Smart rings are here to stay, and two of the biggest right now are the Oura Ring Gen 3 and Ultrahuman Ring Air.
Both offer excellent health and fitness features, albeit with hugely different styles and price points.
We’ve used both extensively – so check out this concise run-down of which is the best choice for you.
Read our Oura Gen 3 review | Ultrahuman Ring Air review
Design, style and comfort
When it comes to style and design, the Oura has the Ultrahuman on toast.
The Oura Ring Gen 3 comes in two styles, the contoured Oura Ring Gen 3 Heritage, and the smooth Horizon version – which comes at a price premium.
There’s also a host of colors. Heritage comes in black, silver, Stealth and gold. Horizon comes in those, plus Stealth and rose gold too.
The Oura Gen 3 weighs between 4-6g, so it’s not the lightest ring on the market.
And while it is the best-selling and best-looking, it’s still a chunky device that hardly blends in on the finger.
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The Ultrahuman Ring Air (above) now also comes in black, silver, grey, and gold, after initially launching in black only. You can see us wearing the black version above.
The Ultrahuman Ring Air weighs in at just 2-3g, so it’s certainly lighter than Oura. But the contourless design and lack of finesse do make it look noticeably less premium, and it picks up far more scratches than the Oura, too.
In terms of comfort, there isn’t much to pick between the two. The Ultrahuman Ring Air might feel slightly more discreet – but barely perceptibly so.
Health and wellness features
Oura Ring Gen 3
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Oura was the original health smart ring, but Ultrahuman has come with a strong suite of features and excellent accuracy, too.
Oura’s ecosystem is built around sleep tracking – and it’s excellent at what it does. It has some of the most accurate sleep tracking of any wearable – and it's more comfortable than wearing a watch to bed, too.
The heart rate accuracy is also top notch, and it will spend time analyzing your baselines, so you can see if anything is out of whack, which may indicate stress, over-training, or impending illness. We also had no issues with the SpO2 sensor, which checked out against a pulse oximeter.
There's a temperature sensor built in too, and this is also used for wellbeing analysis, as well as female health and fertility tracking.
From that sleep tracking it will produce a Readiness score – which combined with heart rate variability data – will reveal how recovered you are.
The company has also started looking at workout detection – and it will track heart rate during exercise. However, after extensively testing that, some of the data is so unreliable it can’t be recommended for exercise and is better used to understand how your body recovers.
Ultrahuman Ring Air
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The Ultrahuman Ring Air also impressed us with its sleep tracking accuracy – and data stood up well to Oura, in terms of captured duration and sleep stages. You can see sample data from our testing above.
Like Oura, all of its metrics are displayed with your personal baselines in mind, so advice is more personalized and insightful.
It too has heart rate, SpO2, and a temperature sensor on board, so it produces a pretty complete set of health metrics. We had no issues with the accuracy of heart rate or other metrics during sleep and at rest.
While some metrics, such as breathing rate, are missing, Ultrahuman does focus on some other interesting areas. It offers advice on caffeine intake based on your sleep-wake times, and some interesting insights into your circadian rhythm. It will also offer metabolic health insights if paired with an Ultrahuman M1 CGM solution.
Like Oura, there’s a beta workout tracking feature – but the data from basic runs and sessions was too wild to be recommended.
Oura does take some elements a step further.
Oura has also launched stress detection – and it now looks at resilience, which examines how well you are equipped to deal with stress. We’re not huge fans of any stress tracking, but resilience is an interesting application that focuses on accurately determining stress and helping people let it not affect their lives.
And women’s health tracking is head-and-shoulders above Ultrahuman. Its cycle tracking is done in combination with Natural Cycles for FDA-approved contraception planning – and the company is putting a huge focus on women’s insights, linking health data to the cycle and research into menopause.
Oura’s suite of health features is more mature – and certainly better for women.
But the Ultrahuman Ring Air doesn’t miss when it comes to accuracy and given the price, offers a good experience without subscription fees that many people could happily live with.
Price and value
Here's a breakdown of the pricing for Oura Ring 3 Horizon and Ultrahuman Ring Air, considering both the upfront cost and any ongoing subscription fees:
Oura Ring Gen 3:
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Oura Ring Gen 3 Heritage: $299 (Silver, Black), $399 (Stealth), $499 (Gold)
Oura Ring Gen 3 Horizon: $349 (silver, black), $449 (Stealth, brushed titanium) and $499 (Gold), $599 (Rose Gold)
Oura requires a $5.99 monthly subscription for access to all features and advanced data insights.
Ultrahuman Ring Air:
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Ultrahuman Ring Air: $349 (Silver, Black, Gold, Grey)
No subscription fees are required. All features and data are accessible with the initial purchase.
Both rings are priced similarly at $349 for the base model. However, Oura Ring offers additional color options at a premium.
Subscription is where the significant difference lies. Oura Ring requires a monthly subscription for full functionality, adding $71.88 per year to the overall cost.
Ultrahuman Ring Air offers all features with no further subscriptions.
Battery life
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Oura Ring 3 Horizon:
The Oura Ring Gen 3 will last 7 days on a single charge. In our review, Wareable expert Michael Sawh said he found "around a week, with around 10-15% drop off per day." That's a really strong performance from such a small wearable.
Ultrahuman Ring Air:
The Ultrahuman Ring Air will only last around 6 days between charges – but we got a little less in our testing. It was usually around 4-5 days. That's nothing to complain about, but the Oura will generally go longer.
Verdict: Which is best?
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The Oura Ring Gen 3 is the best smart ring on the market today, and offers the best data and insights in a good-looking package. If you want the best, don't even hesitate.
However, it’s really expensive. While we do think it justifies its cost, especially for women, for many that makes it unappealing.
With this in mind, the Ultrahuman Ring Air is possibly the best Oura alternative right now.
With good accuracy and excellent insights – with no subscription – the UItrahuman is a great offering.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.