a manually added activity
Your Activity Heart Rate readings will be color-coded orange in the daytime heart rate graph. Tap on "Activity" beneath the graph for more information

Note: Activity added between midnight and 4 AM may appear in the Oura App as a previous day's activity. This is a known issue due to the discrepancy between the app timeline, which runs from 12 AM to 12 AM, and the activity detection timeline, which runs from 4 AM to 4 AM.

Edit or Delete Activity

To edit or delete an activity in the Oura App:

Tap on the activity in the Timeline on the app's "Today" screen or from the list of activities in the Activity screen
Scroll down and select Edit activity at the bottom of the screen
Edit the type of activity, and its time started or duration as needed
Select Done to save changes

Activities can also be deleted from the Edit activity screen. Deleting an activity will remove its impact on any of your scores and contributors.

Activities can be manually added, edited, or deleted at any time on any day, including previous days. For activities imported from a third-party integration, only the activity type can be edited in the Oura App.