The Oura Ring may be the best-known smart ring, but it’s not necessarily the best one for you. As well as the Samsung Galaxy Ring, there is another brand making waves in the growing smart ring market, and that is Ultrahuman. I’ve been testing the Ultrahuman Ring Air, a lightweight device that tracks your vitals and, unlike Oura, does not require a monthly subscription plan to view core metrics.

The basic premise and promise of smart rings is to provide similar health and fitness tracking and data that you would get from a wrist-worn smartwatch, but in a device that could subtly pass as a regular ring on your finger. With that comes the challenge of making a gadget that is comfortable but has enough space for sensors to collect data and for a battery to keep it powered on.

After several weeks wearing the Ring Air on my left index finger (either index finger recommended for the best readings, as with all smart rings) I’ve found it to be more comfortable than the Oura Ring 4 as it is thinner and lighter. It doesn’t slip off when I wash my hands and I can forget I am wearing it – something that never quite happened with me when testing the Oura. You just have to make sure the flat part of the sensor is on the underside of your finger, but I found the Ring Air stayed nicely in place.

After using the plastic ring sizing kit, I opted for a size 10, whereas I am a size 11 for the Oura. When you order the Ring Air, you’ll be sent a sizing kit to pick your size. Make sure to take your time, as exchanging rings is a big faff. I was sent the raw titanium colour, which is brushed but still has picked up scratches from every day use.

The Ring Air’s hardware is ageing at this point, originally launched in June 2023. It costs from £329 compared to the cheapest Oura Ring 4 at £349. Ultrahuman makes a big show of the fact you can use the Ring Air without a monthly subscription, whereas Oura charges a non-negotiable £5.99 per month. I found the Ultrahiman app full of interesting data and insights, and on first glance it’s a great thing that there’s no subscription, even if the app is very data-heavy and has quite a steep learning curve to understand what it is telling you about your health.

Also, the app sends far too many notifications. I turned them off after a few days. When I arrived in London on a train, the app sent me a ‘Welcome to London’ notification which offered “personalised wellness recommendations and local biohacks to optimise your health while travelling.” Ew! Tapping revealed what were presumably paid partnerships with Uber and some local businesses. If you don’t charge a subscription, I guess you have to pay the bills somehow.

The app provides an excellent daily snapshot that shows deviations in your body temperature, sleep patterns, steps, active hours and heart rate for a granular look at your baseline health. I found it interesting to see if my resting heart rate had gone up, or if last night’s heart rate variation suggests I am getting sick.

Under ‘core metrics’ are sleep, recovery, movement and stress, though things get a little confusing as the ring can be put in different power modes. This is a direct admission that the battery life of the Ring Air isn’t great, offering turbo mode, chill mode, or critical battery mode. Turbo has everything on and gives you the most insights, but nukes the battery to three days at best. You charge the ring on the provided puck charger via USB-C.

The software recommends chill mode, which can keep it going for four to five in my use, but turning it on takes away data from the dashboard. For example, you can only view your live stress core in turbo mode. This isn’t clear and it isn’t explained – I had to slowly realise it.

This is my main issue with the Ring Air, which relates more to the Ultrahuman app than the ring itself. The data is confusingly presented in an intimidating wall of charts and numbers. You can dive into everything, but it’s a little impenetrable, even after a couple of weeks.

I wore the ring for more than a month, but the software failed to ever show me my ‘ultra age’, a metric it claims you need a minimum of two weeks to ‘unlock’. Five weeks on, I’m still waiting. If this is down to user error, it’s not obvious.

The app also told me I can turn on several so-called PowerPlugs. These are extra features offered by Ultrahuman that allow you to track and view additional metrics. You’re warned that this impacts battery life. I turned on Circadian Phase Alignment, Caffeine Window and Social Jetlag, with insights not proving overly helpful. One tells me not to drink coffee right before bed, while my social jetlag is still being calculated days after switching on.

Perhaps this is why these particular PowerPlugs are free. Although Ultrahuman boasts of no subscription fee to use the Ring Air, some of the more useful-sounding PowerPlugs are subscription based. Want to track your respiratory health through snoring and coughing tracking? That’s £2.99 per month. It’ll cost you the same to track your ovulation cycle, while Afib (atrial fibrillation) detection for signs of heart issues costs £4.90 per month.

If you want these premium features, the cost will add up. Granted, the Oura Ring does not offer Afib, but if you really want that feature, you can buy an Apple Watch and get it at no cost beyond that of the device.

Other free PowerPlugs are more to do with your personal circumstances, such as Shift Work and New Parent, which lets the ring know why your sleep is so messed up, and take it into account.

The Ring Air also claims to have workout detection, but I found this annoyingly tardy. After a brisk walk between work meetings, the app later showed activity was detected, and let me label it as an outdoor walk – but I wouldn’t have classed it as a workout.

I went on three separate outdoor runs, and the ring did not detect any of the half hour 5km runs as workouts. You can start a workout manually in the app, but I was disappointed that this didn’t work well. Either way, if you want to track your route and pace, the Ring Air isn’t for you, as it lacks the built-in or connected GPS you’ll find on the majority of sports watches. Metrics are only really heart rate-based.

After five weeks of testing, I am as indifferent to the Ultrahuman Ring Air as I have been with the Oura Ring 3 and Oura Ring 4 in the past. This smart ring does what it advertises: tracks heart rate, skin temperature, and provides other health insights via the app. But, those insights are not always that personal or actionable. Being told you slept badly the night after a bad sleep is somewhat stating the obvious.

I like that the Ring Air is cheaper than Oura’s option and does not have a subscription. But the battery life isn’t great, and the most useful PowerPlug add-ons require subscriptions! So, in fact, the Ring Air could cost you more per month than the Oura Ring.

If you want a subtle, comfortable fitness tracker with no distracting screens, the Ring Air is a solid option that will give you interesting daily data dumps. But most people will get more utility out of a (potentially cheaper) sports watch from the likes of Garmin, Suunto or Coros, with more features, better battery life, and no subscription costs.