Ultrahuman Ring Air Smart Ring Review

Price upon review

$349

Best prices today: Ultrahuman Ring Air

$349

The Ultrahuman Ring Air emerges as yet another smart ring that aims to prove that you don’t have to pay for a monthly or annual subscription to have a useful fitness and wellness tracker on your finger.

The idea is to use the same sensors we’ve already seen popping up in other rings and wrist-based trackers to use data like sleep, heart rate and exercise to help you make better decisions about your day.

On paper, the Android and iOS friendly ring has all the hallmarks of a true Oura Ring Gen 3 rival and surprisingly both deliver a similar core experience with a few elements that make it feel unique too.

Design and construction

• Available in five colours
• Water resistant up to 100 meters
• Free ring size set

The Ring Air is a completely round smart ring that’s made from titanium with a tungsten carbide-carbon coating to toughen up a ring that unfortunately hasn’t remained as scratch-free as the first time I put it on my finger.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Although it is a pleasantly light ring (2.4-3.6g depending on size), making it comfortable to wear all day and overnight, it noticeably packs a fair amount of weight over time. suffered scuffs and scratches, which certainly looks worse on the matte black version I had to test. That happened despite the fact that you remembered to take it off before going to the gym for a strength workout and generally tried to keep it out of the way.

There are a total of five ring colors to choose from: Raw Titanium, Aster Black, Matte Grey, Bionic Gold and Space Silver, and they are all available with a free sizing kit to ensure you get a good fit. Despite going the sizing kit route, I found the sizing a little off for me, where the ring had initially come loose a few times. That’s been less of an issue over time, but it’s clear that not all smart rings are built the same when it comes to fit.

Inside is the sensor array and a medical-grade resin to prevent the ring from irritating the skin. I’ve had no reason to take the ring off other than to charge it and for weights at the gym, so it gets the thumbs up for a ring that feels skin-friendly.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

As a package, it is water resistant to a depth of 100 meters and I have worn it in the shower and while swimming and the ring continued to track without any problems. Completing the installation is the proprietary charging dock to drop the ring on and a Type-C to C cable to connect to that cradle.

It’s a smart ring that certainly delivers in the sense that it feels light and discreet to wear, but looks a bit plain next to rings like the Oura Ring Gen 3 and cheaper rings like the RingConn Smart Ring.

Fitness tracking and app

• Tracks steps, heart rate, temperature and sleep
• Works with apps like Strava and MyFitnessPal
• Personalized notification nudges

The Ring Air, like other smart rings, is a fitness tracker through and through and aims to gently nudge you to make better decisions about your day, which in turn can aim to track aspects like your sleep and even recovery after improve effort.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

It does that with a number of key fitness tracker sensors, including a 6-axis motion sensor to track steps and general movements throughout the day and to enable automatic sleep monitoring. There is also room for a PPG sensor that can record heart rate and monitor oxygen saturation in the blood.

You also get what Ultrahuman calls a medical-grade skin temperature sensor that can be used to show how your body is responding to your condition or when you might not be feeling well.

Once you’ve completed the two-week basic data period, you should really start paying attention to what the ring is trying to tell you. You will also receive phone notifications recommending that you reduce stimulants such as coffee or reduce exposure to bright light to increase your chances of getting a good night’s sleep.

While not groundbreaking, these clues make Ultrahuman’s tracking approach feel different from other smart rings.

Crucially, the core tracking also feels reliable. I’ve tracked data like step counts with an Oura Ring Gen 3 and two other fitness-tracking smartwatches and the daily counts never felt wild on the other devices and some days were a few hundred steps apart.

I also found that continuous heart rate monitoring ties in nicely with tracking with sports watches, which I know from experience provide reliable continuous monitoring at the wrist on most days. However, some real-time readings felt high, sometimes as high as 10 beats per minute, which seemed to be related to the fit of the ring.

It performs well as a sleep tracker with data like sleep duration and sleep stage breakdowns similar to what I captured with Oura’s reliable sleep tracking. It’s also very good at capturing naps.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

What really backs up the strong experience is the accompanying smartphone app, which is slick and, while getting busier as Ultrahuman adds more features, is still a lot of fun to work with and largely presents the most useful data in an easy-to-use way.

Like other smart rings, workout tracking isn’t a strong point. There is a training mode currently in beta testing that indicates heart rate tracking may not be as accurate as at rest. That’s definitely been my experience using it. The good news is that Ultrahuman already offers fairly extensive third-party app integration, supporting apps like Strava and Garmin Connect to fill in the data gaps in exercise tracking.

Overall, the approach to tracking and putting that tracking data into context is very similar to what I experienced with Oura. It feels different enough to not feel like an exact clone. The app is well designed, although there is also a fair amount of bloat that could be discarded or better hidden to make it unnecessarily busy.

Battery life and charging

• Battery life up to 6 days
• Uses an Oura style charger
• Charges in 2-3 hours

The Ring Air packs a 24mAh that Ultrahuman claims can keep power for up to 6 days on a single charge.

However, these claims are generous based on my testing. I found it lasted an average of 3 days, with the option of going to 4 days, but I never made it to 6 days.

The app sends notifications to your phone to remind you when the battery is low, and then you have to grab a custom charging pad that clearly takes some design inspiration from the cradle that comes with the Oura Ring Gen 3.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Booting from 0-100% is a bit slow and can take up to 3 hours, which is more than some other smart rings. While it doesn’t beat the RingConn, which offers the best smart ring battery life, it at least pairs well with Oura.

Price and availability

The Ultrahuman Ring AIR is now available for purchase and is sold on Amazon and the official store (also fulfilled by Amazon).

It’s a no-contract smart ring, meaning you only have to pay for the ring itself, which will cost you £329/$349.

That gives it a more expensive standalone price than the Oura Ring Gen 3 (£238 / $299). It’s also more expensive than the RingConn Smart Ring (£220/$279) and the Circular Ring Slim, which costs £225 and like Ultrahuman and RingConn doesn’t require an additional subscription.

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Mike Sawh

Should you buy the Ultrahuman Ring Air?

The Ultrahuman Ring Air is the smart ring that comes closest to the Oura Ring in terms of hardware and software (of course, Samsung wants to change that soon with the Galaxy Ring).

It offers strong core tracking and a companion app that nicely presents data and insights and continues to improve as Ultrahuman adds features to make the Ring Air more useful. It also does it with slightly better battery life than the Oura Ring Gen 3.

However, it’s not immune to the same kinds of issues as other smart rings, such as keeping the exterior pristine and having to rely on third-party app integration to fill some data gaps.

Ultimately, though, this is the standout alternative to Oura, with no subscription required to get the full smart ring benefits.

Specifications