Aug 24, 2023·edited Aug 24, 2023Liked by Leland Stillman, MD
Dear Dr Stillman, what are your thoughts on the UltraHuman Air Ring? This and your Youtube video pushed me over the edge on vitals tracking, as someone who hates EMF and being tracked. I see the value now, but new Oura Rings can’t get Data without paying Oura a subscription fee to see it. The UH Ring says they’ll never charge extra for your data, and it seems from reviewers the hardware is about as good as the Oura's. I found out the UH does not have an Airplane Mode but they claim they have solved that problem.
"It establishes a connection with the smartphone only when you open the Ultrahuman App or at regular time intervals... It's important to note that Bluetooth activity for the Ultrahuman Ring AIR remains below 1% throughout the day, resulting in significantly lower EMF radiation compared to other Bluetooth wearables."
Do you have any thoughts on this Ring for those of us who did not get grandfathered into the original Oura pricing model?
I just saw this post after recently discovering Dr. Stillman. I've had the Oura Ring for several years and it started acting wonky, so when I saw the Ultrahuman Kickstarter project, I gave them a try. I wore both rings up until last week. First, the reports of the rings seemed fairly close, but the Oura skewed toward reporting poorer sleep scores and the UH skewed toward more positive scores. A couple months or so later, the UH started acting really wacky: it would report that I only slept a few hours and would show big gaps of no data during the night. The Oura reported as usual and would show my sleep was just fine. So UH replaced that ring. But then the new ring started doing the same thing and my son's UH ring started doing it, too. So we just sent them back and will be refunded my Kickstarter pledge. There's a new ring coming in an Indiegogo project ("Ring One") and I'll give that a go, too. I'm just not that big of a fan of the Oura ring as Dr. Stillman, but it's the best out there until proven otherwise. Pro Tip: spend time subjectively assessing your sleep quality upon waking WITHOUT checking any sleep tracker data. Wait an hour or more to check the device. I don't do this all the time, but it's good to cross check and I will defer to my subjective sense of restoration etc. if the ring shows a poorer rating than what I'm feeling. There's also the risk that our subconscious starts to anticipate the habit of checking the ring right when we wake up and the "nocebo" effect can kick in. We might have noticed that we feel better than what the ring states if we gave ourselves time to assess it. Anyway, hope all that was helpful.
The Oura subscription fee feels like a stealth charge to me. I had one for years, lost it and finally got around to replacing it recently so was not expecting the charge. It's not much but I am averse to ongoing charges as I don't have a regular income so prefer to pay for things upfront. Other than that I have no gripes. Data does seem reliable although I will soon know if their O2 sat measurement is accurate. Their customer service is also friendly and accessible.
I think they started this because they needed money to fund maintenance on the app, plus hardware updates, that really are driven by phone software updates. So I understand why they did it, even if I did prefer the old model without a monthly fee.
Dear Dr Stillman, what are your thoughts on the UltraHuman Air Ring? This and your Youtube video pushed me over the edge on vitals tracking, as someone who hates EMF and being tracked. I see the value now, but new Oura Rings can’t get Data without paying Oura a subscription fee to see it. The UH Ring says they’ll never charge extra for your data, and it seems from reviewers the hardware is about as good as the Oura's. I found out the UH does not have an Airplane Mode but they claim they have solved that problem.
"It establishes a connection with the smartphone only when you open the Ultrahuman App or at regular time intervals... It's important to note that Bluetooth activity for the Ultrahuman Ring AIR remains below 1% throughout the day, resulting in significantly lower EMF radiation compared to other Bluetooth wearables."
Do you have any thoughts on this Ring for those of us who did not get grandfathered into the original Oura pricing model?
Hello Joel,
I just saw this post after recently discovering Dr. Stillman. I've had the Oura Ring for several years and it started acting wonky, so when I saw the Ultrahuman Kickstarter project, I gave them a try. I wore both rings up until last week. First, the reports of the rings seemed fairly close, but the Oura skewed toward reporting poorer sleep scores and the UH skewed toward more positive scores. A couple months or so later, the UH started acting really wacky: it would report that I only slept a few hours and would show big gaps of no data during the night. The Oura reported as usual and would show my sleep was just fine. So UH replaced that ring. But then the new ring started doing the same thing and my son's UH ring started doing it, too. So we just sent them back and will be refunded my Kickstarter pledge. There's a new ring coming in an Indiegogo project ("Ring One") and I'll give that a go, too. I'm just not that big of a fan of the Oura ring as Dr. Stillman, but it's the best out there until proven otherwise. Pro Tip: spend time subjectively assessing your sleep quality upon waking WITHOUT checking any sleep tracker data. Wait an hour or more to check the device. I don't do this all the time, but it's good to cross check and I will defer to my subjective sense of restoration etc. if the ring shows a poorer rating than what I'm feeling. There's also the risk that our subconscious starts to anticipate the habit of checking the ring right when we wake up and the "nocebo" effect can kick in. We might have noticed that we feel better than what the ring states if we gave ourselves time to assess it. Anyway, hope all that was helpful.
The Oura subscription fee feels like a stealth charge to me. I had one for years, lost it and finally got around to replacing it recently so was not expecting the charge. It's not much but I am averse to ongoing charges as I don't have a regular income so prefer to pay for things upfront. Other than that I have no gripes. Data does seem reliable although I will soon know if their O2 sat measurement is accurate. Their customer service is also friendly and accessible.
I think they started this because they needed money to fund maintenance on the app, plus hardware updates, that really are driven by phone software updates. So I understand why they did it, even if I did prefer the old model without a monthly fee.
This new product looks promising.
However, I can't speak to the EMF levels you'll be exposed to.
If you test it, please let me know what you find.
Is your health information that Oura tracks kept private? How does that part work?
I'm not sure. I would check with them if you're concerned about that.
Yes Martin, thank you! this is extremely helpful!
10/10 Well said. That’s a great lineup of books too.