Review: Ultrahuman Ring Air lands in Australia packed with features

Smart rings are everywhere and now there is a new player in the Australian market with even more features than before and with no ongoing subscription fees.  Ultrahuman launched its Ring Air here just a few months ago and is already making waves with its advanced functionality.

The new Ultrahuman Ring Air weighs just 2.4 grams, with a thickness of just 2.45mm, making it incredibly comfortable to wear on any finger.  It includes a large array of sensors, including a PPG sensor, a 6-axis motion sensor, and a temperature sensor.

“Our launch in Australia is a significant milestone as we expand our reach to a highly health-conscious market,” said Mohit Kumar, Founder and CEO of Ultrahuman. “By partnering with leading retailers like JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, and Officeworks, we’re excited to bring Ultrahuman’s transformative technology to Australian consumers, helping them access world-class health insights in a seamless and convenient way.”

At just $599.95, the Ultrahuman Ring Air is not cheap but it looks good, functions exceptionally well with an extensive range of features and incurs no standard ongoing fees — except for a couple of specialised PowerPlug functionalities.

What’s in the box etc

When you order an Ultrahuman Ring Air you will need to size it first.  Unless you know your Ultrahuman ring size you will have to purchase the sizing kit separately — this $10 then comes off the price of the ring when you go ahead with the purchase, which is a nice touch.

Try before you buy!

Purchase an Ultrahuman Ring Air Sizing Kit to find your size before you buy your ring.

Ultrahuman Ring Air sizes are different to standard ring sizes. Sizing compatible with Ultrahuman Ring Air only.

Your fingers naturally expand and contract, so we recommend wearing your sizing kit ring for at least 24 hours to confirm the best fit for you. For optimal performance, the ring should be worn on the index, middle, or ring finger.

Once you have the ring sizing kit, like all other smart rings you need to decide which finger to wear the ring on and then which size fits that finger best.  This time, I went for my index finger because the left-hand index is approximately the same size as the right-hand index finger.  This way if one finger is no longer viable for any particular reason you can switch it to the other hand/finger.

You may think that’ll never happen to me – but to me it did.  I jarred my finger playing basketball (and possibly broke it according to the wishy washy radiology report), and that right index finger was bruised, swollen, and unusable for over two weeks.

When deciding on the size, wear the sample ring for a couple of days to ensure it is comfortable at all times.  Remember too, that during the summer months your fingers will swell to some degree.

The sizing kit also includes some nice samples of the various colours of rings that you can purchase – Raw Titanium, Aster Black, Matte Grey, Space Silver and Bionic Gold.  I opted for the Raw Titanium as it matched my platinum wedding ring.

Once you have the ring size and colour you want, simply head over to the website of your favourite store (out of the three listed above) and order the ring.

For those preferring an in-person purchase, the process is even more streamlined. Soon, JB Hi-Fi will have sizing kits and displays in-store. Using these you will be able to determine your size required and check out the colour finishes available and then order on the spot (or later online if preferred. This is a well-thought-out and streamlined process by Ultrahuman and, although you don’t get to try the ring size for a couple days or so before buying, it seems like a much more trustworthy process for customers.

Design and fit

The Ultrahuman Ring Air design is extremely similar to other smart rings because there is only so much you can do with a ring’s sensors.  The Ring Air though is more stylish than my other smart ring, with it being a true circle – although you can’t really tell either way when it is on the hand.

The Ring Air is wider and comes in more colours than my other ring which I love and really looks good – is it too wide for some folks though?  My wife prefers a thinner ring so there are some who the wider ring may turn off.

On the inside are the sensors, with most seated at the bottom of the ring in a flat location – this needs to sit on the palm side of your finger, but unfortunately, sometimes you need to take the ring all the way off to determine where this flat side is.  

I am constantly washing my hands in my job, and this causes the ring to slide around so I’m always having to adjust it to get the sensors in the correct position.  A mark on the outside, or on the side of the ring, signifying where the palmar side should be, would be a welcome addition.  

A quick note on the washing of the ring — the ring has an IPX8 water resistance rating, meaning it can be worn during swimming, showering, scuba diving and more.

The sensors in the Ring Air are:

• Infrared Photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor
• Non-contact medical-grade skin temperature sensor
• 6-axis motion sensors
• Red LEDs (heart rate monitoring and oxygen saturation)
• Green LEDs (heart rate monitoring)
• Infrared LEDs (heart rate monitoring)

According to Ultrahuman, the battery life of the Ring Air is between four and six days.  I used the ring on “Turbo Mode” for the review, and it was a struggle to last four days.  This is not huge issue in itself because Turbo Mode uses “all sensors, all data, all power” so you should expect it to be less.  Turbo Mode does “unlock the richest health insights” and if you are paying this much for a health device you may as well get the most you can out of it.

You can switch the ring over to “Chill Mode” for a more efficient tracking mode.  This mode “focuses on tracking during sleep and restful periods to extend battery life intelligently”.  It will still track your movement, just not in as much detail.

My other smart ring lasts for up to 10 days but it has a lot less in the way of data, sensors and insights so it stands to reason its battery life will be more.

Charging the ring is a bit of a pain.  The charger is small and need to be plugged into a USB-C power source.  There is no portable charger for the ring which is disappointing – the option to buy a portable charger for it would be nice.  

A charge from 0 to 100 will take a whopping three hours which is crazy slow in this day and age.  Maybe charge it overnight and just give up on that night’s sleep tracking?  I try to charge it here and there when sitting down at my PC working.

Health and fitness

The Ring Air is designed for health and fitness and after using it for the last month I can say it is good at both but it is better at health with less of a focus on fitness.  By that, I mean it is not designed for elite athletes and peak performance, but I am testing it out alongside the WHOOP MG band, which is the elite athlete’s best friend.

The Ultrahuman app features numerous capabilities that the Ring Air can collect data on.  The app allows you to customise just what you want it to track using widget-like functionality which they call Power Plugs.  Each Power Plug is added to or removed from the home screen as needed.

I used most of the features, including:  

Circadian rhythm

The Ultrahuman Ring Air is one of the few smart fitness and health products that does this, providing guidance on when to start winding down for the day.  It can tell you what to avoid to help you slip into a better sleep cycle.

This allows you to optimise not just your sleep pattern but to follow it and produce your best results the following day with better recovery and sleep.

Caffeine window

“You can’t tell me what to do!” was my standard response to the app when it tried to tell me not to have any more caffeine for the day.  This is handy and although most of us will just do what we want it does make you more aware of when you should and should not be having more caffeine if you want a better quality sleep.

Movement

This is just a basic breakdown of steps and calories burned for the day.  It also displays just when you performed this movement.  Fairly basic information but it is something most people still look for when looking at their movement stats.

Breathwork mode

I think I need to do more of this.  The Ultrahuman app provides for quite a different breathing exercises to achieve different goals such as “Reduce Stress,” “Enhance Focus,” “Enhance Relaxation,” “Reduce Anxiety” and more.  With so many of these on offer they must be important right?  Not to just find the time to do them.  A handy addition to the app though.  

Workout mode

You can enter and keep track of health and fitness stats using the Ring Air.  There is also support for third-party fitness apps such as Zwift.  Interestingly, this automatically adds the workout to your app but if you add it manually yourself before you do the workout the single workout will appear as two workouts.  

There are many other types of workouts you can add and the Ring Air will record the data.  The data is then added into a timeline that you can go back and review at any time.  The daily timeline is a great idea because it means you can check your other health stats such as heart rate variability etc and see just you were doing at that time to affect such a change.

Stress Rhythm

Stress Rhythm details the various levels of stress you were experiencing at different times throughout the day.  Apparently, my daily stress levels are quite low with just 7% of my day in a state of high stress but I could see just when these levels of stress occurred by reviewing the bar graph.

Now, the plan would be to take action.  Breathing exercises during those times may help?

Sleep

Sleep is quite extensive with the Ring Air measuring your total sleep, the time in bed, the percentage of restorative sleep you had, sleep efficiency, along with the various sleep stages such as REM sleep and more.

Dynamic recovery

This determines just how well you have recovered from the day and previous day’s activities.  This can help guide your exercise intensity.  The measurement provides the contributors to the result and indicates whether each contribution was positive or negative.  

Ultra Age

This one is a strange one.  My WHOOP Ages wasn’t too bad but my Ultra Age was terrible, telling me I was five years to the worse.  It could well be because my sleep over the last few days has been lacking due to the mountain of work I have to get through before my holiday next month.  

The app tells me I need to stick to a fixed bedtime to “train the brain into deeper rest.” Less caffeine and more efficient sleep will help me – reading between the lines.  This is the big difference between this and the WHOOP MG.  

The WHOOP MG has an AI coach that will offer pre-emptive suggestions on how to improve things and then you can ask it to expand on that to help even more.  The Ultrahuman app is not that proactive although it does offer some basic solutions. 

Live HR, HRV and Resting HR

This is self-explanatory, as the Ring Air measures your heart rate continuously when Turbo Mode is selected.  From this, you can determine not just your current heart rate but also your heart rate variability and your resting heart rate.

Cardio Age + Cardio Adaptability

Cardio Age takes into account all of your statistics, including your VO2 Max and heart rate variability, to calculate a rolling average of your cardiac health and thus determine your Cardiac Age.

Cardio Adaptability is one of the paid PowerPlugs. It monitors your heart overnight to gain insights into how your heart responds to different activities.

Brain waste clearance??

This is a strange one, hence the question marks.  From the Ultrahuman app:

Glymphatic clearance refers to the brain’s waste removal system – a specialised mechanism that clears out toxins, metabolic waste, and excess proteins (like beta-amyloid) from the brain during sleep.

Glymphatic = Glial + Lymphatic

It’s called glymphatic because it involves glial cells (support cells in the brain) and functions similarly to the lymphatic system in the rest of the body. Primarily active during deep sleep. The system becomes most efficient during slow-wave (deep) sleep, when brain cells shrink slightly, allowing cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to flow more freely between cells and wash out debris.

This is not something I am familiar with, and although I’ve spent more than half my life imaging the brain, I’ve never heard it referred to in this way — it is a relatively new discovery and terminology.  According to Google, it is actually a real thing.  The Ring Air takes into account a few different measurements to determine your Brain Waste Clearance.

VO2 Max

Quite a few devices are measuring VO2 Max these days and the Ring Air seems to do it well.  It was similar in measurement to that collected by the WHOOP MG, so that means they are both accurate?  WHOOP does give you advice around your VO2 max on how to improve it and why though, something Ultrahuman does not do, unfortunately.

Smart goals

These are goals that the app sets for you to help improve your fitness and health.  You can also add your own and tailor it to precisely what you want it to do.

Why buy this fitness tracker?

The Ultrahuman Ring Air is the most fully featured smart ring I have used. It does not have the capabilities, nor the smarts of the more advanced WHOOP MP/5.0 but it does have some advantages. Most of us don’t mind wearing rings and as such we can wear a smart ring such as this as unobtrusively as any smart device.

It measures a lot of handy little health and fitness features, although it is much more a health ring than fitness ring. In saying that, it can do some fitness tracking and for the non-serious athlete this may be your tracking device of choice as you don’t need detailed workout and recovery data.

The Ring Air is unable to perform any ECG functions but it can monitor overall heart health making it a good tool for the average person, without any major known heart issues. For stress and sleep management, the Ultrahuman Ring Air is an ideal choice.

The Ultrahuman Ring Air is available now online and in-store at JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, and Officeworks for $599 in Raw Titanium, Aster Black, Matte Grey, Space Silver and Bionic Gold. While it is not cheap, it is a one-off payment with no ongoing fees for the basic functionality. You can pay a subscription for some of the PowerPlugs but to me, if you want a device that monitors your heart in detail and don’t mind paying for it, you should be looking elsewhere.