Ultrahuman launched a smart ring to boost its ability to provide tech loving 'biohackers' with more insightful metabolic insights.
The Ultrahuman Ring will have temperature, heart rate and movement monitors, which will allow the device to track the wearer's sleep quality, stress levels and activity density.
To deepen the quality of insights for users, the device is designed to work in conjunction with the startup's existing Wearable Continuous Glucose Monitor.
The ring band is more likely to fit in with fashion-conscious consumers than a 'Cyborg' arm patch.
The Ultrahuman Ring will be available for pre-order today.
The startup told us that there will be two options, one of which will cover lifetime usage and the other a monthly subscription option with a small lock in period.
Kumar talked about the incoming smart ring in a Zoom call and said the idea is to help you understand more about what are the extra factors in your metabolism. There are many other factors that can affect a person's blood sugar levels, which is why it's important to have a monitor that can tell you. These are the big ones.
He goes on to say that a lot of this is guess work. With our own Wearable and the access to the raw data of the Wearable, we now have the ability to understand what was the leading factor that led to a poorer Glucose Response. The platform can figure out what is contributing to the under-recovered because of lack of sleep. For lack of activity, as well.
Many factors can affect how the body metabolises glucose, while big swings in blood sugar can be associated with health problems.
Ultrahuman sells real-time feedback to help people understand what is happening with their biology. When we road-tested the product last year, we pointed out the relative challenge for the average user to interpret the data in a way that is smart.
Ultrahuman's platform will be able to track and triangulate a variety of biomarkers to provide the user with a stronger read on what's behind their glucose peaks and troughs. The platform will be able to decode it in a much more efficient way if there is no activity.
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Ultrahuman will be going up against a lot of established players in the smart ring space with a focus on health and fitness tracking. It argues that it isoptimizing for metabolism and that it has the data to back that up.
Different platforms can be used for different purposes. Oura is an example of how to get a good night's sleep. Recovering can be done with the help of kew. Kumar says that how Ultrahuman captures data with more real-time sensors is a distinctive technical element of its differentiating factor.
He suggests that the way we have built the data pointers, the frequency of data pointers, the type of metrics, real-time-ness of temperature etc., is more geared towards the metabolism than other Wearables.
It is more important for us to have a temperature than it is to look at the metabolism. The ability to derive some of the insights that were not possible with the existing class of Wearables was one of the reasons why we built our own Wearable.
According to Kumar, the Ultrahuman Ring measures stress by looking at factors like heart rate, HRV, and temperature to identify a per user stress response.
He says it's aiming to identify activity density by looking at input from accelerometers, as well as temperature and heart rate, to try to understand "what zone of activity were you in"
Data from activity sensors, temperature and heart rate are pulled from the sleep tracking component to identify different phases of sleep.
While sensor-laden, the Ultrahuman Ring is not currently configured to deliver direct feedback at the hardware level, according to Kumar.
The image is called Ultrahuman.
For a number of reasons, Ultrahuman chose a smart ring as its form factor for the second Wearable. The risk of competing with existing wrist-mounted Wearables for space on the user's person is avoided. Kumar said its testing showed that a ring form factor yielded the lowest data variability of all the forms it tested for.
A ring stands a better chance of being worn more consistently and continuously than other types of Wearables, according to the team. He says that Ultrahuman's Ring can survive getting wet in the shower or the pool for up to five days before it needs to be charged. He says that the more data the user has about themselves, the more powerful the insights will be.
Insights picked up by the ring's sensors will be linked to their real-timeglucose levels, which the Cyborg sensor measures via changes to the interstitial fluid under the skin of their arm.
He predicts that the strength of the organization will be in relation to the impact on sleep. What impact did a late meal and spike in blood sugar have on your sleep?
For some people, this is fine, they can have a lateglucose spike and they will be in the target sleep zone. It can affect REM sleep for a lot of people. It can affect their deep sleep as well.
For users who can't avoid having a late meal but still want a good night's sleep, the Ultrahuman smart ring could be used to suggest which foods they should eat.
He thinks we will be pretty unique.
Kumar said that the product will approach movement and activity recommendations in a different way to its competitors.
There is more to movement than burning more calories. A lot of our focus is going to be around movement, because it helps people reduce cortisol levels and at the same time increase their calories.
Kumar said that a user of Ultrahuman's smart ring can still get some benefits even though they haven't tapped the upper-arm-mounted sensor. He says that the greatest utility comes from the combination of the two Wearables. People will be able to understand their sleep quality, but they will not be able to understand their levels of stress recovery or movement if they don't have a CGM. He said it works both ways.
It is possible for the ring to bridge service gaps inevitably affecting the Cyborg sensor by continuing to provide a prior Cyborg sensor user with personalized feedback after their sensor has expired. The arm-mounted CGMs typically last two weeks before they have to be replaced, whereas the Ultrahuman Ring is designed to stay around for longer and won't explode in the same way.
Kumar says that if you just have the ring, the platform will be able to figure out how much you should be walking after a meal. Now we know what activity levels lead to decreasing throughputs. We don't need your data to derive this output over time.
Ultrahuman is expecting more adoption of the smart ring than for the Cyborg tracker since it's more accessible.
At least 100,000 people are expected to buy into the smart ring over the next year, but it currently has 25,000 people on the wait-list for the service.
Due to regulatory considerations and its decision to focus on markets with high rates of metabolic disorders for the product to target, Ultrahuman will be selling the smart ring around the world.
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Kumar says the team hopes the smart ring can act as a broader marketing tool to cross-sell the service.
A typical profile of existing Cyborg users is an individual between the ages of 30 and 40 with a passion for fitness and an interest in preventative health With the smart ring expected to have broader appeal, Ultrahuman now has its eye on convincing older, Baby Boomer generation consumers to take a punt on its metabolism service. Maybe a bit of bling is what they need.
They haven't gone deep into deep health or a biohacking Wearable yet, but maybe they have adopted a Wearable like Apple Watch because it's not just a Wearable for Health. He says that the first audience will be biohackers, people who love data about their health.
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