Sorsha
Tentatively expecting #2
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2012
- Messages
- 639
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I've been using OvuSense for three cycles now* and figured people here might find this info on it helpful. 
First off I'll be clear that I paid for the device and am not getting any benefit out of writing this review (other than knowing I'm potentially helping other folks).
OvuSense is a device + an app that lets you track your BBT in a way that makes temping much easier for people with irregular sleep schedules, inconsistent cycles, restless sleep, etc. The device is shaped like a small egg with a tail, and you insert it vaginally before you go to bed. It takes your internal temperature every five minutes until you take it out again, and then gives you a temp for that night based on an average of those. Temps that are too high or too low to make sense are discarded (as I understand it), which is how it knows when it's been taken out. To get your temp data, you have to use a scanner they provide with a phone or tablet and upload the data to their app. You get 30 days free with the purchase of the device and then you can pay for a monthly or annual subscription.
I bought OvuSense because I find regular temping really difficult. I'm a restless sleeper, so I have nights when I don't get a full 3+ hours in a row at all, and even when I do, there's no easy way to predict when I'll get them. On top of that, knowing I needed to try to take my temp at a consistent time made me anxious, which affected my sleep too, and I had trouble getting back to sleep once I'd woken up enough to grab the thermometer etc.
The sensor is pretty easy to use. I've been using menstrual cups for years, so putting something up there is no big deal to me.
It's small and smooth enough to insert easily, but big enough that it "sticks" and doesn't fall back out if you're walking around (like, to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night) unless you've got a lot of CM. The tail makes it easy to pull it back out. I've had zero discomfort using it.
And it has improved my temping immensely. When I was temping the usual way, my temps would be all over the place depending on when I temped, how well I'd slept, etc. I could see where O had probably happened, but it was difficult to be completely sure. With the OvuSense, most of my pre-O temps have been within a few tenths of a degree of each other, and then I see a clear significant rise that sustains itself after O. I have seen occasional dips and rises close to O, but nothing too extreme and they don't seem to be related to anything I was doing that night, so I think my body just gets a bit weird as it's gearing up to O. Using OvuSense has also made temping so much less stressful for me.
On the downside, it's pretty expensive. I don't love the subscription model for the app vs. being able to buy it outright, and I suspect if I haven't gotten pregnant in a few more months (and my O pattern stays the same), I'll just stop temping. You can save a lot of money if you buy the annual subscription (it's about half what it'd cost to do the month-to-month for a year), but then you're gambling that you're not going to get pregnant for at least six months for the savings to kick in. There's no way to get your temperature data if you don't have a subscription for their app. (You can, though, still see your previous data even if your subscription expires. You just can't download new data.)
I've also had a couple of technical and communication issues. Two weeks in, the scanner stopped being able to read data from the sensor. I contacted the company and after some back and forth they sent me a new model that had just been released, and I haven't had any problems with that one in the last month, but it was frustrating that a newly purchased device stopped working that early on, and it also meant I couldn't take my temp data for about a week while I waited for the replacement. (Thankfully, I'd already gotten confirmed ovulation.) They did offer me another free month of use since my use of it got interrupted.
Today my second free month was up, so I went to purchase a subscription. I was a little alarmed when the website informed me, *after* I'd purchased, that the payment might take up to 24 hours to process before I'd get my activation code. The sensor only stores data for the past 14 hours, so if you scan more than 14 hours after you went to bed, you lose part of your night's data. And today I was hoping to get my third high temp to confirm O. I contacted their support team to ask if there was any way I could make a direct payment to get a code immediately, explaining my situation, and was told that was impossible. I ended up getting the code several hours later and lost about an hour of temp data from the previous night.
So if you get OvuSense, make sure you buy your subscription at least a full day before your trial period runs out, just to be careful!
Overall I'm glad I bought the OvuSense and have been pleased with how it works. I just hope I get preggo before the cost adds up too much!
Happy to answer questions if anyone's thinking about using this but needs more info.
First off I'll be clear that I paid for the device and am not getting any benefit out of writing this review (other than knowing I'm potentially helping other folks).OvuSense is a device + an app that lets you track your BBT in a way that makes temping much easier for people with irregular sleep schedules, inconsistent cycles, restless sleep, etc. The device is shaped like a small egg with a tail, and you insert it vaginally before you go to bed. It takes your internal temperature every five minutes until you take it out again, and then gives you a temp for that night based on an average of those. Temps that are too high or too low to make sense are discarded (as I understand it), which is how it knows when it's been taken out. To get your temp data, you have to use a scanner they provide with a phone or tablet and upload the data to their app. You get 30 days free with the purchase of the device and then you can pay for a monthly or annual subscription.
I bought OvuSense because I find regular temping really difficult. I'm a restless sleeper, so I have nights when I don't get a full 3+ hours in a row at all, and even when I do, there's no easy way to predict when I'll get them. On top of that, knowing I needed to try to take my temp at a consistent time made me anxious, which affected my sleep too, and I had trouble getting back to sleep once I'd woken up enough to grab the thermometer etc.
The sensor is pretty easy to use. I've been using menstrual cups for years, so putting something up there is no big deal to me.
It's small and smooth enough to insert easily, but big enough that it "sticks" and doesn't fall back out if you're walking around (like, to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night) unless you've got a lot of CM. The tail makes it easy to pull it back out. I've had zero discomfort using it.And it has improved my temping immensely. When I was temping the usual way, my temps would be all over the place depending on when I temped, how well I'd slept, etc. I could see where O had probably happened, but it was difficult to be completely sure. With the OvuSense, most of my pre-O temps have been within a few tenths of a degree of each other, and then I see a clear significant rise that sustains itself after O. I have seen occasional dips and rises close to O, but nothing too extreme and they don't seem to be related to anything I was doing that night, so I think my body just gets a bit weird as it's gearing up to O. Using OvuSense has also made temping so much less stressful for me.
On the downside, it's pretty expensive. I don't love the subscription model for the app vs. being able to buy it outright, and I suspect if I haven't gotten pregnant in a few more months (and my O pattern stays the same), I'll just stop temping. You can save a lot of money if you buy the annual subscription (it's about half what it'd cost to do the month-to-month for a year), but then you're gambling that you're not going to get pregnant for at least six months for the savings to kick in. There's no way to get your temperature data if you don't have a subscription for their app. (You can, though, still see your previous data even if your subscription expires. You just can't download new data.)
I've also had a couple of technical and communication issues. Two weeks in, the scanner stopped being able to read data from the sensor. I contacted the company and after some back and forth they sent me a new model that had just been released, and I haven't had any problems with that one in the last month, but it was frustrating that a newly purchased device stopped working that early on, and it also meant I couldn't take my temp data for about a week while I waited for the replacement. (Thankfully, I'd already gotten confirmed ovulation.) They did offer me another free month of use since my use of it got interrupted.
Today my second free month was up, so I went to purchase a subscription. I was a little alarmed when the website informed me, *after* I'd purchased, that the payment might take up to 24 hours to process before I'd get my activation code. The sensor only stores data for the past 14 hours, so if you scan more than 14 hours after you went to bed, you lose part of your night's data. And today I was hoping to get my third high temp to confirm O. I contacted their support team to ask if there was any way I could make a direct payment to get a code immediately, explaining my situation, and was told that was impossible. I ended up getting the code several hours later and lost about an hour of temp data from the previous night.
So if you get OvuSense, make sure you buy your subscription at least a full day before your trial period runs out, just to be careful!
Overall I'm glad I bought the OvuSense and have been pleased with how it works. I just hope I get preggo before the cost adds up too much!
Happy to answer questions if anyone's thinking about using this but needs more info.
