Understanding Social Jet Lag with the Ultrahuman Ring

The Ultrahuman Ring’s Social Jet Lag feature, introduced recently via the PowerPlug functionality, takes a closer look at how inconsistent sleep patterns impact health. I’ve spent the past week testing it out, and it provides interesting insights into the relationship between weekday and weekend sleep habits.

The company attended CES 2025. And while we didn’t get a new ring announcement, they repackaged their current offering into a more premium device. Which still uses the same generations sensors as the original. But Ultrahuman has definitely been hard at work maximising the wealth of insights from its rings.

Sleep consistency is something most of us struggle with, especially if work and free days follow drastically different routines. The Social Jet Lag feature measures the gap between your average sleep patterns on workdays versus weekends, giving you a concrete idea of just how far off your body clock might be drifting.

In my case, the app noted a 139-minute deviation, which it described as a sign of “living in Reykjavik,” due to how my sleep times were shifted westward. It’s a quirky but effective way to illustrate the effect of irregular sleep habits on circadian rhythms.

All in all, the implementation has been cleverly done. Because not all of us have the same work days, when setting up the plugin you can pick which days of the week are your workdays.


Measuring more than just sleep

And the feature doesn’t stop at tracking your bedtime patterns. It goes a step further, linking this social jet lag to specific biomarkers like resting heart rate, stress rhythm, and even morning alertness. For instance, on days when I allowed my sleep to skew later, the app noticed a slight uptick in my resting heart rate, hinting at subtle changes in how my body was handling recovery. Similarly, my stress rhythm score improved slightly on free days, likely due to more relaxed schedules and longer sleep durations.

These metrics add depth to what might otherwise be just a simple sleep tracking tool. Instead of just showing when you went to bed, the app contextualizes how your inconsistent habits might ripple into other aspects of your health. It’s not alarmist or overly prescriptive; instead, it offers gentle nudges to consider how stability in sleep might benefit the bigger picture.


Visual insights that connect the dots

What stands out in this feature is how visually clear it is. Graphs compare your sleep patterns across the week, highlighting how workday and free-day durations differ. For example, my average sleep duration during the workweek was over nine hours, but it dropped to just above seven on free days. While the free days felt less structured, the app framed this variability as a potential stressor on my body clock.

Overall, the Social Jet Lag feature feels more like an awareness tool than something designed to overhaul your life. It encourages reflection on how small changes, like aligning free-day sleep closer to workday patterns, might improve health metrics like heart rate or alertness. For someone like me, who has occasionally let weekends feel like another time zone, this week of testing was a useful reminder that consistency might be worth prioritizing.

While not groundbreaking, the feature is a thoughtful addition to the Ultrahuman ecosystem. If you are interested in checking what the Ultrahuman Ring Air is all about, make sure to check out my detailed hands-on review.

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Marko Maslakovic

Marko founded Gadgets & Wearables in 2014, having worked for more than 15 years in the City of London’s financial district. Since then, he has led the company’s charge to become a leading information source on health and fitness gadgets and wearables.

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