Smart rings are the fitness trackers of the future. They are small and don’t have screens, but they keep track of all your important data and help you make better choices. It’s a fairly new market, and the Ultrahuman Ring Air is one of the newer players. This is a light, easy ring that wants to compete with the Oura ring by tracking your health. The Ultrahuman Ring Air isn’t the first smart ring on the market. For example, the Oura Ring 3 has been around for a while. However, compared to Oura and other smart ring makers, the Ultrahuman Ring Air has the edge in both design and price, since it doesn’t require a monthly subscription like so many fitness wearables do.
UltraHuman Ring Air: Description
Like the Oura Ring, the Ultrahuman Ring AIR is a smart ring that tracks both your exercise and general health. It also says it will help you make good decisions about your day based on things like your heart rate, how much sleep you get, and how much time you spend moving around. It’s lined with sensors that sit against your skin and measure your biological data around the clock. You can look at this information whenever you want, just like with other exercise trackers, but the UltraHuman app puts more of an emphasis on recovery.
This was very helpful for me because I’m a very busy person who sometimes has trouble controlling how much energy she has. Like the Oura smart ring, it has similar optical sensors that give you these insights and store them in a phone app that AIR users will have access to for life, Ultrahuman told me. You can buy more than just the UltraHuman Ring Air. Over the years, a lot of startups have started making smart rings, but many of them have had trouble with funding, legal issues, and design because the rings are so small and don’t have much room for the tech.
UltraHuman Ring Air: Price and Availability
The Ultrahuman Ring Air came out in June 2023 and can be bought from Ultrahuman for $349 (about £279 or AU$542), which is the suggested retail price. It comes in four colors: Space Silver, Bionic Gold, Aster Black, and Matte Black. The sizes range from 6 to 12, and if you’re not sure which one to get, you can order a ring sizer kit. Ultrahuman also has an e-sizing service that uses the camera on your phone to measure your fingers. This is probably better for the world than getting the sizing kit.
UltraHuman Ring Air Specifications
Even though it’s small, the Ring Air can track your general health and fitness, as well as your sleep, heart health, and a lot more. Unlike a growing number of wearable companies, there’s no monthly fee to access your data and more advanced features, even though you can talk to a nutritionist for free through the app at any time.
| Spec | Details |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Ultra Products |
| Material | “fighter jet grade” Titanium reinforced with Tungsten Carbide Carbon coating (outer shell); medical-grade hypoallergenic epoxy resin (inner shell) |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth Low Energy / Compatible with iPhones running iOS 14 or later and Android devices running Android 6 or later. |
| Heart rate sensor | Yes |
| Skin temperature sensor | Yes |
| Battery life | 24 mAh (4 days) |
| Charging time | 1.5 – 2 hours from 0% to 100% |
| Waterproof | water-resistant up to 100 meters |
| Weight | 2.4 to 3.6 g, depending on size |
| Colours Options | Matte BlackAster Black, Bionic Gold and Space Silver |
| Check Price |
UltraHuman Ring Air: Design
The Ultrahuman Ring Air is not your typical fitness tracker in the form of a watch. Instead, it looks like a ring. It’s not the first company to come up with the idea of a fitness tracker in the shape of a ring. Oura has been doing it for a few years with the Oura Ring 3, but this is one of the best ways I’ve seen it done so far. That’s because the Ultrahuman Ring Air doesn’t look or feel like a piece of technology most of the time.
The usual matte black finish is very simple, and even though it’s 2.45mm thick, it’s not that much thicker than a typical band ring. When I first put on the ring, it took me a few days to get used to how big it was, but after two and a half months, I don’t even notice it anymore. It’s also a big help that it’s only 2.4g, which is a very low weight. If the matte black finish is too simple for your style, the company also makes it in Aster Black with a mirror finish, as well as in silver and gold.
One of the best things about the Ring Air’s design is that there isn’t much of a bump on the inside of the ring. Most other smart rings have this bump. This again makes the ring look and feel like its non-techy counterpart. However, it does mean that the ring will rotate more than something like the Circular Ring, which uses a notch to keep it in place. I haven’t noticed any errors in my stats when this happens, so I’m not sure how much of a problem it is in the long run.
UltraHuman Ring Air: Fitness & wellness features
Ultrahuman says that the main things the Ring Air can do are track sleep, activity, heart rate, heart rate variability, and skin temperature around the clock. This tracking mix gives you a Sleep and Movement Index as well as a daily Recovery Score (after sleep) to help you plan your workouts or other physical activities. If you get a low score here, you might want to take it easy on your workouts that day. If you get a high score, you should try to beat your personal best at the gym, running track, etc.
The sleep and movement scores are the main parts that are easiest to understand. Ultrahuman’s sleep tracking can tell when you are in different stages of sleep, such as deep sleep, REM sleep, etc. If you get a good amount of sleep, the Sleep Index might give you a high number and a message like “Optimal sleep volume” the next morning. On the other hand, if you didn’t spend enough time in bed or didn’t sleep well, you’ll be pushed to prioritize getting enough good sleep to help you rest and heal.
In addition to tracking your sleep at night, the app can also find power naps that last more than 25 minutes. Even though I don’t like naps, I took one for the team to test this and found that it did recognize a nap. Even so, it once thought I was sleeping when I wasn’t. I had been sitting down and not moving for a while, which may have confused the algorithms.
Another sleep-related feature is tracking your circadian rhythm. The app will remind you to get natural light or stay away from bright light during certain times in the morning and evening to help you sleep better. A digital dial that looks like a watch will show you which phase of your circadian rhythm you’re in. In a strange way, this would probably feel more useful on a smart watch, where you can quickly glance at it, than in an app on your phone.
The main thing the Ring Air does is keep track of how active or not you are. This means that you can expect to get low scores if you sit at a desk and type all day. But if you get up and move around for a few minutes every hour, as the app suggests (by giving you “stretch break alerts”), you’ll have a slightly less depressing score. One category question to think about is whether or not people really need a pricey gadget to tell them to get up off the couch.
UltraHuman Ring Air: Performance
One of the reasons smart rings are so popular is that when the sensors are on your finger, they tend to get more accurate biological data. This is because the blood veins in your fingers are much closer to the surface than those in your wrist. Compared to the other wearables I was trying, the UltraHuman Ring Air did well. It tracked my heart rate and steps in the same way that my Apple Watch Series 8 did. Since the UltraHuman Ring Air app makes so many suggestions, it’s good to know that the data it’s getting is correct.
The scores are easy to see, so you don’t have to be a biometrics expert to understand it, and the app has a simple (very Oura-like) site with cards for each type of data. As well as these important scores, the app gives you some really interesting information that I’ve never seen presented so well by a gadget before. It’s all about when you should do different things during the day. For example, there is a sunlight exposure window and a caffeine intake window. Based on your sleep and activity levels, the app will tell you when you need to go outside and when it’s best to drink your morning coffee so you feel good and don’t mess up your sleep later in the day.
I find it hard to keep track of my energy levels and recovery, but the UltraHuman Ring Air’s healing information and suggestions helped me a lot. You could say that letting a device decide whether I should work out hard or not isn’t good and that I should learn those signs myself. UltraHuman says that a fully charged Ring Air will last for 6 days, and I found that to be almost right when I tested it. It comes with a little charging stand that it fits into. Once it’s on that stand, it takes about 2 hours to charge back up to 100%.
UltraHuman Ring Air: App
Since the Ultrahuman Ring Air doesn’t have a screen, most of the contact happens through the Ultrahuman app for iOS and Android. Even though the two versions of the app are mostly the same, it seems that new features are added to the iOS app first. The iOS version of the workout beta came out weeks before the Android version, and the cardiovascular health feature that was talked about earlier has still not made it to Android. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s something Android users should be aware of.
After that, the Ultrahuman app is usually well-made and gives you a lot of ways to dig deep into your data. It shows most metrics as graphs and lets you compare them to previous days, weeks, or even months to see how they’ve changed over time. However, it doesn’t do a great job of bringing out specific trends in the data, so you’ll have to do most of the interpreting yourself. The main screen of the app shows your moving, recovery, and sleep index scores so you can see at a glance how you’re doing. Tapping on each score will give you a more in-depth look at how you’re doing.
The movement index, for example, will show you things like how many steps you’ve taken, how many busy minutes you’ve spent exercising that day, and how many calories you’ve burned. The recovery score, on the other hand, goes into detail about things like heart rate variability (HRV) that can affect how you do day-to-day. The app will also pull in workouts and some other data from supported apps like Strava, RunKeeper, Apple Health, and Google Fit. It will also share data with the last two apps, but some useful data, like sleep tracking measures, won’t be shared with any other app.
At the end of each week, you’ll get a message that your weekly report is ready for you to look at. Every Monday morning, the ring sends you a summary of everything it’s been tracking over the past week. It compares your performance to that of previous weeks to tell you if you’re on track to meet your goals, whether they are to get more sleep, exercise more, or just be more active in general. It’s a great feature that gives you a lot of information at a glance. However, it’s a bit annoying that all of this information is shown on the Ultrahuman website instead of the app, and it’s not easy to find the report again after you tap on the message in your app.
UltraHuman Ring Air: Battery Life
The AIR has a 24mAh battery that, not surprisingly, can’t be taken out. Instead, it has a small charging dock that you can put your ring on when it needs to be charged, just like the Oura. Ultrahuman says that it can last for up to six days on a single charge, but from what I’ve seen, that seems like a lot. On average, it lasted 3 days on a full charge, which was the same as the Oura Ring Gen 3 I wore on my other hand.
There are tips in the app on how to get the best battery life out of it, but in all the time I tested it, I never got close to six days. When the battery gets to 0%, it’s not exactly a fast charger, but it will send you a nudge on your phone to let you know that the battery is low and you need to put the phone on the dock.
UltraHuman Ring Air: Pros and Cons
The UltraHuman Ring Air is a non-invasive way to track your health.
Pros
- Light and comfortable
- No monthly subscription charge
- Great health and fitness tracking
- Tons of recommendations and trends via the Ultrahuman app
Cons
- Outer paint can get damaged easily
- App is cluttered and lacks focus
Final Words
The Ultrahuman Ring Air is a unique idea for an exercise wearable, and not just because it is small and light, which does help people get used to it more quickly. This smart ring comes with an app that can help you make the most of your daily tasks and maybe even improve your health, as long as you are willing to follow the algorithm’s suggestions.
At the moment, the Ultrahuman Ring Air is best used to track your sleep and health without you having to do anything. Not only is it missing some performance metrics that are needed to track and analyze athletic performance, but it also doesn’t have a display, which is important for giving instant feedback while working out.
