The Ultimate New Smart Ring (Subscription-Free)?

Smart wearables give you invaluable insights into the innermost workings of your body (and brain).

The right devices passively collect your biomarker data in the background, without you expending energy, time, or effort. Establishing your baseline.

Then, this technology helps you spot patterns that would otherwise fly under the radar for years, decades, or even a lifetime.

Helping you make the best data-driven decisions to improve your health (the easy way).

In fact, the Cleveland Clinic reports that 79% of users notice health improvements from using their wearable [R].

I’ve tested all the popular devices on the market. From the popular Apple Watch to the discontinued Amazon Halo, Biostrap, WHOOP, Fitbits, Garmins, and for the last seven years, the Oura ring.

Most of them are big and bulky; some are prohibitively expensive, with one-time hardware costs and then recurring membership fees.

The Oura ring pioneered a new category of “smart rings”. Over the years, however, lack of innovation paired with declining customer service and recurring memberships makes this a questionable choice for data-driven biohackers.

In 2022, I came across a health tech startup called Ultrahuman. Fast forward two years, and I’ve now thoroughly tested their ring.

So in this Ultrahuman AIR smart ring review, I’ll share my experience, how the AIR ring compares to the Oura ring, and everything you should know before considering buying.

In a rush?

What is Ultrahuman?

UltraHuman is a health tech startup focused on providing tools to help optimize health, fitness, and biohacking. While best known for their wearable smart ring, Ultrahuman is expanding into other self-quantification verticals too.

Offering services like blood labs (called Blood Vision), continuous glucose monitoring (via their new M1 CGM), and a soon-to-be-released home environment monitor.

Their products integrate with each other, making them one of the best overall health tech ecosystems. Their app lets you visualize all your data in one interconnected platform.

The Ring AIR

The Ring AIR has rapidly become Ultrahuman’s flagship product. Even improving upon incumbent Oura ring in several ways.

This lightweight, comfortable, and minimalist smart wearable excellently tracks many health biomarkers

This device captures most metrics related to your recovery, sleep, and stress. Like other smart rings, it tracks activity but not as well as screen-based devices like the Garmin Fenix and even the Apple Watch.

Accompanied by a well-designed app, the Ultrahuman platform provides you with the tools and knowledge to make healthier choices each day. Although it looks quite similar to Oura, under the hood it contains some different features.

Sensors & specs

Ultrahuman didn’t skimp on the hardware, and it shows.

They made the ring itself out of fighter jet-grade Titanium. It’s light, weighing just 2.4 – 3.6 grams depending on your ring size. At 8.1mm wide and 2.45 – 2.8mm thick, it’s not much bulkier than a normal ring.

Each AIR ring comes equipped with multiple kinds of sensors:

• Infrared Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor
• Medical-grade skin temperature sensor
• 6-axis motion sensors
• Red LEDs
• Green LEDs
• Infrared LEDs

You may wonder why these use different color LEDs.

Red and Infrared light penetrates deeper into the issue which increases biometric accuracy. Red is also the most consistently accurate across skin tones and blemishes. That’s why medical-grade equipment relies on similar technology.

Green LEDs sacrifice accuracy for the ability to capture real-time active heart rate. Green can withstand motion and light exposure better than red.

All three measure heart rate, but red LEDs also capture blood oxygen saturation (SPO2).

On paper, the rechargeable 24mAh LiPo battery should provide up to six days of life on one charge. In my experience, however, I get more like 3.5-4 days out of a charge. And recharging takes about 2.5 – 3 hours.

Overall, the hardware compares closely to the industry standard.

Ultrahuman Ring AIR Core Features

People generally buy smart rings for two primary feature sets: sleep tracking and recovery tracking.

While these devices also track fitness and movement, they pail in comparison to fitness-first wearables like Apple Watch or Garmin.

But the AIR tracks sleep and recovery quite well.

Recovery tracking

In my opinion and from nearly a decade of use, quality consumer-grade wearables most accurately track recovery. Not sleep, recovery.

They call this your “well-being” score.

The AIR currently captures the following recovery metrics:

• Skin Temperature
• 7-Day HRV
• Last Night’s HRV
• Sleep Index
• HRV Interpretation

Recently, they added the Dynamic Recovery score which adapts to your daily rhythms–including activities like cold baths, power naps, and more in real-time.

This section has many visualizations to plot out the fluctuations and trends of your heart rate, HRV, and resting HR.

I hope they add more recovery biomarkers to this report.

Sleep tracking

Smart rings get equated with sleep for good reason: they highlight easy opportunities to make enormous improvements.

As you’ll see by their plethora of biomarkers tracked, Ultrahuman makes every effort to decode your sleep.

Their “Sleep Index” is an overall comprehensive score depicting your sleep quality. I find this score to be far more useful than Oura’s. They’re also adding new capabilities to this feature soon. You’ll be able to record movement during sleep (tossing & turning), sleep cycles, and behavior-specific sleep debt.

The AIR currently captures the following sleep metrics:

• Sleep efficiency
• Temperature
• Restfulness
• Consistency
• Total sleep
• HR drop
• Timing
• Restorative sleep
• Time in bed
• Total Sleep
• Average heart rate
• Average HRV
• Average blood oxygen saturation
• Sleep index
• Sleep stages breakdown

And then you get visualizations for time spent in each sleep stage (Awake, Light, REM, Deep), heart rate, heart rate variability, movement while sleeping, and body temperature.

The sleep tracking section is quite thorough and helpful.

Outside of sleep tracking, there’s a ton of other strategies to enhance your sleep quality. Check out my full guide on biohacking sleep.

Stress tracking

Ultrahuman launched unique “Stress Rhythm” tracking to help you better understand your circadian rhythm.

This non-invasively breaks down your body’s unique pattern of the stress hormone cortisol so that you can see how it stacks up against the ideal.

You can use this feature to determine the optimal timing for engaging in the most stressful activities, and when to prioritize relaxation with the right techniques.

Stress tracking metrics include:

• Stress rhythm score
• Time spent stressed, stimulated, relaxed, or active
• Graph showing your stress levels throughout the day
• Factors impacting circadian rhythm

Visualizations include when you’re best suited to handle stress and your actual stress load. You can now see your daily Stress Rhythm Score on the app. With this, you can learn how to leverage your stress for improved cognition, energy levels and better sleep

Circadian health is one novel feature I haven’t seen implemented elsewhere.

Fitness tracking

Though not a dedicated fitness tracker, the AIR does capture movement data.

For example, their Movement Index score incentivizes you to move throughout the day, balancing your metabolism and boosting your non-exercise energy expenditure (NEAT). It rewarded frequent movement over short but intense effort.

Movement metrics tracked include:

• Movement index score
• Step count
• Active minutes
• Active hours
• Inactive time
• Total calories burned
• Workout frequency

Most of these metrics also have visualization associated with them.

Like Oura’s movement stats, I don’t find this tab all that interesting or helpful.

Health & biomarker tracking

From the app’s main dashboard, you’ll notice several biomarkers that don’t exist within any of the other categories.

I’m assuming that’s because Ultrahuman wanted to make them easily accessible and/or didn’t know exactly where to put them.

General health metrics tracked include:

• VO2 max
• Heart rate
• Skin temperature deviation
• HRV
• Resting HR

Since you can access them on the home dashboard, I like the ease of drilling deeper into these and spotting trends.

Their recent update includes the Cardio Age feature. It basically leverages VO2 max to provide a clearer picture of your heart health. They’re still working on their AFib Detection feature to give users real-time feedback on how lifestyle behaviors affect heart health.

You can keep track of biomarkers accurately by doing so. This is one of my top tips to boost longevity and overall wellbeing.

I expect they’ll add more here too, as the firmware and software updates continue.

Temperature tracking

Today more devices have begun to measure and surface measures of your body temperature and how it deviates from baseline. Technically, this should fall into the recovery category.

That can help you understand how factors like exercise, stress, sleep deprivation, and illness affect your health—long before you notice any symptoms.

Ultrahuman tracks two temperature metrics:

• Temperature deviation
• Skin temperature

You can see how your temperature fluctuates throughout the day and night, or your longer-term trend. Of course, the temperature of your environment will dramatically influence your skin temperature, so keep that in mind.

Body clock windows

Another novel Ultrahuman feature is called your “Stimulant Restriction Window”.

This feature explores the intricate interplay between your unique biology and how different external forces impact your circadian rhythm and overall health.

Depending on the time of day, this feature will recommend drinks/substances to help align your circadian rhythm. In the morning, you’ll see a list of all the relevant drinks like coffee or tea. Along with the recommended dose, and effects of each.

At night, you’ll see things on the other end of the spectrum. Recommended substances like warm milk or lemon balm tea and other healthy “downers to aid sleep”.

Overall, an unexpected but elegant tool.

My Experience With Ultrahuman AIR (& What I’ve Learned)

While traveling through India, I got in touch with Ultrahuman and they generously offered to send me a ring to test.

I immediately noticed that they offer more colors (5) and sizes (5-14) than Oura. Don’t know your ring size? They ship you a complimentary ring sizing kit by default.

Plus, they’re all titanium by default. With Oura’s, that’s an additional $100. Ultrahuman’s available colorways include:

• Raw Titanium
• Aster Black
• Matte Grey
• Bionic Gold
• Space Silver

You can have your ring engraved for a small fee, and if you own another smart device, you can trade it in for a slight discount.

Several days after shipping, my AIR arrived on my doorstep. Unboxing it felt like the sleek Apple-like experience that’s becoming commonplace with premium wearables.

After an hour on the provided (proprietary) charger, setting it up was a breeze. You’ll need an Ultrahuman account to set up the app and pair the ring via BlueTooth.

The user interface of the app is cleaner and far more modern than most wearables I’ve used. Power users will appreciate the layout of the app’s dashboard. From there, you can easily visualize each facet of your health or click into particular biomarker tiles for greater detail.

Most importantly, however, I’ve found my self-quantification data recorded by Ultrahuman most accurately matches my actual state.

Many devices give me obviously wrong info. Like a record HRV score after a night of terrible and insufficient sleep. Or a low sleep score when I wake up feeling well-rested and amazing.

Capturing quality data is one thing, but most wearables fail to help you translate that into lifestyle tweaks. Ultrahuman shines here too.

I’ve used my ring for a little over a month now, and have lots of thoughts on the pros and cons of this tech so far.

Ultrahuman Ring AIR Review: What I Love

Ultrahuman did a surprising number of things right with their smart ring.

They clearly put a lot of thought into the full user experience. To name just a few things I’ve noticed and liked…

Build quality is a notch above other smart rings with the standard outer “fighter jet-grade Titanium” ring shell. The components all feel well-made and durable.

Rapid development. Since I got the ring, I’ve already noticed a few new firmware versions and app updates. Their development teams are certainly doing something (which is more than I can say of most wearables). In that short period, they also rolled out a major new feature (Stress Rhythm).

No subscription. The trend with wearables locks consumers into expensive recurring subscription fees. Otherwise, your device becomes a glorified paperweight. Although you can upgrade to the UltrahumanX membership for a few bucks per month, you don’t lose any functionality without it.

Beautiful visualization & reports. From my other devices, I’ve grown accustomed to old, hard-to-read data reports. Ultrahuman does an amazing job making gorgeous, easy-to-understand visuals. Now that I’ve experienced this, it’s hard to go back.

Actionable. Perhaps most exciting of all, this system actually acts like a health coach to translate your data into the next steps. You get your scores, and Ultrahuman suggests what you can do to improve. Right there, in the app. Rather than just spitting out numbers for complicated scientific acronyms (and perhaps linking you to a semi-relevant article).

User interface. Similarly, I find the app easy, fast, and enjoyable to use. It looks good, has vibrant colors, and feels modern. With a click or two, I can access all the most important metrics and reports. The app’s use of tactile vibration while syncing is another nice touch.

Accuracy. After wearing several devices for weeks and comparing the data daily, I’ve discovered the Ultrahuman ring is just as accurate as Oura. In many cases, it even better matches my subjective experience. The biomarkers are more accurate than my Garmin or Apple Watch too.

Plus, it doesn’t have the annoying data gaps I often get with my Oura ring. Frankly, I’m pleasantly surprised by its accuracy.

Integrations. Ultrahuman’s working towards building an all-in-one health optimization platform. Internally, their platform will connect data from other Ultrahuman products—like CGMs, your smart ring, and smart home environment sensors. Externally, they already integrate with the common services (Apple Health, Google Fit, etc). But you can also connect to 15 other health & fitness-related apps (at the time of this writing).

They’re working on a “Locate My Ring” feature powered by real-time Bluetooth signals as well. You won’t have to worry about misplacing it anymore!

They’re also incentivizing developers to build on top of their platform. The new UltraSignal developer platform grants access to PPG, temperature, and accelerometer data streams.

Performance Coaching & Customer Service. I’ve had several good experiences with the Ultrahuman support team, and currently, they offer free coaching in-app. You can chat with a real human about your sensor or ring data whenever you like.

With their pace of development, I imagine a lot of new cool features to come. But this device has its share of downsides and issues too.

Ultrahuman Ring AIR Review: What I Dislike

Though my experience has been quite positive thus far, I’ve come across things I dislike too.

Obtrusive ads. The app feels like a promo for their M1 CGM and blood testing services. Two of the 5 main app tabs are for Metabolism (CGM) and Vision (Blood). Since I haven’t yet activated those (purchased separately), those just clutter the app.

Plus, many ring users won’t buy or use them anyway. They also promote their UltrahumanX subscription in several places throughout the app. There’s no “X” or way to close the card and clean up the app.

Workout importation. If you use your wearables in airplane mode, or you just forget to sync nightly, you’ll likely run into issues importing any workouts you logged via other devices/apps. For example, if I sync a workout I recorded on my Garmin after midnight, it doesn’t get logged in Ultrahuman.

I imagine this’ll change, but for now, it makes my metrics related to strain or movement inaccurate. Especially because I take off my rings while exercising.

No real-time heart rate metrics including HRV. Oura introduced their real-time “Moments” feature many years ago, and it lets users capture real-time heart rate and HRV data as it happens. This device doesn’t currently display your current markers.

No airplane mode (yet). Today, most wearables have a feature to disable all wireless signal emissions. Although I read somewhere that the AIR has “anti-EMF” technology, I’m not sure exactly what that means. Their team told me that airplane mode will arrive any day now.

Battery life isn’t as good as I hoped. Perhaps that’ll change with more firmware updates and the ability to enter airplane mode, but right now a full charge lasts about 10-15% shorter than my Oura ring.

Less developed. When you buy an Apple Watch or Oura ring, you don’t have to worry about the platform going under and disappearing. You’ll have your data. There’s no way to import my Ultrahuman ring data yet, and a part of me worries about what’ll happen to all my data if this company goes under.

Physical size. I recently noticed that this ring is just a tad thicker than my Oura. It’s barely noticeable, but I hope to see wearable ring tech getting smaller over time, not bigger.

For most people, however, the pros will outweigh these cons.

What I’ve Learned From Using This Smart Ring

I didn’t expect to learn much since I’ve used smart rings (let alone wearables), for a long time.

In my first month of using Ultrahuman, I made a few important discoveries.

First, I may really benefit from working on improving my VO2 max. My score of 49 is “Good” and just 3 points shy of “Excellent”.

I’d imagine that a large part of my lower-than-desired score is because I’ve been traveling India for the last 3 months, and the heat has drastically limited my usual daily walking average of 8 miles. I like fieldwork, sprinting, and conditioning, but not Zone 3 chronic cardio. Mid-intensity steady-state cardio’s not all that healthy, so I plan to explore other ways of boosting my VO2 max.

The Stress Rhythm feature has given me a new window into how well I’ve aligned my lifestyle with my circadian cortisol rhythm.

I’ve naturally mastered this by following the classic tenets of healthy living. Most surprising is that I usually experience low amounts of biological stress, except on Mondays which are 2-3X higher than normal days.

Armed with this knowledge, I plan to add another meditation or neurofeedback session on Mondays mid-afternoon.

Although it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, I’ve discovered that my chronotype shifts dramatically while traveling. Where Oura and other smart devices calculate my ideal bedtime around 9:45 – 10:30 PM when home, Ultrahuman’s determined that I should sleep between 11:30 PM – 12:30 AM.

I won’t proactively stay up later, but I’ll feel less guilty indulging in socializing and nightlife.

Another trend I’ve noticed is that most of my nightly wake-ups occur after 4:30 AM. Since the cities I’ve stayed in get loud quite early, I plan to try putting in earplugs around this time to block out some of the noise.

Finally, hot bedroom temperatures wreck most facets of my sleep and recovery. On the nights I slept without AC, my HRV, resting heart rate, wake-ups, and time in slow-wave sleep all suffered. But, subjectively I woke up feeling worse than my biomarkers predicted.

Ultrahuman Ring Pricing & Best Deal

Accurate smart rings aren’t cheap.

For context, the current Generation 3 Horizon model of the Oura ring in Rose Gold costs $549. PLUS an additional $5.99 monthly membership.

Currently, Ultrahuman’s AIR ring costs $349 or ₹28,499 INR for all models and sizes. You get an additional discount if you use the code URBAN10 and/or trade in your old smart ring.

There’s no required monthly subscription fee. If you do choose the optional UltraHumanX add-on, it costs about $2.65 per month. That gets you damage/theft protection, greater old ring trade-in value, priority support, free returns & replacements, and discounts on popular health products from other vendors.

If you do go for the AIR, I suggest checking out the M1 CGM add-on and Blood Vision Labs eventually. The blood labs are extremely great value (tons of tests for relatively inexpensive prices). The CGM is a newer tech that’s helpful to find hidden things sabotaging your health.

Ring AIR vs Other Smart Wearables

You may wonder…

How does Ultrahuman’s ring compare and contrast to other popular wearables?

AIR vs Oura

The Ultrahuman AIR beats the Oura ring in several ways. It’s cheaper, made of titanium, does not require a membership, generates beautiful and actionable reports, and even reports some health metrics that Oura does not. In my experience, the AIR is more accurate too.

Oura is a tiny bit physically narrower, offers on-demand HRV measurement “Moments”, a 10% longer battery life, and has slightly different sensors.

AIR vs Apple Watch

Apple Watch and the AIR serve very different purposes. The Apple Watch has a short battery, and poor to mediocre ability to track sleep, recovery, and stress. My own testing showed that it less accurately tracked my resting heart rate and HRV, two essential biomarkers.

Plus, the Apple Watch is big and bulky and requires an iPhone. It’s much better than the AIR to track workouts though. And if you must have a screen, the AIR won’t cut it (obviously).

AIR vs Circular Ring

I don’t have direct experience with the Circular Ring, but I evaluated it before choosing to test our Ultrahuman instead. Currently, the Circular Ring is more expensive, has fewer sensors, provides less actionable data, and in my opinion, looks less polished.

The things Circular does better than the AIR include longer battery life, social leaderboards, ring haptics for use as an alarm clock, and the ability to change the style of your ring whenever (like Apple Watch bands).

Ring AIR Verdict: The New King of Smart Rings?

You can only improve that which you track.

Often, you’d never guess the things most holding you back. Perhaps your go-to late-night chamomile tea actually has caffeine in it. Or, your usual healthy lunch has gradually turned into a food intolerance and now causes a surge of stress hormones.

Or maybe that post-work espresso martini lingers longer than you thought it would.

Most of the wearables on the market are either extremely expensive with ongoing membership fees, inaccurate, or bulk and cumbersome.

So I was thrilled when I got to test out the new Ultrahuman AIR ring. I’ve owned many smart rings over the years and logged thousands of hours of use. For biohackers who want to study what each and every metric means (and how to optimize them), these rings are great.

Though the AIR’s still new, this one’s something special. The company is building a platform that removes the guesswork and need for interpretation by a professional researcher.

Now, you just pull up the app, see your scores and data, and read their recommendations on how to improve. Push notifications nudge you towards better decisions throughout the day, and if you have any questions, their complimentary Performance Coaches are just a message away.

If you decide to give it a shot, click the button below and use the code URBAN10 to save 10%.

Let me know your thoughts or experience in the comments below!

Ring AIR

Quality self-quantification devices are the scaffolding underpinning modern health optimization. You can use them to get a window into innermost biological processes. I thoroughly tested the Ultrahuman AIR smart ring so that you can determine if it's the wearable you need. While they still have a lot to improve, this ring holds its own against others. Will it dethrone the Oura Ring or the Apple Watch as the top new smart wearable? Find out now.

Product Brand: Ultrahuman

Editor's Rating:
4.2

Pros

• Smooth UI
• Accuracy
• Durable ring
• No subscription needed
• Rapid updates & development
• Numerous integrations
• Actionable data & reports
• Great customer service

Cons

• Difficult workout importation
• Battery life
• No real-time metrics
• Bulky size