I've worn the Ultrahuman Ring Pro to track my sleep for over 2 weeks - it's a great smart ring with one major flaw

It's been a few years since the first smart ring was released. With a sensor on the palm side of your index or middle finger, these smart technologies have become a great replacement for chunky, sporty, traditional fitness trackers that you wear on your wrist.

The Ultrahuman Pro smart ring is one of the best smart rings for the technology and insights it delivers. You can get to know almost every ounce of yourself, from your sleep habits to the factors that could trigger a migraine. There is almost no end to what you can learn about yourself, with seemingly endless data at your fingertips. Could it be smaller and more manageable to wear? Absolutely.

I wore the Ultrahuman Pro ring to track my sleep, exercise, stress, and daily life habits over 17 days in the middle of the summer. You need two weeks to allow the ring to calibrate, so I saw the full range of features and insights.

Specifications

• Width: 8.2mm
• Thickness: 2.65mm
• Weight: 3.3 - 4.8g (depending on size)
• Battery life: Up to 15 days
• Charging time: 3 hours
• Material: Titanium
• Size options: 5 - 12

What is the Ultrahuman Ring Pro like to wear?

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro is bulky. At 2.65mm thick, 4mm in width, and weighing at least 3.3g depending on size, it's actually bigger than the older model, the Ultrahuman Ring Air. It took me at least a week of constant wear to get used to it. If we were in the early days of smart rings, I wouldn't think much about it. These days, however, there are rings that offer similar insights at a similar (or lower) price point and are significantly more comfortable to wear.

There's a noticeable cut-out where the sensor sits, ensuring it's always on the palm side of your hand, but it doesn't look premium. It also tells everyone you're wearing a smart ring. Some people won't mind that, but this stopped me from wearing it on some occasions.

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro is made from titanium with a coating to protect it from everyday scratches. I would suggest, as with any smart ring, taking it off in the gym if you work out with dumbbells or a barbell. I scratched this ring (as I have done with others) on the rough coating of these weights.

On a positive note, the Ultrahuman Ring Pro colours are sleek. The design's matt finish does look premium, and the colour sits flush with my other gold jewellery. If it were thinner, as I'm sure it will become in future models, I'd have no issue with it.

Sleep tracking with the Ultrahuman Ring Pro

I wore the Ultrahuman Ring Pro every night for two weeks to delve deep into my sleep habits, and I've learnt more about myself at night than I have with almost any other device.

It records the essentials you'll find on almost every sleep tracker, like duration, sleep stages, and lowest heart rate point, and so much more. For example, Sleep Debt displays how much extra rest you need to get back up to your baseline after a few disrupted nights. Restfulness tells you how often you moved during the night. Restoration tells you how much sleep was actually restorative, so even when I slept for fewer hours than normal, I sometimes saw that I got all the rest I needed.

Usefully, at the bottom, you'll see the factors impacting your sleep. On a good day, I often saw that my heart rate dropped early, I had a full night's sleep, and I got to sleep quickly. After a bad night, I felt worse, but I learnt more. For example, if I had a low heart rate variability (HRV) overnight, that told me I hadn't recovered as much as I should have, so I start thinking about what I did during the day. Eating late at night, drinking alcohol, or doing intense exercise too late are all reasons for my low HRV scores.

It's a lot of information, and there aren't as many tabs explaining what each of the metrics means as there are on other devices, like the Coros Pace 4. But if you're already familiar with tracking your sleep and you want more information, you'll have a field day.

Fitness tracking with the Ultrahuman Ring Pro

You can start a workout in the Ultrahuman Ring Pro app, or link it with your Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, record on this device and transfer the data to the Ultrahuman Ring Pro app. I tend to do this as I take the ring off in the gym to avoid scratches and I'm a runner. The ring obviously doesn't have a screen to get my distance and speed data.

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro focuses on everyday movement over revealing the small details of your workout. Inactivity Time and Active Hours scores highlight the amount of time I spend sitting at my desk versus moving, whether that be exercising or simply standing and moving around the house. I can see how my daily step count compares to the population and, at the bottom, I can see factors affecting my activity score. This tells me where to improve. For me, I tend to do enough intense exercise but because of my desk job, I spend a lot of time sitting down. It's eye-opening.

The fitness insights on the Ultrahuman Ring Pro don't just tell you what you've done, they give you the data you need to improve your routine, unlike most fitness trackers or even specific running watches. On any given day, I can see what my body needs, written in a plain list.

Health tracking with the Ultrahuman Ring Pro

It was clear to me even in the first few days of using the Ultrahuman Ring Pro that health, not fitness, is the core value. After a night's sleep, you can see how your rest scores should influence your caffeine intake. You'll be told when to start winding down for bed and when to step outside for some daylight throughout the day, both based on your own body clock. It's all about gentle improvements that together make a big difference, rather than solely focusing on exercise, sleep, stress, and so on.

Jade is Ultrahuman's AI assistant. It's new and improved, and you can ask it to dig into your health data for answers. Recently, I wanted to know whether I was doing anything in my daily life that was stopping me from getting better sleep. One question and I got a full, fully explained rundown of my data history and points to improve. It's very impressive.

I wore this ring non-stop for two weeks and have spent hours looking at the data. I'd have to write a review the length of War and Peace to cover every metric I've looked into, and even then, I don't think I've seen them all. It's certainly one for those who want to optimise their routines for better health in a very serious way, right down to the nitty-gritty, or have a specific health concern.

PowerPlugs is a library of add-on metrics you can get for free or buy for between £2 and £5, per my research. These can help you optimise areas that you want to focus on personally. For example, you can get more data on your sleep, like how your screen time, jet lag, or caffeine intake impact your rest. If you frequently get migraines, there's a Plug to help you identify triggers.

You can also download other features through this platform, like a Smart Alarm to wake you up when you hit optimal sleep duration.

Even if you don't want or need all of the insights, you'll appreciate how the data you do want is presented. Graphics and information badges contextualise all of the data the smart ring takes, making it easy to understand.

Another thing worth noting is that the Ultrahuman Ring Pro has superior ovulation and menstrual health tracking compared to any other smart ring I've used. However, you have to pay extra. You can subscribe for £52.99 for two years' use or pay yearly at checkout when you buy the device.

It's also the only device I've seen that asks about parental status at sign-up, which impressed me. No other device I've tried takes children into account when analysing stress, sleeplessness or disrupted nights.

Accuracy and integrations

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro needs two weeks to calibrate before you can trust the data. I found that most of the fitness insights were accurate as soon as I started wearing the ring, but some, like sleep duration, were off by a fair amount. Mine consistently said I'd slept for 12 or 13 hours a night...I wish!

I used a baseline tracker (my Oura Ring 5) against the Ultrahuman Ring Pro, as I do with all the fitness trackers I test. Ultrahuman actually encourages you to do this by allowing connection to various devices so you can "train" the ring. Right now, you can only do it with your heart rate and with a Polar fitness tracker, but the app promised me that step count and connectivity to other devices were coming soon as well.

Although it's disappointing that the feature isn't live with the launch, it's a great sign. My main gripe with every smart ring is how inaccurate the step count is, as the device can pick up hand movements like waving or typing as steps. I hope this will solve this issue for Ultrahuman users.

You can connect your Ultrahuman ring to other fitness trackers, like your Apple Watch or Garmin Watch, or link it to your Apple Health or Google Fit app. If you're a Peloton user, you can link your ring directly to your bike or treadmill for live data, and if you use apps like MyFitnessPal, you can connect to these too for workout data.

Battery life and charging

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro offers a reliable 15 days of life between charges. If you don't pre-program your workout in the app, I've found you can get about 17 days, which is a huge benefit. There's nothing worse than having to take off your fitness tracker to charge it when you're supposed to be wearing it to bed.

This is good for any fitness tracker, with even some of the best Garmin watches struggling to reach this number of days between charges.

The ring charges in a cool metallic box that flashes a light and makes a sound when the ring connects. If you want to take the ring off and travel with it, it works as a handy storage case. The case charges with its own magnetic charging cable. When you wrap it up, the cable holds to itself and the case with magnets. Uniquely impressive for anyone like me who hates a tangled cable. Much like the ring itself, though, this is bulky, and the cable is about the same size as the charging case.

Price and availability of the Ultrahuman Ring Pro

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro is available to pre-order now for £429, with shipping starting from September 15. It's currently not available to buy from third-party retailers like Healf, but as it has stocked previous versions of the ring, I imagine this is to come.

The Ultrahuman Ring Pro lists itself as a subscription-free tracker, and this is technically true. For those new to smart rings, it might come as a shock that you'd have to pay for anything beyond the ring, but some require you to buy the ring and then subscribe to access even basic metrics.

However, there are additional fees to use this ring to its full potential. There is an Atrial Fibrillation (Afib) detection feature, which can detect an abnormal heart rhythm for non-diagnostic purposes, but you have to pay extra for it. PowerPlugs cost money, and although Jade AI credits renew, you'll have to buy more credits to ask endless questions.

Is the Ultrahuman Ring Pro worth it?

The bulk of this ring is a real problem for me. Other smart rings are significantly less obtrusive to wear. While Ultrahuman's features and insights are hugely impressive, if you want to reliably track and improve your sleep, fitness, stress, and daily life habits, you won't need all of them. You do need to wear your smart ring comfortably.

That being said, it's an excellent tracker. This is the smart ring for those who want to dive into the minutiae of wellness. If you've already nailed exercising regularly, eating well, getting plenty of fresh air and sleep, and limiting disruptions like alcohol, and you're wondering what more you can do to optimise your routine, this ring has the insights you want.

At over £400, the Ultrahuman Ring Pro is pricey, but it sits level with similar devices. This is how much you can expect to pay for most smart rings. I hope they will get cheaper as the technology becomes more widely available.

Currently, as impressed as I am by the metrics on the Ultrahuman Ring Pro, I can't recommend it over the Oura Ring 5, which offers a great selection of sleep, fitness, and stress monitoring features - more than enough to keep an eye on and make changes to your health. They come in a similar readable format as well, but in a significantly more discreet and comfortable design.

For a cheaper option, the Oura Ring 4 is also a good choice, but this is thicker than the Ultrahuman Ring Pro, so I'd also weigh up the Oura Ring 4 vs Fitbit Air.