Ultrahuman Air Ring Review
Image source: Google
I finally got my hands on my first smart ring, something that I have been so curious to try out for quite a while now. Why a smart ring you might ask? Because I was looking for something that ticked a couple of boxes:
No screen to distract me
Something that didn't react to notifications (I often felt like I was going to fall victim to Classical Conditioning like Pavlov's Dog whenever my wrist would vibrate with notifications from my old Apple Watch)
Something that had a longer battery life than an Apple Watch
And something that wasn't obviously a piece of tech
Now, there are a few options out there that tick a few of those boxes, such as the Whoop band which I seriously considered at one point, but I couldn't get over the steep monthly subscription cost - I shouldn't have to have ongoing payments to use the tool to gather the insights that I am after. This is the same reason I didn't go with Oura, despite them being one of the market leaders in the smart ring space. It was very hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a smart device, that becomes redundant if I decide to stop paying the monthly fees...and this is where Ultrahuman slotted in quite nicely.
Ultrahuman is up there in the top 3 of smart ring brands in my opinion which would be Oura, Ultrahuman, and RingConn. I did have a bit of a look at RingConn, but just wasn't feeling it - whether that be I fell sucker to the beautiful aesthetic and branding of Ultrahuman or for some other reason, I'm not sure. Once you place your order for the ring, they send you out a free sizing kit to make sure you find what size is most comfortable - I received this via DHL in around 3 days.
First Impressions - Unboxing
Straight away you can tell that Ultrahuman has taken huge design inspiration from Apple which, as an Apple fan boy myself, I think is a great thing. The box is clean and minimalist, which is what a lot of people have come to expect when it comes to their big tech purchases (in my opinion). Once you take off the lid, all you see is your new ring standing upright in the centre of the box - underneath it there is a charger, cable, some bits of info, and some stickers. I went with the Matte Grey.
The first two things I thought of when I put it on was that for starters, it is SO light (2.4g) which is nice, but the other thing was the it was a bit thicker and wider than what I was used to, especially compared to my wedding ring which has a much slimmer profile. Over time though I got used to it (but fingers crossed future iterations become smaller).
The Experience
It takes around 15 days of wearing it for the algorithm to adjust to your body, but I found the stats super interesting. For nights where I know I woke up during the middle of the night (usually because of my dog) I can see it accurately reflected at the correct time on the sleep tracking chart which is great. It also seems to take a holistic approach to measuring quality of sleep instead of just assuming X amount of hours equals good sleep. There were some nights where I slept longer hours, but things such as the time where my heart rate dropped (the earlier the better for recovery), and amount of sleep cycles my body completed were actually worse than nights where I had less total sleep, but overall the markers for quality sleep were higher.
An interesting one I saw an improvement on after reading about it in the app, was that on evenings where we have dinner quite late, I can see the next morning the my heart rate drop happens really late during my overall sleep (such as it happening an hour before I wake up), but if we have dinner at an earlier time, my heart rate drops much earlier which improves my overall sleep.
I will say though that the sleep tracking isn't perfect, there are some mornings where I feel I have had a pretty average sleep yet it says that I had a near perfect sleep - I'm sure the algorithm will be progressively fine tuned during firmware updates.
There's honestly so much detail in the app that I'd be writing for ages to properly explain it all, but here are a couple of other areas that are pretty interesting:
Dynamic Recovery Score:
Takes into account factors such as your resting heart rate, skin temperature, 7-day heart rate variability form, last night's heart rate variability, last night's sleep score, and current stress score to determine how recovered your overall body should be today.
Stress Rhythm Score
Now I don't quite understand this one just yet - in the app it says it helps to decode stress and its relation with your circadian rhythm by understanding your unique daily cycle of rising cortisol levels during the day and night which helps to indicate when you can handle higher levels of stress or not. I reached out to the Ultrahuman team and they responded with:
"The Stress Rhythm feature uses a combination of factors like heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), resting heart rate (RHR), and circadian data to measure your stress levels.
We differentiate between good stress and bad stress. For example, if your heart rate goes up because you're walking your dog or working out, it's considered good stress and won’t significantly affect your score.
This feature also includes two zones: the stress-tolerant zone (during the day) and the stress-intolerant zone (in the evening and night).
During the day, an increased HR might not impact your score much because it's likely due to regular activities like work or exercise. However, in the evening or night, an elevated HR will have a more significant impact, as it could indicate stress that affects your rest and recovery."
Heart Health
It tracks all the usual heart health markers like heart rate throughout the day, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, VO2 Max, and tries to determine your 'Cardio Age'
Daily Activity Tracking
Now I'm not sure how accurate the step counter is on this, as I find it difficult to see how a device on your finger can determine how many steps you take - but maybe they have found a way to do that, I'm not sure.
Workout Tracking (Beta feature)
This feature is in beta, however, I think it's on the right track. I have used it a couple of times during cardio activities (such as a walk around the lake, or playing badminton) and the data it provides is quite good, especially seeing as it isn't a full feature yet:
Power Plugs
This seems relatively new, but there is a section where you can install add-ons into your app (some from third parties) to help you get more out of your Ultrahuman Air experience. The one I like is the Caffeine Window one which shows me when I should start and stop consuming caffeine to ensure I am well rested and aren't doing anything that will negatively impact my sleep.
A thought about online reviews
If you look online, specifically at Reddit, there are HEAPS of people saying how bad the rings are, how bad customer service is, etc etc. Honestly, my experience so far has been great - customer service team has been very prompt, my deliveries were sent via DHL and I received them so fast, and I personally haven't had any issues. Part of me feels that there could be a possibility of competitors in the Smart Ring market creating accounts to lower the sentiment towards this ring, but I could just have my tin foil hat on.
Conclusion
Overall I'm pretty happy with my Ultrahuman Air - it tells me all the information that I was looking to get from a health tracker, and although there may be some inaccuracies, I feel that the company will be able to fine tune that with upcoming firmware updates. I'll be sure to update this page if I come across any issues with it as so far I have only had it for around 3 weeks.