Ultrahuman Ring Pro vs. Oura Ring Gen 5

Editor’s note: The original version of this article compared the Ultrahuman Ring Air with the Oura Ring Gen 4, but it has since been updated to reflect the latest hardware of both brands.

While smart rings aren’t ideal if your workout regimen includes a lot of barbell work (e.g., CrossFit), I’ve grown fond of them because of their small form factor and ease of use. I purchased a first-gen Oura Ring several years ago and also wore the original Ultrahuman Ring Air until its battery died. A couple of months ago, Ultrahuman announced the Ring Pro and Oura launched its 5th-generation ring, and I decided to get both so that I could test them and update this article. 

To be transparent, I always preferred the Ultrahuman ring – despite nearly constant battery issues experienced by me, my wife, and my editorial team – because the app was much more capable and insightful than Oura’s. But after testing the new models from each company, I feel like the tide is turning.

In this review, I’ll compare the tech inside each of the rings and explain how each company goes about reporting your biometric data back to you. I’ll also show you the results of my first-hand HR and sleep tracking testing.

Here are the five most important things to know:

1. Oura is more accurate. Benchmarked against a high-end ECG chest strap (the Frontier X2), Oura tracked closely on heart rate, resting heart rate and HRV, while Ultrahuman’s readings ran consistently high. This is the main reason I reversed my earlier preference for Ultrahuman.
2. Oura’s battery lasts far longer. The new Gen 5 lasted about 12 days in my testing, versus the five to eight days typical of Ultrahuman and most trackers – and it does so in a much smaller ring.
3. Ultrahuman has dropped several metrics Oura still offers. These include blood oxygen (SpO2), respiratory rate and breathing regularity. This makes Oura the better choice if you want to watch for snoring or possible sleep apnea.
4. Oura costs less upfront but requires a subscription. Oura starts at $399 (vs. $479 for the Ultrahuman Pro), but getting the most out of it requires a $5.99 per month membership; Ultrahuman charges no subscription, though some third-party add-ons cost extra.
5. Ultrahuman is the more proactive, feature-rich platform. It pushes real-time coaching notifications, ships new features faster, and offers add-ons Oura doesn’t — a genuine advantage if you want active guidance rather than data to dig through yourself.

Why I Prefer The Oura Ring 5

The original heading of this segment was “Why I Switched to Ultrahuman After Four Years With Oura Ring.” I’d found the Ultrahuman ring more accurate, and I liked how its app presented my data. After testing the latest hardware from both companies, I’ve reversed that position — and the biggest reason is accuracy.

I benchmark every ring against a Frontier X2 ECG chest strap, which is far more accurate than any optical sensor a smart ring can carry. During a nearly two-hour session of chores, the Frontier X2 measured my average heart rate at 107 bpm. Oura reported 104. Ultrahuman reported 76 — off by nearly a third, and I can’t explain why. 

I saw the same pattern in resting heart rate and HRV during sleep: Oura tracked closely to the chest strap, while Ultrahuman’s readings ran consistently high. Something is off with either Ultrahuman’s hardware or its software, and it shows up across the board.

Battery life is the second reason. The Oura Ring 5 lasted 12 days in my testing, versus the five to eight days I’ve come to expect from most trackers, Ultrahuman included. That’s remarkable given how much smaller the Oura is (more on that below).

Oura also handles sleep better. Ultrahuman consistently assumes I’m asleep while I’m still on the couch with a cup of tea, which inflates its total-sleep and REM numbers. Oura more often gets sleep onset right.

And Oura still reports metrics Ultrahuman has dropped entirely — blood oxygen saturation, respiratory rate and breathing regularity — which matter if you’re trying to spot snoring or possible sleep apnea. 

I’ve also kept finding Oura features I didn’t know were there, like nighttime blood pressure trends.

Finally, there’s the comfort factor. The Oura 5 is noticeably thinner and narrower than the Ultrahuman Ring Pro, and I’ve come to prefer it. I use my hands constantly on our homestead for lifting, pulling and hauling, and the bulkier Ultrahuman pinches and gets in the way. 

In fairness, part of my discomfort with the Ultrahuman is my own doing: I ordered too small a size, so it only fits my left ring finger and occasionally irritates my skin. I sized the Oura larger, so it fits several fingers and I can move it around. Aesthetically I actually lean toward chunkier jewelry, but for day to day wear with my active lifestyle, the smaller ring wins.

Similarities and Differences

On the surface, the Oura and Ultrahuman are the same kind of device: a smart ring that tracks sleep, readiness, heart rate, stress and activity through a combination of sensors and a companion app.

They share the same core sensor package — optical LEDs for heart rate and HRV, a skin-temperature sensor, and an accelerometer and gyroscope for movement — and both now fold AI into their apps to help interpret your data. If all you want is solid daily tracking of the core biometrics, either ring will serve you well.

The differences fall into three buckets.

1. Accuracy

This is the big one, and it’s covered in detail in my testing below, but here’s the short version: against my Frontier X2 ECG chest strap, Oura tracked closely on heart rate, resting heart rate and HRV, while Ultrahuman’s readings ran consistently — and sometimes wildly — high. 

That’s at least partially because Oura’s Gen 4 and 5 models utilize “Smart Sensing,” which fires all the ring’s LEDs at once and uses whichever signal is cleanest, rather than relying on a motion sensor to guess which LED to use. 

In practice, Oura is the more accurate ring.

2. What Each Ring Measures

Ultrahuman has quietly dropped blood oxygen saturation, respiratory rate and breathing regularity — whether that’s a sensor limitation or a consequence of the litigation that halted sales of its previous Ring Air, I don’t know. Oura still reports all three, which matters if you want to watch for snoring or possible sleep apnea. 

Both rings otherwise cover the expected ground (sleep stages, stress, recovery, VO2max) and both offer menstrual cycle tracking — though a member of my team found Ultrahuman’s fertile-window predictions unreliable enough to result in an unplanned (but welcome) pregnancy, so don’t lean on either ring for anything fertility-critical.

3. Approach and Philosophy

Ultrahuman pushes coaching notifications throughout the day — a “caffeine window,” a UV-based sun-exposure prompt for Vitamin D — and its “PowerPlugs” add-ons (Travel Jet Lag, AFib detection, Pregnancy Insights) extend what the ring can do, with new features shipping far faster than Oura’s. 

In contrast, Oura mostly waits for you to open the app and dig into the data yourself. 

Which approach you prefer is genuinely personal: that proactive coaching is a real advantage if you’re still building your habits, though after years of using these trackers I’ve tuned most of the notifications out and just listen to my body.

Sensors and What Each Ring Tracks

As you can see in the table below, the rings offer comparable sensor technology for monitoring heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), skin temperature, stress levels and movement.

However, with the release of the fourth-generation Oura Ring, the company added a feature I haven’t seen in other fitness or sleep trackers that have optical heart rate sensors: the ability to dynamically select the optimal signal path for measuring your heart rate and HRV. 

Without going too much into the weeds here, when it comes to biometrics, there are important technical differences between red, green and near-infrared LEDs.

For example, red and near-infrared LEDs work best when you’re at rest, while green LEDs are more reliable for capturing heart rate during exercise. That’s why most fitness and sleep trackers rely on a motion sensor to determine which LEDs to use for capturing biometrics at any given time. 

The Oura Ring 4 and 5 include new “Smart Sensing” technology that engages all the device’s LEDs and then uses the data with the least “noise” to calculate your heart rate and HRV. By doing so, the ring should be able to collect more accurate readings.

Based on my testing — which compared the rings to a high-end, highly-accurate chest strap ECG — the newest Oura Ring model is significantly more accurate than the Ultrahuman.

It’s also worth repeating that, as I stated earlier, Ultrahuman no longer reports on blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), breathing regularity and respiratory rate, and the lack of those features makes it more difficult to determine if you’re potentially dealing with snoring or sleep apnea issues. 

Now let’s switch gears and discuss how the sensors mentioned in the table above can help measure, report and interpret a wide variety of biometrics. 

As you can see below, both rings can report on a vast number of biometrics, including some you might not have even heard of before.

Note that I marked the core biometrics fitness enthusiasts have come to expect from wearable trackers in bold. Both rings do a fairly good job of measuring and reporting on them. 

In addition to core biometrics, both platforms offer an ever-growing list of insights derived from those core biometrics. 

For example, both Oura and Ultrahuman report on circadian alignment and offer cycle tracking for menstruation*. I won’t offer a complete list here because it’s likely outdated by the time this article is published. 

Moreover, both platforms have integrated artificial intelligence (AI) into their apps to help you better understand your biometrics and take the appropriate actions. 

However, one feature of Ultrahuman I’d like to point out is “PowerPlugs,” which are add-ons that enhance the core functionality of the app. They’re delivered either by Ultrahuman or through third-party developers (the latter are usually available for a monthly fee, while the first-party add-ons are free). This greatly expands what the device can be used for. Examples include “Travel Jet Lag,” “AFib detection,” or “Pregnancy Insights.”

* A member of our team tested Ultrahuman’s cycle tracking feature and found it to be inaccurate, resulting in a (welcome) but unplanned pregnancy. Evidently, the app’s fertile window predictions are not perfectly reliable, which you should keep in mind when using the ring for anything fertility-related. 

How Oura Ring and Ultrahuman Track Activities

Both Oura and Ultrahuman can automatically detect activities based on motion and heart rate data. But I’ve noticed that Ultrahuman’s activity detection is somewhat unreliable. 

For example, every morning and evening, I do chores on our homestead, which involves moving the mobile chicken tractors, hauling feed buckets and walking a lot. The Oura app detects all those activities and asks me to confirm what I did so it can better track my calorie burn and correlate those activities with other biomarkers. Ultrahuman detects some of those activities but only in the context of logging potential sun exposure. 

Of course, you can always manually add activities in either app – but who has time for that?

Personally, I don’t care about activity tracking and don’t pay much attention to it. It’s cool to see how many steps I’ve taken in a given day, or how many calories the app thinks I’ve burned (calorie tracking isn’t super reliable if you don’t know your basal metabolic rate), but none of this data is going to influence my daily activities.

However, if you’re in the process of getting fit and are trying to dial in an exercise routine that works for you, both Oura and Ultrahuman can be helpful.

Ultrahuman’s Dynamic Recovery vs. Oura’s Readiness Score

Aside from sleep tracking, the one biometric I pay most attention to is my daily recovery or readiness score. It’s an indication of how well my body has been responding to stressors, and I use it to limit my exposure to more stress, if necessary.

To calculate a dynamic recovery and readiness score, both platforms rely on a number of biometrics, including the quality of your last night’s sleep, your resting heart rate, and your heart rate variability. A low score means your body is struggling (or working hard) to adapt to stressors from the previous days, including exercise, sleep debt, plain old stress (e.g., problems at work), alcohol consumption and others.

If I wake up with a low recovery score, I usually try to do what I can to help my body recover. For example, I may choose to take it easier in the gym that day, go to bed earlier, or jump in my sauna. Of course, if you’re in-tune with your body, you may not need an app to tell you when you’re run down. Usually, I can tell how my body is responding to environmental stressors, but I’m occasionally surprised to see how much better my biometrics look compared to how I feel after waking up.

I wore a WHOOP strap for many years (before stopping because of its lack of airplane mode). WHOOP is the best-in-class overall fitness wearable, and one thing it offers that is glaringly missing in both the Ultrahuman and Oura apps is the ability to correlate lifestyle choices with your recovery score. 

For example, using the WHOOP Journal feature allows you to note when you drink alcohol or use a specific supplement. And after a couple of weeks of inputting data, the app shows correlations between those lifestyle choices and your recovery and sleep scores. I wish Ultrahuman and Oura would add that capability. 

Oura does offer a limited “journal” feature, but it only provides aggregated correlations. In other words, the app can tell you how the overall Oura community responds to alcohol consumption, but not you personally.

At the end of the day, that’s little more than a gimmick; I don’t care about how the community responds to a behavior or activity… I want to know how my body responds.

Note: If you’re interested in learning more about WHOOP and how it compares to Ultrahuman, check out this in-depth article.

Neither Ring Is 100% Accurate At Sleep Tracking

Most people know that good sleep is important for optimal health and performance. That’s one of the reasons why sleep tracking has become such a popular activity among biohackers and general wellness enthusiasts alike.

The problem is that none of the sleep trackers available to consumers are 100% accurate, and it’s almost impossible to tell which ones are the most accurate without having access to a sleep lab. 

After having tested countless sleep tracking devices, I’ve realized that they’re all limited in one way or another. And as a result, I mostly rely on how I feel half an hour after waking up to determine the quality of my sleep.

However, for the sake of this comparison article, I wanted to see how the rings’ measurements compare to each other.

As you can see in the table below, both devices report somewhat similar data. However, there are a couple of differences we should talk about. 

The table above shows average numbers from a four-day period.

While I can’t tell you which ring is more accurate, I can tell you for certain that Ultrahuman overestimates my total sleep because the app reports light sleep when I know I was not asleep yet. Whether or not that means my deep and REM sleep numbers are also inflated, I don’t know. My gut tells me that Oura is closer to the truth than Ultrahuman.

What’s interesting is that I said the exact opposite in the original version of this article. In other words, Oura 5 appears to be more accurate than Oura 4 in detecting sleep onset, while the Ultrahuman Ring Pro appears to perform worse compared to the Ring Air.

The bottom line is that you shouldn’t rely on any wearable to accurately track your sleep because they all have limitations. 

In other words, they rely on biometrics that are a reasonable but not 100% accurate proxy of brainwave activity. Plus, there are countless other factors, such as ring fit, movement patterns and others, that can impact the accuracy of the readings.

That’s why I recommend looking at trends rather than individual readings, and comparing how you feel with the data reported by the app. More often than not, you’ll be able to spot patterns and trends that are worth paying attention to.

Battery Life

One area where the new Oura Ring has a clear leg up is battery life. 

Instead of the five to eight days I’ve become accustomed to from most wearable fitness and sleep trackers (including Ultrahuman), the fifth-generation Oura Ring boasts 12 days of battery life based on my testing. 

To be fair, I enabled “Turbo” mode in the Ultrahuman app, which increased date collection frequency. I figured it would help the ring to be more accurate when it comes to activity and sleep tracking (it did not). Disabling turbo mode would likely improve the ring’s battery life but result in even less accuracy.

How much benefit you get from the Oura Ring’s longer battery life depends on whether you switch the ring into airplane mode before going to bed (like I do). 

That’s because you need to place both rings on their charger to disable airplane mode. So, every morning when I get into the office, I leave both rings on their respective chargers for a few minutes, which is usually enough time to keep them at 70-80% remaining battery life. 

As a result, the Oura Ring’s longer battery life hasn’t really affected me. But if you don’t use airplane mode for sleep (which I highly recommend in order to reduce your EMF exposure), you’ll likely appreciate the longer battery life of the Oura Ring – especially if you travel a lot and don’t want to bring the ring’s charger.

Speaking of chargers, the new Ultrahuman comes with a lightweight charging case you can use to recharge the ring several times, thus extending its battery life to up to 45 days. Oura also offers a charging case that can charge your ring five times, but it’s an additional $99. As with the regular chargers, the charging cases only work with a specific ring size.

One important thing worth mentioning is that the previous-generation Ultrahuman Ring Air had major battery life issues. Both my wife and I had our respective rings replaced 3-4 times because their batteries wouldn’t last more than a day. My editor’s wife is also on her 4th ring as of this writing. 

In all cases, the battery issues began appearing after several months of usage. It’s only been three months since I received the Ring Pro, and it might still be too early to tell whether the company has fixed the battery issues they had in the older ring.

Accuracy Testing

While some people might argue that tracking biometrics only makes sense when you get accurate data, I like to think that any tracking (even when less than 100% accurate) fosters awareness. Of course, you need some level of accuracy to make informed decisions and take actions, but being able to detect trends is often just as valuable as knowing the raw numbers. 

Until recently, I would have argued that, with the exception of sleep tracking, Ultrahuman and Oura Ring were both perfectly capable of accurately measuring key biometrics that can help you improve your health and wellness.

However, during my hands-on testing, I have seen significant discrepancies between Oura and Ultrahuman that I can’t quite explain. 

While I’m not trying to invalidate my findings, it’s critical to understand that there are confounding factors at play that might have negatively influenced the accuracy of my data, such as sensor shift due to movement or fluctuating ring fit due to changes in blood pressure and vasodilation in my fingers. 

That’s why I intentionally picked test scenarios that minimize those confounding factors while still reflecting realistic conditions. 

For example, instead of measuring my heart rate during an intense CrossFit workout that involves gripping barbells or bike handles (which could cause the blood vessels in my fingers to constrict and skew the readings), I chose evening chores on the homestead. While that does include some hand involvement, it’s much less than a CrossFit workout.

As a rule of thumb, you can expect reasonable accuracy when measuring cardiovascular metrics (HR, RHR, HRV) with little movement (e.g., walking, sleeping). Things get trickier, and accuracy varies in other situations.  

Active Heart Rate

Most accurate: Oura.

Based on my testing during different types of physical activities, Oura is more accurate (when compared to my Frontier X2 chest strap), despite the Ultrahuman fitting snugger around my finger than Oura, which would suggest better skin contact and more accurate readings. 

As you can see in the table above, Oura and my ECG chest strap are pretty much in agreement on my average heart rate during the 1 hour and 50 minutes session that involved caring for our 150 animals and performing some random repairs. 

Ultrahuman is way off and I can’t quite explain why that is.

Resting Heart Rate

Most accurate: Oura.

Similar to what I said above, Oura is more accurate for recording resting heart rate during sleep than Ultrahuman.

Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Most accurate: Oura.

When measuring HRV during sleep, Oura did an excellent job and reported results in line with the Frontier X2. Ultrahuman showed significantly higher HRV readings, again for reasons I can’t explain. 

In a nutshell, something is off with the Ultrahuman hardware or software.

Sleep Tracking

Most accurate: Oura.

As I mentioned above, determining the accuracy of wearable sleep trackers without having access to a professional sleep lab is nearly impossible. However, based on my testing and self-assessment, I think the Oura more accurately reflects how I sleep.

The tables below reflect my sleep on four consecutive nights. What I’ve noticed is that Ultrahuman assumes I’m trying to fall asleep while I’m still sitting on the couch sipping on tea.

Sometimes, Oura tracks that time as “awake” while Ultrahuman often thinks I’m already in light sleep. The latter then shows in the inflated total sleep numbers. 

Based on the reported numbers and my observation, Ultrahuman overreports total sleep and possibly REM sleep. However, I don’t think that negatively influences the usefulness of the trend data you get from the platform. In other words, you can still use relative changes to your sleep stage data to assess the quality of your sleep.

Recovery

Most accurate: Oura.

It’s worth noting that each platform uses a different algorithm (and potentially slightly different metrics) to calculate your daily recovery or readiness score. However, both platforms use a score from 0 to 100 (higher means better) to indicate how ready your body is to take on stress. I used the same four-day period as my sleep test for comparison.

As you can see by comparing the tables, Ultrahuman reported higher recovery scores than Oura on all four days. However, that’s likely due to inflated HRV readings and to Ultrahuman dynamically adjusting the score throughout the day based on your lifestyle choices (e.g., additional stressors or recovery routines you implement).

I like that dynamic approach because it illustrates the fact that what you do after getting up matters with regard to how you perform throughout the day. 

You might have a high readiness score after waking up, but your body’s ability to handle stress might rapidly decline after an intense workout or after a difficult conversation with your boss at work. Ultrahuman takes those factors into account, while Oura doesn’t.

That said, I no longer adjust my schedule or planned activities based on numbers from an app. Instead, I go purely based on how I feel. As a result, the dynamic nature of the recovery score has become less relevant. If you’re new to learning more about how your lifestyle choices impact your recovery ability to perform, the dynamic recovery score is likely more usable than Oura’s static number. 

How Each Platform Displays Your Biometric Data

As mentioned in the intro, Ultrahuman does a fantastic job of displaying the most important data right on the homescreen when you open the app. The color-coding Ultrahuman uses makes it easy to see if you’re in the green, red, or somewhere in between. I like that because it allows me to glance at the screen and move on without having to spend too much time in the app and on my phone.

While Oura uses a slightly different layout and much less color-coding, I don’t find it any less difficult to quickly get the information I’m after.

Besides the mobile app, both platforms also offer web interfaces to view and export your data. 

Comfort, Fit and Design

Ultrahuman and Oura used to look basically the same. But that’s no longer the case. The new Oura Ring Gen 5 is significantly narrower and thinner than the Ultrahuman Ring Pro. 

Some men prefer larger jewelry, including watches or rings and, aesthetically, I agree. However, the smaller form factor makes the Oura Ring much more comfortable to wear, especially when I have to grip stuff like feed buckets or the handles of chicken coops.

I also think that most women will prefer a thinner and narrower ring. My wife has small hands, and the older Ultrahuman Ring Air always looked a bit clunky on her ring finger. 

Cost

The Ultrahuman Pro retails for $479 plus taxes, including a free charging case. There are no subscription fees required to get the most out of the device (except for any third-party add-ons you may choose to purchase).

If you want to give the Ultrahuman ring a try, make sure to use discount code MIK to get 10% off the MSRP.

Shop Ultrahuman Ring Pro

Pricing for the Oura Ring ranges between $399 for the base models (silver and black) to $499 (for stealth, brushed silver, gold and rose gold models). 

In addition to the initial purchase price, you have to sign up for a membership to unlock all the features the platform has to offer. While the first month of the Oura membership is free, each additional month is $5.99. You can also get an annual subscription for $69.99.

Additionally, Oura sells the Gen 4 ring for $349. If you can forgo the thinner form factor and extended battery life, that model provides almost the same features for a bit less money. 

You can use the Oura Ring without a membership, but you’ll only get a suite of very basic features that do not include workout HR tracking, SpO2 monitoring, rest mode, trends over time, tags, restorative time or in-depth sleep analysis. In other words, there wouldn’t be much reason to use it. 

Shop Oura Ring

Ultrahuman vs Oura: Final Verdict

The battery issues my wife and I had with the Ultrahuman Ring Air put a bit of a damper on my enthusiasm, leading both of us to stop using the ring. When Ultrahuman released the Ring Pro, I got excited, and my experience so far has been positive (as far as battery life is concerned). 

However, over the last three months, I have noticed that I open the Oura app more often than the Ultrahuman app. I think it’s because Oura’s sleep data appears to be more accurate; I can see my breathing regularity and blood oxygen saturation; and also because I keep discovering new features I wasn’t aware of before, like nighttime blood pressure trends. 

In addition, the smaller Oura 5 feels more comfortable on my finger than the bulkier, tighter-fitting Ultrahuman Ring Pro. The latter is my bad because I probably should have gotten a larger ring size, but it is what it is. 

If you had asked me what wearable fitness tracker to get a year ago, I’d have recommended Ultrahuman. But when my wife indicated that she’d like to track her cycle and related biomarkers again, and asked me which ring to get, I recommended the Oura 5 to her. 

Do you have experience with either platform? If so, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’re in the market for a ring and my article helped you make a decision, let me know in the comments what made you decide for either the Oura or the Ultrahuman.