The Ring Air by Ultrahuman is a smart ring designed to give you deeper insights into your body. It monitors sleep, body temperature, steps, heart rate, and stress levels, offering you actionable insights and tips to improve your health.
When I received the Ring Air, it came in a sleek white box with an image on the front that looked more like a spaceship or a futuristic gadget than a ring. The name of the ring also seems to have been inspired by Apple. Upon opening the box, I found a card that said, "Hello Cyborg." The term "cyborg" implies a blend of human and robotic elements, and that's precisely what Ultrahuman, based in India, aims to achieve: enhancing human capabilities through body monitoring, whether via their smart ring designed for sleep tracking or their other products meant for glucose or blood marker monitoring.
Ring Air – Multiple Colors and Sizing Kit
The ring is available in several colors: silver, gold, black, titanium, and the one I chose—matte gray. Choosing the color isn't the only decision; sizing is also crucial. Before the Ring Air arrived, Ultrahuman sent a sizing kit containing 10 rubber rings in different sizes. They recommend wearing the chosen size overnight to ensure it's the right fit. There's also an option for engraving on the ring for $39.
The ring itself looks sleek, although it's relatively large and stood out a bit more than I preferred. However, I personally liked it. The outer part of the ring is made of titanium, while the inner part is coated with hypoallergenic epoxy, a material that reduces allergies (I didn't experience any skin irritation). The ring weighs 2.4 grams, with a thickness ranging from 2.45 to 2.8 mm depending on the chosen size. The sensors inside are visible through a transparent inner layer. In a dark room at night, you can see the green light of the heart rate sensor.
It took me some time to get used to wearing the ring on my finger, but after a few days, I barely noticed it. It's much more comfortable to wear while sleeping compared to a smartwatch. I don’t get along with wearing a watch at night, and the ring provided a much better solution. Additionally, its battery lasts for 6 days, so there's no need to charge it every night (note that the charger is unique and only fits the ring size you selected).
Ring Air – What Can You Do With a Smart Ring?
The primary use of the ring is for sleep, and most of its features are built around this function. The ring includes a Bluetooth 5 sensor, heart rate sensor, blood oxygen sensor, temperature sensor, motion detection, and water resistance up to 100 meters.
The ring is supposed to replace a smartwatch in terms of measurement capabilities. However, while smartwatches are also used for sports activities, the ring, despite offering monitoring for running, walking, treadmill, cycling, and more, lacks GPS and is entirely operated via a smartphone. So, I don’t think it can replace a smartwatch but rather complements it. Therefore, the Ring Air can connect to third-party apps such as Garmin, Polar, Coros, and Suunto to pull workout data from them.
Ultrahuman – Daily Tips
Unlike the Ringconn ring I reviewed recently, which didn’t provide enough insights and tips, Ultrahuman took a different approach. They update you several times a day with tips that can help improve your health. It starts in the morning with a notification suggesting to wait a bit before drinking coffee to optimize its effect (the ring adjusts the recommendation based on the time I woke up). It continues with alerts when you haven’t moved enough and suggests taking a short walk and notifies you when to stop consuming caffeine (a somewhat inconvenient reminder, as it suggested I stop drinking caffeine already in the afternoon). It also advises on the best time to go to bed to maintain a consistent sleep schedule.
Every Monday evening, I received a weekly report showing the average sleep score, recovery score, and movement score (three scores in total), allowing me to easily understand if I maintained the quality of my sleep and activity. There’s also a weekly comparison with a Sleep Health score, which considers sleep time, resting heart rate, and tranquility. There are other various measurements within this report, indicating areas for improvement. For instance, I was advised to improve my heart rate variability during sleep, which the ring attributed to restlessness. The tips I received included taking a warm shower before bed, doing breathing exercises, and avoiding blue light.
Another area I needed to improve was sleep efficiency, which refers to how long it takes my body to rest and repair itself in bed. The weekly report also addresses the hours I was active and provides a score for the number of steps I took that week to help identify areas for improvement.
Ring Air – App and Watch Connectivity
The Ultrahuman app features an English interface and can connect to various third-party apps besides those mentioned earlier, such as Withings, MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, Health Connect, and more. This way, data collected from other devices can be transferred to it, helping the Ultrahuman app get an updated health status.
The app's design is easy to understand, with the first box providing a score for movement throughout the day, weighted by steps and calories burned. Another box offers a numerical indication of stress rhythm, helping to understand the stress experienced and its relation to the biological clock, and also to understand when the body can handle higher levels of stress during the day. A higher score indicates better stress regulation. For example, in the afternoon, I received a score of 82, suggesting that moderate stress enhances creativity.
Another app metric is Dynamic Recovery, which provides an overall health status. This metric includes weighted data on resting heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, sleep quality, movement, and rest.
Price: NIS 1,300 ($349, shipped to Israel), sold through the Ultrahuman website.
In conclusion, the Ultrahuman ring is part of the company's ecosystem, serving as the entry point. Its main advantage over its competitor Oura is that it doesn’t require a subscription fee, and it ships directly to Israel, unlike other leading rings in the market (Ringconn and Oura). The Ring Air is an excellent ring for those who want to learn more about their sleep, offering many insights to help with this task. On the other hand, note that the app is in English.