Pros
- • Customizable PowerPlugs for a personalized experience
- • Decent battery life
- • Plenty of notifications
- • No subscription required
Cons
- • Expensive upfront cost
- • Some PowerPlugs require a subscription
- • Battery life reduced in Turbo Mode
- • Some users might not like all the notifications
Smart rings are the new smartwatches. Some people love wearing them in conjunction with smartwatches or fitness trackers, others are considering going just with smart rings alone. Why? In many cases, they can track almost as much as a smartwatch but also eliminate the distraction of a screen on your wrist. The latest smart ring I have taken for a spin is the Ultrahuman Ring Air, which has features like Afib detection and PowerPlugs app compatibility for adding more apps to the experience. How does it fare against others I’ve worn?
About the Ultrahuman Ring Air
Before getting into my review, let’s take a look at the basic specs and details of the Ultrahuman Ring Air, which is available in Canada through Erikson Consumer.
The Ultrahuman Ring Air is ultra-lightweight at 2.4 grams and has an outer shell made from fighter jet grade titanium reinforced with a tungsten carbide carbon coating. The inner side of the ring is coated with medical-grade hypoallergenic epoxy resin. It’s equipped with an infrared Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor, non-contact medical-grade skin temperature sensor, six-axis motion sensors, and red, green, and infrared LEDs.
It tracks data like calories burned, detailed sleep, skin temperature, heart rate and heart rate variability, stress, and more. Its battery can run for four-to-six days, and it’s water-resistant down to 100 metres or up to 12 hours, though it doesn’t have an official IP rating. The best part? There’s no subscription required.
Compatible with iPhones running iOS 15 or later or Android devices running Android 6 or later, it uses Bluetooth Low Energy and receives automatic firmware updates via the Ultrahuman app. It comes in five finish options – Raw Titanium, Aster Black, Matte Grey, Bionic Gold, or Space Silver – for $480. You can order a sizing kit for free to try it on before committing to the right size. It comes in sizes as small as five up to 14 to fit a wide variety of finger widths.
What Are PowerPlugs?
Beyond the basics, at the heart of the experience is the PowerPlugs app, a platform for individual apps and plug-ins built overtop the ring’s own health and wellness data stack. The idea is to allow every wearer to pick which aspects of your health matter most so you get personalized health insights that help you work towards your goals. There are several options from which to choose.
PowerPlugs
Afib Detection: This discreetly monitors your heart rhythm every night to detect signs of Atrial Fibrillation (AFib).
Circadian Rhythm: Get actionable recommendations tailored to your lifestyle, like the best times to expose yourself to natural light, exercise, wind down, enhance your energy levels, improve sleep quality, and bolster overall health. There are both free and premium options within the PowerPlugs ecosystem.
Pregnancy Mode: Health monitoring and recommendations can be adjusted specifically for pregnancy, with tailored advice on nutrition, activity levels, and health metrics. You can also gain insights into how to maintain your health and your baby’s development, with safety and well-being as the priority.
Cycle Tracking: Get a comprehensive overview of your menstrual cycle phases and predictions for upcoming cycles. You’ll also get personalized insights into your fertility windows and symptom patterns.
Caffeine Window: Track and optimize your consumption of stimulants like caffeine throughout the day. By understanding your body’s response to different stimulants, this tool advises the best times for consumption to boost your alertness without affecting your nightly rest.
Vitamin D: The app calculates the optimal times for you to step outside, based on your skin type, location, and current UV index, ensuring you get the most effective and safe sun exposure. It focuses on skin absorption, telling you precisely when to go out and estimating how much Vitamin D (in IU) your skin will absorb during your session. There’s real-time tracking and safety alerts to prevent overexposure.
Jet Lag: Ideal for frequent travelers, you get personalized jet lag plans based on your travel itineraries, sleep patterns, and chronotypes, leveraging evidence-based methods involving light exposure, melatonin supplements, caffeine, and naps. It offers detailed schedules to follow before, during, and after trips, helping reset the circadian clock efficiently.
Glucose Monitoring: Integrate meal planning with real-time glucose monitoring to optimize your fitness journey.
Ultrahuman Ring Air Unboxing and Set-Up
I have reviewed my fair share of smart rings, and the Ultrahuman Ring Air is among the nicest I have seen. Admittedly, the lustrous Bionic Gold and Aster Black finishes of the review samples that were sent to me both stand out. But it’s not just the finish, it also simply looks elegant. I received a size 8 and it fits perfectly: not too tight such that it cuts off circulation and not too loose so it comes off easily while I engage in day-to-day tasks. I can’t stress enough how important it is to try the ring on for size via the sizing kit before selecting one.
Setting it up was a simple matter of charging, downloading the Ultrahuman app, pairing, and I was good to go. I did some exploring in the app, including adding a few PowerPlugs. I was disappointed to see that some PowerPlugs, including Afib Detection, require a monthly fee. So, the Ring Air app and tracking itself doesn’t require a subscription, but if you want to get some premium features like Afib detection, you’ll have to pay. It’s a nominal fee, but it can add up. I’d suggest if you really want to track data like that, consider a smartwatch that includes Afib detection as a standard feature to wear alongside the ring.
That said, this smart ring does track a ton of data without needing a subscription. It takes 15 days to calibrate to your usual metrics, as is the case with most smart rings. During this period, the ring learns about your regular sleep patterns, heart rate and variability, your typical activity levels, stress, temperature, and more. Once it determines this baseline, you can really start getting the most out of the ring.
Through the first two weeks of my review period, I went about my days as usual, still checking into the app daily to see the captured stats. I logged workouts and activities from the app and compared the stats with my Apple Watch Series 10, which I continued to wear on the opposite wrist.
Ultrahuman Ring Air Review
The Ultrahuman Ring Air provides a nice balance of passive tracking as well as useful prompts, like advising when I’m in my approved caffeine window, when I need more sun, or if my heart rate took longer to come down at night, and suggesting potential reasons why.
I kept the ring in Turbo mode through my entire review process, which drains battery faster than Chill Mode, which limits functions to conserve battery life. There’s also a Critical Battery mode you can use if you’re away from the charger but want the ring to continue tracking the basics until you get back home. I found that the ring lasted about three days per charge when in Turbo mode.
Some might not like the barrage of notifications you receive with this ring, but I appreciated them. They’re easy to ignore if you want or useful to read when you prefer. I have found that with other smart rings that don’t send notifications, you almost forget to check stats. Here, these teasers entice me to log in to see what’s going on in the morning and throughout the day.
All the data in the app is organized in your Today tab. It’s overwhelming, nicer if data was divided into different tabs. The other tabs are for features you probably won’t use right off the bat, like Metabolism, which involves a biosensor that’s in private beta right now, Zones for group sharing, Discover with articles, podcasts, workouts, and meditations, and more. The workouts are free but it’s a limited selection. There wasn’t anything exciting enough for me to do beyond the Push Workout, but I wasn’t interested in doing 1.5 hours per day. I would love a greater variety. But still, it’s nice that you have some workout programs to choose from at all, including everything from pilates to yoga and HIIT workouts. Most smart rings don’t have workout programs built into their apps.
Each day, you can scan the report that includes detailed sleep data and sleep debt, dynamic recovery, movement, cardio age, temperature deviation, and basics like heart rate variability, resting heart rate, VO2 Max (cardio fitness), and a weekly report that summarizes key metrics, what has improved, what needs improving, and how you can achieve that. For example, for one week in May, my restorative and total sleep improved but restfulness and heart rate drop required improvement. To improve restfulness, I was told to avoid stimulants like caffeine prior to my sleep window and for heart rate drop, to avoid physical exercise later in the day, choosing to opt for a calming pre-sleep activity instead, like reading or gentle stretching.
Additional information I chose to receive via PowerPlugs included cycle tracking, circadian rhythm, vitamin D, caffeine window, and social jetlag, which analyzes your sleep to advise of your type. I’m a “Late free day sleeper,” for example, who pushes my bedtime later on free days, which creates higher social jetlag. This, the app advises, can make Mondays feel like a jetlag recovery day. I’m encouraged to keep my bedtime steady, even on weekends, to ensure consistent energy levels.
In terms of measurements, data was relatively in line with my Apple Watch Series 10. Using sleep as a comparative, numbers were fairly close, the Ring Air typically logging similar figures to my Apple Watch, with only slight variations in things like sleep stages and awake time. One feature I do love about the Ring Air that isn’t available in Apple Watch is the ability to detect naps. Oddly, however, once I confirmed a detected nap, the data disappeared from the app, or at least I couldn’t figure out where to find it.
There are a few things I don’t like about the ring. Each time you select a workout, you have to “okay” a warning about how workout tracking drains battery life. There’s no “don’t show this notification again” option. Also, while you’re tracking a workout, you can’t access any other part of the app. This typically wouldn’t be an issue, but I go for weekend walks when I’d love to explore the rest of my stats while I’m strolling along the trail and the app is tracking the workout. These complaints, however, are pretty minor in comparison to all the great features of this smart ring.
Should You Buy the Ultrahuman Ring Air?
If you’re looking for a useful smart ring to use in conjunction with a smartwatch, or even on its own to help eliminate distractions, the Ultrahuman Air is a good choice. It looks elegant, tracks all the important metrics including workouts, and gives you the option to add more via PowerPlugs. While the upfront cost is high, you don’t need a subscription unless you want to add some of the more advanced options, like Afib Detection and Cardio Adaptability.
With the presumption that new PowerPlugs will be added over time, like Travel Jet Lag and Weight Loss, which are already noted as coming soon, you’ll be able to get more from this ring as time goes on. I love that you also get access to tons of informative articles, meditations, and even workout programs in the app, all built into the initial cost.
As one of the best smart rings I have tried to date, the Ultrahuman Ring Air is a worthwhile option for those who want to keep on top of health, wellness, and fitness. Get it for $480, distributed in Canada by Erikson Consumer.