{"id":4524,"date":"2024-06-15T15:04:51","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T15:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/15\/smart-rings-england-stars-spotted-wearing-device-popular-with-celebrities-including-kim-kardashian-but-can-it-help-them-at-euro-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-06-15T15:04:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-15T15:04:51","slug":"smart-rings-england-stars-spotted-wearing-device-popular-with-celebrities-including-kim-kardashian-but-can-it-help-them-at-euro-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/15\/smart-rings-england-stars-spotted-wearing-device-popular-with-celebrities-including-kim-kardashian-but-can-it-help-them-at-euro-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart rings: England stars spotted wearing device popular with celebrities including Kim Kardashian \u2013 but can it help them at Euro 2024?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The England team are taking no chances ahead of Euro 2024 as they sport titanium health rings worn by some of the world’s biggest celebrities.<\/p>\n

As the team trained for their first Euro 2024 against Serbia on Sunday, manager Gareth Southgate<\/strong> was spotted wearing an Oura tracking ring.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Midfielder Conor Gallagher was spotted wearing one too and defender John Stones once described his as “addictive”.<\/p>\n

“We’re beaming with pride when we see these elite athletes choose Oura, that’s really cool,” said Dororthy Kilroy, the company’s chief commercial officer, to Sky News.<\/p>\n

So what is it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Wearable trackers like the Oura ring monitor aspects of the wearer’s health<\/strong>, like their sleep, heart rate, stress levels and periods of activity.<\/p>\n

For most of us, they can remind us to look after ourselves. For athletes, they can help them reach peak performance.<\/p>\n

“The ring is now extremely sophisticated,” said Joao Bocas, a wearables expert who runs the digital healthcare company Salutem.<\/p>\n

“It records the heart rate, variability in skin temperature and resting heart rate. [The new model] offers the blood oxygen sensor sensing capabilities, it even offers life insights about daytime stress and resilience.”<\/p>\n

So will it give England the edge?<\/strong><\/p>\n

England are already favourites to win the Euros but the men’s team have never lifted a trophy at the competition.<\/p>\n

They’ll be looking for anything that will help them bring home some silverware.<\/p>\n

Dave Thomas works with England’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes at the UK Sports Institute where he leads on “future technology”.<\/p>\n

He says the ring may offer the England team’s sports scientists another perspective on how their players are getting on during the tournament.<\/p>\n

“In a sporting environment, you have a number of different wearables for different contexts,” Mr Thomas told Sky News.<\/p>\n

“They give indications of whether [the athletes] could be about to come down with a bug or they’re overloaded.<\/p>\n

“It can give the sports scientists or the coaches that indication that we need to back off a little bit and give them a bit of a rest.”<\/p>\n

Mr Thomas pointed out that while he usually works with wearables that aren’t commercially available, trackers like the Oura ring can be more convenient for the athletes – which means they actually use them.<\/p>\n

“[Commercial trackers] are reliable and there’s a low faff factor. Whereas a lot of the stuff, as you increase the level of measurement precision that you want and accuracy and confidence, that builds more hassle around the athlete.<\/p>\n

“Really they just want to concentrate on playing, concentrate on training and concentrate on resting.”<\/p>\n

Are trackers like this the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Health trackers have been around since the 1960s – there was always a dusty pedometer in the kitchen drawer growing up – but there’s been a boom in the market recently.<\/p>\n

Celebrities have jumped onboard, with Kim Kardashian, Prince Harry and Gwyneth Paltrow all donning Oura rings, which can cost in the range of \u00a3300-\u00a3550.<\/p>\n

“There is definitely a trend of ‘fashion tech’, of being seen wearing the latest gadget,” says Mr Bocas.<\/p>\n

“But I also think COVID-19 raised our awareness of what is important [in terms of our health].”<\/p>\n

Ms Kilroy from Oura agrees. She thinks the pandemic set off the growing demand for wearable health tech.<\/p>\n

“We all felt very out of control of our health, right? Things were happening and we were rushing to Google to get answers,” she said.<\/p>\n

“So having access to your own data about how your body is doing – I think being able to understand that and being empowered with that data yourself, once you get a taste of that, it’s actually feels really liberating.”<\/p>\n

But according to Mr Bocas, we won’t be wearing health jewellery for long.<\/p>\n

“In five, 10 years’ time, the wearables we’re seeing today will become obsolete, the bracelets, the rings, the watches,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Technology has advanced so much that we have sensors that will go in our clothes, in our belts, in our glasses, in our shoes. Even, if I can be a bit controversial here, implantable skin sensors where we won’t need to wear anything.”<\/p>\n

For now, England fans will be hoping the ring on some of the team’s fingers will be enough to make them champions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The England team are taking no chances ahead of Euro 2024 as they sport titanium…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4525,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}