Ultrahuman Ring AIR review: 6 months later

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70%

70%

The Ultrahuman Ring AIR is a great smart ring. It's super light as its name suggests and offers in-depth health tracking, especially when it comes to sleep. You'll have to endure scratches to the paint though.

The Good

1. In-depth and wide-ranging health tracking
2. Intuitive and easy-to-use app
3. Comfy once you get the right size

The Not So Good

1. Scratches itself and other things easily
2. MyFitnessPal require extra subscription

• User Ratings (70 Votes)
  4.1

Need-to-knows

• Looks premium and feels comfy once you have the right size sorted
• Comprehensive health tracking info, especially good sleep tracking
• Siz days of battery life
• It scratches itself and other metallic things easily

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If you’ve watched my YouTube channel over the last few months, you might be one of the people who asked what ring I’ve been wearing on my left forefinger. If I didn’t answer you (apologies) I can at least use this page to confirm that it is the Ultrahuman Ring AIR. 

And I’m still wearing it. Unless I’ve temporarily lost it, which happens quite a lot.

I’m a watch guy – I always have been. I used to wear a ring, but I don’t any more (I’ll let you put two and two together). I’m not averse to donning more hand-bound jewellery, but placing a ring on my forefinger isn’t something I’ve done before – and neither have I allowed such a thing to track my vitals.

This is, therefore, an entirely new experience for me.

I wrote about my initial thoughts on the Ultrahuman Ring AIR a while ago. But now I’ve had more time with it, It’s qualified for a six-month proper review.

How I reviewed the Ultrahuman Ring AIR

To put the Ultrahuman Ring AIR through its paces, I made sure to wear it 24/7 just like you would for a smartwatch. I tracked my sleep every night and recorded different types of workouts like runs and gym sessions (which you’ll see later on wasn’t wise if you want to keep the paint job pristine!).

The Ultrahumn Ring AIR took the place of my main health-tracking device. I also compared the stats to those given by different smartwatches and the RingConn Gen 2, a smart ring competitor, to determine the Ultrahuman’s accuracy.

Are you a ring or watch person?

I’m a watch guy – I have been since I was a kid. Back then, it was the allure of anything digital (particularly with a full calculator keypad included) that got me excited.

As I entered my teens, I moved onto shiny, expensive-looking (but nearly always anything but) metal mechanical watches. And there I remained until 2015, when Apple unveiled the Apple Watch.

I jumped on Apple’s wearable immediately, and I’ve only recently ditched it for the Garmin MARQ Commander, which quenches my thirst for a proper, round watch face and battery life that doesn’t require me to charge it every couple of days.

If you’ve already fallen asleep, you’re probably not a watch person; none of what I’ve written gets you in the least bit excited. But you are clearly interested in using technology to track your health and fitness metrics.

This is why devices like the Ring AIR exist. The big question for anyone looking to invest in this kind of technology is, therefore, are you a ring or watch person? I’d love to know which camp you fall into and why – get involved in the comments, please.

How much does the Ultrahuman Ring AIR cost?

The Ultrahuman Ring AIR costs £329/$349 and has been out for quite some time now, so availability certainly isn’t an issue. That’s all you pay, as well – there’s no subscription for the Ultrahuman experience once you’ve bought the ring. 

There are five colours to choose from – Raw Titanium, Aster Black, Matte Grey (the one I opted for), Bionic Gold, and Space Silver. I opted for the Matte Grey finish, which looks nice, but has some issues, which I’ll get to later.

When you order the Ring AIR, Ultrahuman first sends you a sizing kit. I’d advise spending a week or so with a couple of the sizes to ensure you pick the one that feels the most comfortable, most often. I batted backwards and forwards between a 9 and a 10, and eventually opted for the latter when I realised how often my hands swell during warmer weather and exercise.

Setup is a cinch – you just download the Ultrahuman app on your phone of choice, charge up the ring on the included little USB-C charging dock, and pop it onto your finger.

Then, the experience begins.

It’s very easy to wear

The Ultrahuman Ring AIR weighs just 2.4 grams; nothing, basically. As a result, the marketing hype the company has built around it barely feeling present is entirely justified.

Charging the Ring AIR is super easy, too. The included charging dock is small enough to carry around with you everywhere, but you’ll get a full charge in 90 minutes, and that’ll last you up to six days.

The Ring AIR is waterproof for up to 100m and can remain there for up to 12 hours if, well… if you spend that long submerged underwater.

There are ten sizes to choose from, and to ensure you pick the right one, Ultrahuman sends out a sizing kit before you get the actual ring itself.

I struggled to choose the right fit; my index finger (you don’t have to wear it there, but it’s my preferred location) seemed to sit somewhere between a 9 and a 10. After wearing both for a number of days and speaking to the Ultrahuman team, I settled on the latter, which didn’t feel as constantly tight as the 9. It turns out I made the right choice.

The Ring AIR is a relatively simple piece of jewellery. Bar the colour choices, there are no design flourishes on the external circumference – it’s just a smooth, fairly innocuous ring that’s as wide as most wedding bands. I’m glad I went for the Matte Grey version, which is understated enough for someone like me who isn’t much of a ring wearer.

It’s only when you take the ring off and peer inside that you realise it’s more than a decorative piece.

A bunch of sensors and visible circuitry confirm that this is a smart ring. If you’re wondering, it does glow, too – just like any device that measures your vital signs. It’s only noticeable in dark rooms and when you look for it, though, so not exactly distracting, and certainly not bright enough to draw attention to your finger.

As a piece of tech, it’s impossible not to marvel at the Ring AIR. Inside, it packs Bluetooth LE hardware, six sensors, and a battery that can last up to six days. The fighter jet grade outer shell feels robust, although a slip included in the packaging makes it clear that your Ring AIR will inevitably pick up some scuffs and scrapes along the way – just like any ring.

Battery life is impressive, and I like Ultrahuman’s suggestion that you should charge little and often both to preserve the battery itself, but to also make the ownership experience as simple as possible. That’s why I’ve decided to place the neat little charging puck on my editing desk in the studio, so that I can pop the Ring AIR on there whenever it feels sensible to do so.

You can basically wear it anywhere while doing anything (nearly – I’ll get to that soon), and keep it charged easily. That’s what we all need from wearable tech, I guess, but it isn’t all roses, I’m afraid.

It’s not for people with smartwatches

Having worn the Ring AIR for half a year now, I’ve concluded that you’re either a smartwatch or smart ring kinda person. More specifically: it really doesn’t make sense to wear both.

If you like rings and watches, you can still satisfy both desires – just make sure only one of them is of the smart variety.

The reason is simple – no one needs that much duplicate health tracking data. Equally, it reveals, once again, that all of these devices provide varying degrees of accuracy to whatever is really going on with your body. I often test more than one smart health device and it always offers a different step count and sleep score compared to my Apple Watch.

Pick one smart wearable, and stick with it. And thank me later.

Sleep tracking is probably the killer feature

The Ring AIR can track a whole bunch of stuff, including:

• sleep
• circadian rhythm
• steps
• VO2 max
• Heart rate
• skin temperature
• caffeine window
• stress
• AFib

I’m fortunate enough at the moment not to worry about AFib, and I only pay attention to my heart rate if I feel a bit out of sorts. Steps remain an arbitrary way of calculating daily activity, and I still don’t know what VO2 Max is. Oh, and when it comes to my caffeine window, I get tetchy if I haven’t had coffee when I think I need it – and that’s directly related to stress, so… ‘nuff said.

This leaves sleep as the most interesting and, I think, popular health metric that can be tracked by the Ultrahuman Ring AIR. I have no evidence to back this up, but I’d be pretty confident in guessing that most users of smart rings (and watches, for that matter) are the same.

It’s good sleep data, too. You get an overall sleep score (which is the most digestible metric for someone as scientifically inept as yours truly), but if you want to look into your HRV, sleep cycles, average oxygen saturation, and morning alertness, you can.

Having darted between Garmin Connect, Apple Health, Samsung Health, and Whoop over the last few months, I can tell you, hands down, that Ultrahuman’s app is my favourite.

My problem with the aforementioned competing health apps is that they are immediately bewildering. Numbers, charts, and lengthy explanations are scattered everywhere, and it takes far too long to work out what any of it means.

Ultrahuman’s app doesn’t dispense with numbers and charts, but it uses them in a way that doesn’t require a medical degree to understand what’s happening with your body.

Similar to Whoop, the Ring AIR focuses on revealing your sleep, recovery, and strain scores. These are presented in card format on the Home screen, with some cards including a short paragraph confirming what the numbers actually mean. The result is that you know what’s going on pretty much immediately, and without having to swipe or dig deeper.

You can dig deeper if you want, though, and discover the kind of depth that some of the other platforms all too readily show mere mortals like me.

I like the inclusion of the Adenosine Clearance Window, which, thanks to a blindingly illustrative chart, I understand reveals when you should and shouldn’t consume caffeine (it’s not as obvious as you might think).

Ultrahuman also integrates with a bunch of other health services, including MyFitnessPal, which I’ve decided to add to my subscription.

It’s an acquired taste (but I quite like it)

As noted earlier, I’m not used to wearing rings these days, but I’ve really gotten used to wearing one on my left index finger since testing the Ring AIR, and I rather like it.

It looked and felt incredibly weird at first, but it has grown on me, and I don’t appear to be alone; I’m seeing more rings of what I think are the smart variety in the wild than ever before (thanks, Samsung).

If you want to try a smart ring but, like me, have limited ring-wearing experience and you’re fearful of comments from your mates – you might be pleasantly surprised. I have been.

You’ll forget to charge it – a lot

My Ultrahuman Ring AIR runs out of charge all the time. This isn’t because it doesn’t last long enough – I think six days is incredibly impressive for such a tiny battery – it’s because I just forget to charge it.

There are two reasons for this. The Ring AIR is indeed so light that you can barely feel it, and you get so used to wearing it that you genuinely forget it’s there half the time. Also, because there’s no screen or haptics to remind you to charge, you have to rely on notifications on your phone – and they’re easily missed.

I’m not sure what the answer is to this, or what Ultrahuman could do to make people like me remember to charge the ring more often. A battery indicator on the ring itself? Maybe. However, I think the bigger issue is that I just don’t spend that much time reviewing the data produced by the ring.

Incidentally, Ultrahuman’s advice is to charge the Ring AIR little and often, which is why keeping the charger on whichever desk or surface at which you work and in plain sight is a good strategy.

You’ll lose it – a lot

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve lost the Ring AIR.

I say “lost”, I actually mean “misplaced”, because I soon remember wherever it was that I left it – usually in one of my gym shorts pockets (by the way – I can confirm that the Ring AIR can survive a hot washing machine cycle).

I’m not alone. On a recent press jaunt, a fellow YouTuber thought he’d dropped his on the plane, only to find it later that evening in his bag.

Once again, the reason it’s so easy to lose the Ring AIR is because it’s so small, light, and unobtrusive. What a paradox.

It scratches everything (and gets scratched)

The biggest issue I have with the Ultrahuman Ring AIR is the fact that it scratched the display on my S24 Ultra, and one of the door handles on our BMW iX1. I’m also fairly sure it has left numerous scratches and marks on other pieces of tech I’ve used over the last six months.

I’m not alone with this, either, and I don’t think the scratchiness of the Ring AIR is confined to Ultrahuman’s wearable. There are plenty of reports online from people who have inadvertently damaged all manner of expensive things with a smart ring.

The Matte Grey version I have gets scratched, too. A lot. So much so, in fact, that I definitely can’t recommend wearing it while working out with weights (now you know why I so often accidentally leave it in my gym shorts pocket).

But despite being as careful as possible with the Ring AIR, mine has obtained several ugly battle scars after less than a year of use. Ultrahuman references this during the unboxing process. It’ll add character, we’re told. It definitely does, but I think it’ll test many people’s desire for scratch-addled character.

Bottom line

This isn’t a negative review of the Ultrahuman Ring AIR – it’s just one of the most niche tech products I’ve ever reviewed.

I think most people would choose a smartwatch over a smart ring, but if the former isn’t to your liking, at least you now have another option for tracking those vital health metrics. In particular, I’ve heard several people say that they prefer the idea of a smart ring for sleep tracking due to their dislike of wearing watches to bed.

I’ve not covered the app much today, but I can confirm that it is nicely designed and features a huge amount of insight. I just can’t find the desire to dig deeply into it, I’m afraid. The sleep score is the one metric I’m most interested in, but it’s nice to know there’s more depth there if I decide to dig deeper in the future.

The Ultrahuman Ring AIR is a very impressive piece of tech, and it’ll be loved by the right crowd. If you sit within that crowd just make sure you remember to charge it, often!