WHOOP or Whoops? Decoding the Hype
After reading Andrew’s blog post about SMART goals, I started to think about the utility of wearable devices and the role they could potentially play in providing objective feedback for personal goals. We live in an age in which wearable technology is exploding in popularity. With the popularization of Fitbit between 2010 and 2013, many other companies began to explore the possibilities of wearable fitness devices. Although each device varies, most wearable devices track heart rate, steps, heart rate variability, calories burned during exercise, sleep performance, or a combination of these metrics. The device that I am going to review is a small wearable device called the WHOOP. The WHOOP device tracks recovery, strain, and sleep, and WHOOP claims to be the best sleep tracker on the market. In this article, I aim to give my honest review of the utility of the WHOOP and whether I think it is worth the investment.
Metrics
As mentioned above, the main metrics that the WHOOP device tracks are recovery, strain, heart rate variability, and sleep performance. I am going to dive deeper into the meaning of each of these metrics, as WHOOP’s definition is slightly nuanced.
Recovery: WHOOP provides an overall recovery score, which indicates how well the body has recovered from the previous days. It computes this overall score by tracking individual metrics such as heart rate variability, resting heart rate, and sleep quality, then compiling these metrics into a single recovery score.
Strain: When I first heard that WHOOP tracks strain, I assumed that it somehow tried to track muscular strain during a resistance training workout. WHOOP’s meaning of the word is slightly different. WHOOP uses a combination of cardiovascular and muscular load to produce a score, which it calls “strain.” Essentially, the higher your heart rate gets and the longer it stays elevated, the higher your strain rating for the day will be. WHOOP intends to provide one easy number to represent one’s overall level of physical and mental stress throughout the day.
Heart Rate Variability (HRV): WHOOP also tracks heart rate variability, which is the variance in time between heartbeats. Heart rate variability is generally known as an indicator of general well-being. Although counterintuitive, a higher variability between heartbeats is a good thing, as it represents the body’s ability to adapt to different situations. On the contrary, low heart rate variability can signal current or future health problems, as it shows that your body is struggling to handle its current stresses.
Sleep Performance: WHOOP provides a score that represents the overall quality and efficiency of sleep. They do this from combining a number of metrics including sleep duration, sleep stages, sleep disturbances, and sleep efficiency.
Pros
One thing that I liked about the WHOOP was the different sleep metrics that it tracked. The graphs and metrics that WHOOP tracks are quite detailed. It gives great feedback on sleep consistency, restorative sleep percentage, and sleep efficiency. It was interesting for me to be able to see not only how much total sleep that I was getting, but also how much sleep I was getting in each stage, how often I was waking up throughout the night, and how much total time I spent in bed. I would say the main utility of the WHOOP would be tracking your sleep with the intention of improving your sleep over time. The accountability that WHOOP gave me definitely led to better sleep hygiene.
One convenient feature of the WHOOP is that you quite literally never have to take it off. It is waterproof, so you can swim, shower, etc. without having to worry about it breaking. WHOOP also provides a battery charger that slips onto the WHOOP device and charges it wirelessly. This means that even when the battery is running low, you can continue to track metrics as long as you make sure your battery pack is charged.
With the number of metrics that WHOOP tracks, I did find it valuable to be able to track my recovery from day to day. I think WHOOP does a good job combining these metrics to provide their users with a general gauge of how prepared they are to train. I found it very intriguing and engaging to be able to track stress, strain, and recovery at the same time. Using the WHOOP almost gamified fitness for me in a way, and I found it motivating to try to achieve high levels of strain alongside great sleep and recovery.
Cons
One feature the WHOOP lacks is the ability to track your total step count per day. Although they use their own metric called “strain," by which it intends to measure the totality of movement throughout the day, it would be nice to get a precise step count. I have found that assigning a step count goal to clients is an easy way to instill the habit of getting movement throughout the day. People also tend to find it motivating, as you can watch your step count climb throughout the day and break it down into smaller goals.
Another feature that I found inconvenient with the WHOOP is that it doesn’t display your heart rate during exercise. While your resting heart rate and heart rate variability can be found in the app, the inability to see your heart rate during a workout is one major drawback of the WHOOP as compared to other wearable devices. To coincide with this, you also cannot track calories burned during a workout. We can speculate about how accurately these wearable tracking devices measure calories burned during exercise, but I think it’s a feature some people would miss if they switched to WHOOP from another device. WHOOP’s minimalist approach is great for comfort, but the lack of a screen has its downfalls.
As far as customer service goes, I was not very impressed with order fulfillment or customer support. After waiting a couple weeks for a shipping notification, we finally reached out to WHOOP’s customer service department through email. I owe a shout out to my client, Tom Hutchinson, who did an excellent job making sure WHOOP fulfilled my order. We did both agree that the interaction with support was quite strange. Despite several misinterpretations from support, the WHOOP device was actually delivered surprisingly quickly after contacting customer support.
The WHOOP device itself (not the subscription) is actually very affordable, and I basically only paid for shipping. If you know someone with a WHOOP, you do have the option to get a free month trial to test out the product and see how you like it. However, WHOOP bills on a subscription based program with a couple different billing options. If you don’t send back your WHOOP device by the end of your trial, you will opt into one of their subscription programs. They have two memberships that they offer. One is a 24 month membership set at $399, while the other is a yearly membership set at $239.
Key takeaways and conclusion
If you are looking for a device specifically to track your sleep and don’t mind paying a couple hundred dollars per year, then I think the WHOOP is worth considering. WHOOP’s ability to track sleep and recovery provides valuable insight. I think consistently tracking these metrics can lead to healthier habits and better sleep hygiene over time. However, if you value being able to track your heart rate during workouts, the calories burned during exercise, and your steps throughout the day, then I would consider finding a different device. When considering both pricing and usability, the average gym-goer may be better off with a more versatile device that has a more usable interface.
Yours in health,
Luke