Should You Buy a Whoop Band or a Smartwatch?
If you’re looking for an activity tracker, there are plenty of great options, from budget step trackers to full-featured watches. If you decide you need a ton of data and don’t mind spending extra money on it, that narrows your options a bit, but one of the candidates isn’t quite like the others. So let’s look at the question: Should you buy a Whoop bracelet or a traditional smartwatch?
Whoop is a bracelet-shaped wearable device that doesn’t have a screen but can still track your activities. Athletes like it because it measures your “stress” from an activity as well as your “recovery” which is assessed based on the amount of sleep you get and the data it collects while you sleep.
Smartwatches, on the other hand, don’t have such a narrow focus, but most can track activity and monitor heart rate and other vital signs while you sleep. So you can get the same basic functionality from any type of device. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.
Uuuu no screen
The biggest difference in your daily life will be what you actually wear. For some, Whoop’s lack of a screen is a plus; for others, it’s a deal breaker. So you’ll have to decide how you feel about it.
The lack of a screen means you won’t have to worry about scratching or breaking it during a workout, but it also means you won’t be able to glance at your heart rate during a workout unless you have your phone open. I find this really convenient for cycling workouts because I can rest my phone on the handlebars with the Whoop app open. It would be very difficult if I wanted to monitor my heart rate while, say, running outdoors.
If you want something that simply tracks your activity without bothering you about it, Whoop makes sense. It also doesn’t have to be worn on your wrist. While this is the most convenient location, and Whoop comes with a bracelet by default, you can also purchase a bicep bracelet or tuck the device into one of the clothing items Whoop sells for this purpose.
Whoop requires a subscription, and many smartwatches don’t.
Subscription fees are another big difference to be aware of. Whoop doesn’t actually cost anything for the hardware; you get it “for free” when you sign up for at least a six-month subscription at $30 per month. We have a cost breakdown comparing Whoop to Oura Ring if that helps. (Oura costs more to start, but has a cheaper subscription.)
Smartwatches usually don’t require a subscription. The Apple Watch works just fine without it, although it depends on what apps you want to use with it. Basic functionality is free, including the ability to see all your metrics in the Fitness and Health apps.
Garmin, the brand most beloved by runners, doesn’t require a subscription for its activity tracking and recovery features, although you can pay a few dollars to get a data plan on certain models so you can leave your phone at home. (Apple Watch can do this too; check with your cell phone provider.)
Fitbit doesn’t require a subscription for most basic features, but you’ll have to pay $9.99 a month if you want detailed metrics. These include breakdowns of your stress management and sleep scores, readiness scores, monthly summaries of your data, and the ability to see 90-day trends, not just your current week scores.
Some smartwatches have GPS
If you want to go for a run, bike ride, or hike without taking your phone with you, you’ll probably need a smartwatch. Whoop doesn’t have built-in GPS to track your location; You are expected to have your phone with you. Apple Watch, Garmin and more expensive Fitbit models have GPS.
If you’re going to be out and about without your phone, it’s also useful to know that many smartwatches can play music (via Bluetooth headphones), can make phone calls or send text messages if you subscribe to a data service, and also have a display that shows you can keep track of the time. Some, including the Apple Watch and Garmin, may allow you to pay for things without bringing your wallet with you (like if you go to the store for a bottle of water). None of this is available on your Whoop.
Accuracy varies
With so many smartwatches out there, I’m not going to do a full head-to-head comparison of dozens of models. Whatever we’re talking about will probably be good enough for most purposes. Recovery (or readiness, or “body battery” or whatever your gadget calls it) calculations will vary from algorithm to algorithm. There is no objective metric to compare them to, so each manufacturer can claim that their algorithm is the best.
The same goes for sleep data. While gadgets have gained the ability to better detect sleep and make more detailed distinctions between sleep stages, the message remains the same since we wrote in 2016 that you shouldn’t completely trust gadgets that tell you how well you slept. . For example, I could sleep with three different trackers and wake up with three completely inconsistent interpretations of how much REM sleep I had. I trust my “sleep quality” readings about as much as I trust the body fat readings on my smart scale , meaning they’re just not useful enough to use for decision-making.
Whoop has one thing that most smartwatches don’t: weekly and monthly analysis of your activity and sleep data. Every week I can see how my recovery and training compare (there’s an “optimal” zone where they overlap, and I’m usually within that). If I fill out a little diary about whether I drank alcohol before bed and the like, I can see monthly data on how it affected my sleep. Some smartwatch apps provide aggregated data and analysis; some don’t. Whoop definitely has one of the most detailed and readable ones.
When it comes to activity tracking, at least there’s an objective metric that watches and Whoops can detect: heart rate. Check reviews of the gadgets you’re considering if you want to get an idea of how accurate they are. In my experience, Whoop doesn’t always accurately detect my heart rate—it seems to miss rapid pulse spikes, for example. If I wear Whoop with my old Apple Watch Series 4, I always get good readings from the watch that match my estimated effort and are consistent with the manual readings (fingers on my heart rate, counting on a stopwatch). The Whoop sometimes agrees with Watch’s numbers, but sometimes it doesn’t. If you really care about precision, invest in a chest strap and pair it with your phone or compatible smartwatch.
Yes, but what if you want to track how many calories you have burned? No device is accurate enough to rely on , so take it off your comparison table.
Smartwatches do a better job of being watches
I think after all these comparisons the decision comes down to two things. First, do you have strong feelings about Whoop’s subscription model? And secondly, do you want a watch?
Smartwatches can perform many functions beyond activity tracking. It can beep when you receive notifications, can show the time, weather, and more. Many of them can play music, pay for purchases, and call your phone if you lose it. It can also be a fashion accessory or a status symbol if that’s important to you. Do you want it all?
For some people, this is a clear yes. Then go ahead and buy a smart watch. But if these all sound like distractions and all you want is activity tracking and a daily recovery rate, check out Whoop.