Taking Ultrahuman’s sleep & fitness tracking Ring for a spin
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
Indian startup Ultrahuman has made a name for itself since 2019 by building out a subscription fitness platform which offers a range of workout and wellness-related content, integrating with third party wearables like the Apple Watch. In 2021 it expanded into offering medical grade sensing hardware which monitors real-time blood glucose — spinning up a program focused on encouraging users to track their metabolic health as a fitness intervention. This was followed, last summer, by a teaser of more hardware incoming: A smart ring of its own design — to complement the existing CGM (continuous glucose monitoring) sensor program but which it also offers as a standalone health-tracking wearable to compete with the likes of Oura’s smart ring.
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
TechCrunch tried a beta version of Ultrahuman’s Ring (or R1), as its plainly called — testing it in combination with its CGM-based metabolic tracking program (M1) over a month’s use and for several weeks on its own when it did not also have access to real-time glucose data. So there are actually two review scenarios here: The Ring + CGM; and just the Ring. (We’ve previously tested Ultrahuman’s CGM-based program on its own — click here to read our report on the M1 from last year.)
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
For those not already familiar with CGMs, these are partially invasive sensors which are worn directly on the body — containing a filament that’s inserted under the skin to allow the hardware to sense changes in blood glucose via the wearer’s interstitial fluid.
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
It’s a different story with the Ultrahuman Ring: All the sensors are fully contained in the body of the smart ring and only non-invasive techniques, such as optical sensing, are used to track the user’s biomarkers. Absolutely no skin puncturing required.
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
However, if you’re up for wearing both the Ring and the M1, Ultrahuman’s its pitch is you’ll get a deeper level of health tracking as it’s platform is able to link more biomarkers and draw a more detailed picture of how your lifestyle impacts your metabolic health.
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
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Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
While tracking blood glucose is most commonly associated with people who have diabetes or prediabetes, in recent…
Taking Ultrahuman's Sleep & Fitness Tracking Ring For A Spin
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