It is clear that a smart ring will never be able to completely replace a good smartwatch, but if you are looking for a product that monitors your body and is also comfortable to use even while you sleep, the Ultrahuman Ring Air is one of the best options.
I have been using a smartwatch since Apple released the Apple Watch Series 1, which curiously was the second generation. Since then, I have been wearing a smartwatch on my left wrist, and sometimes on my right, or even on both, mainly to monitor my health and to do sport.
But I have been thinking about stopping wearing them, at least for a while, because I want to try going without a watch, maybe wearing a mechanical watch, but above all because I think that closing the Apple Watch rings and notifications has taken the fun out of it.
You can deactivate all notifications on the Apple Watch or any other smartwatch, or choose the ones you need most. You can also choose not to close those rings, but I’ve been wearing it for too many years now to reach that goal of burning calories, hours on my feet and minutes of activity (I even did 12 consecutive months of closing circles every day).
If I haven’t taken off my smartwatch before, it’s for two very simple reasons: a smartwatch gives me very precise information about my activity and health, being able to detect when I’m getting sick, for example; and because I dedicate myself to testing them, which makes it difficult.
And then smart rings appeared. Specifically, the Ultrahuman Ring Air, the ring I’ve been using for 15 days, the time needed for its algorithms to recognise your patterns of use, rest and activity and give you more detailed information about your body.
Design and technical features of the Ultrahuman Ring Air
Purchase process, sizing and use
Application and data quality
Daily use and battery life
What a smart ring can and can’t do
Verdict: Is the Ultrahuman Ring Air worth it?
Design and technical characteristics of the Ultrahuman Ring Air
Indeed, it is a ring. A round one. It is 2.4 millimetres thick and weighs just under 3 grams.
It is thicker than a traditional ring, but it has sensors and a layer of resin that is designed to protect it, making it submersible and impact resistant.
The ring is available in various colors and finishes. One of them, the latest, is polished titanium, but the most common are with a plastic finish in black, matt grey, glossy dark grey and glossy silver.
In my case I’m using the black model, called Aster Black, and although it looks quite good, especially on men, the material is very prone to getting covered in fingerprints and traces of hand grease.
It is not especially hard, especially the models that are not made of titanium, because like any ring, the material it is made of tends to get scratched if it comes into contact with an abrasive material. I scratched it slightly when holding an engraved metal dumbbell, making a small notch on the bottom. Therefore, if you are going to be in contact with abrasive elements, I recommend that you remove it or protect it.
The interior is transparent and has a flat part where the diodes of the heart rate and blood oxygen sensor are housed. This part, which is designed so that the rays are closer to the skin, also helps you know which part goes on the bottom of your finger.
Purchase process, sizing and use
The purchase process is quite simple. Once you go to their website or Amazon, the first thing they will send you is a free size kit. They range from 5 to 14, which are standard sizes, but I recommend that you don’t skip this step.
The sizing kit helps you to find out which ring suits you best. It is important that you wear it for a few days and nights to see if it is comfortable on your finger. My recommendation is to wear one size that works best for you during the day and a pair at night and see which one you feel most comfortable with.
Once you confirm the right size in the app, Ultrahuman sends you the ring. The box includes the ring, a USB-C charging cable and a base for charging it, which is vitally important that you never lose or break, because the size of the ring matches the charger.
Ultrahuman offers its metrics service free of charge, unlike Oura Ring, the best known, which requires a monthly subscription. This, and the fact that it comes highly recommended by athletes, are possibly its best assets when it comes to convincing you to buy it.
Even so, they offer a warranty service called Ultrahuman X which, for 2.5 euros per month, offers protection against accidental damage, theft and loss.
Application and data quality
The application is the fundamental part of the Ultrahuman Ring Air experience. It is the only form of interaction you have with the information provided by the ring, although it synchronizes with mobile health services such as Apple Health.
From the app you can see your movement score, indicating whether you reached your minimum number of steps and calories burned, your stress level, dynamic recovery, sleep score, sleep debt, start a breathing exercise or training and individual markers such as heart rate, VO2Max, temperature, HRV or resting heart rate.
One of the new features that Ultrahuman has presented in recent weeks is PowerPlugs, add-ons to the application that may or may not be paid for.
For example, a free PowerPlug could provide free options such as caffeine consumption, sun exposure to obtain vitamin D, alignment of the circadian rhythm, information about pregnancy and cycle tracking. Among those that will be paid for is the detection of cardiac arrhythmias (5.90 euros per month) or cardiac adaptability (2.90 euros per month), functions that, for example, an Apple Watch and many others offer at no extra charge.
The quality of the information it offers is perfect when we talk about rest. Not only does it perfectly pinpoint the hours I am in bed and the hours sleeping, comparing it with data from an Apple Watch Series 9, which I still consider to be the watch that measures best, it hits the mark on all the data, such as sleep stages, resting pulse or blood oxygen level.
Where there is a problem is in the measurement of the pulse during activity. For some reason, the ring gives me about 30 beats per minute more than a smartwatch. If during activity my pulse reaches, for example, 100 bpm, the ring says that I have about 130 bpm, which is obviously not true.
Daily use and autonomy
The ring is comfortable to wear 24 hours a day, although it will depend on which finger you wear it on. By default, Ultrahuman recommends wearing it on the index finger or the thumb. It is on these two fingers that the best pulse readings are obtained. But this is the problem with this and all rings: your body changes, you swell up and wearing a ring becomes uncomfortable depending on what time of day it is.
It’s not the same wearing a ring like this in winter as in summer. The heat makes us swell, but so do the different seasons, if we are ill or, in the case of women, depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle.
I started the purchase process in spring and the ring arrived in summer due to customs problems, therefore, although the size I chose is the right one, the finger where I wanted to wear it, the index finger, is not always the right one.
As for the battery, which is really small, it manages to reach a battery life of between 4 and 5 days – out of the 6 it advertises – depending on whether you use it in sports activities. In the 15 days or so that I’ve been testing it, I’ve seen that the battery easily lasts 5 days if I don’t do any sport, but when you start an activity, because you’re using the sensors continuously, the battery life drops to about 3 to 4 days.
I don’t think these are bad figures and we are talking about really small batteries. I find it incredible that they achieve these figures.
What you have to take into account is how to charge this ring. Utrahuman indicates in its application that the best way to charge it is little by little, while you are not using it, for example when you take a shower, or you are doing something at home and you do not need it to measure your pulse.
This is because it contains a lithium-ion battery, so it is very important that the charge is kept between 30% and 80% to extend its useful life as much as possible. You can charge it up to 100% and use it until there is not a drop of energy left, but as with any product with a battery, you should avoid doing this.
What a smart ring can and can’t do
First of all: a smart ring is not a replacement for a smartwatch under any circumstances. You have to see it as another piece of the wearable puzzle, something you can use during your break and forget about while you sleep.
It is vital to understand that smart rings are designed to measure recovery times, such as naps or while you sleep at night, and although, in theory, they can replace basic metrics offered by an activity wristband or a smartwatch, that is not what they are designed for.
Ultrahuman Ring Air can track a wide range of sports, including outdoor walking, cross training, hiking, elliptical, strength training or traditional, Pilates, yoga, soccer, powerlifting, rugby, mountain biking, handball, kickboxing, eSports, skiing, martial arts, barre, circus arts, stretching, dancing, weightlifting, volleyball, HIIT, functional fitness, crossfit, pickleball, golf, skateboarding, gymnastics, boxing, basketball and many more. But all must be activated from the app.
Ultrahuman Ring Air is a ring that you might like
Ultrahuman Ring Air has replaced my Apple Watch, not because it replaces it in terms of functions, but because it offers me the basic health metrics I need in my day-to-day life and because I don’t want to wear a smartwatch for a while.
It’s a perfect smart ring for those who can’t stand wearing watches while sleeping or using the night to charge the watch, leaving vital information about rest, vital for recovery and improvement of your health.
It costs 375 euros, is available on Amazon and, of the options available in Spain, is the one that offers the best value for money because it does not require a subscription to view basic data and is backed by a company that continues to update and improve its application.
For me, it is a worthwhile product for getting better information on how my body works at rest and for elite athletes or people who take sport seriously, it will also be information they will appreciate having. For someone who already has a smartwatch and doesn’t mind charging it during the day or while sleeping, it is an accessory that doesn’t make much sense, for now.
