What Do You Need: a Bracelet or a Smart Watch?
If you are looking for an activity tracker, there are many great options, from budget step trackers to full-featured watches. If you’ve decided you need a ton of data and don’t mind spending the extra money on it, that narrows your options down a bit, but one candidate isn’t quite like the others. So let’s take a look at the question: What do you need, a Whoop bracelet or a traditional smartwatch?
The Whoop is a bracelet-shaped wearable device that doesn’t have a screen, but can still track your activity. Athletes love it because it measures your “stress” from exercise, as well as “recovery,” which it estimates based on the amount of sleep you get and the data it collects while you sleep.
Smartwatches, on the other hand, don’t have this narrow focus, but most can track activities and monitor heart rate and other vital signs while you sleep. This way you can get the same basic functionality from any type of device. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each.
Oooop no screen
The biggest difference in your day to day experience will be what you actually wear. For some, the lack of a screen in Whoop is a plus; for others, it is a violation of the deal. So you need to decide how you feel about it.
The lack of a screen means you don’t have to worry about scratching or breaking it while exercising, but it also means you can’t look at your heart rate while exercising unless you have your phone open. I find it really handy for indoor cycling because I can put my phone on the handlebars with the Whoop app open. It would be very painful if I wanted to monitor my heart rate while, say, jogging in the fresh air.
If you want something that just tracks your activity without bothering you about it, Whoop makes sense. It also doesn’t need to be worn on the wrist. While this is the most convenient spot and the Whoop comes with a wristband by default, you can also get a bicep wristband or tuck the device into one of the garments Whoop sells for this purpose.
Whoop requires a subscription, while many smartwatches don’t.
Subscription fees are another big difference to keep in mind. Whoop doesn’t really cost anything for the hardware; you get it “free” with at least a six-month subscription for $ 30 a month. We have a cost breakdown comparing Whoop to Oura ring if that helps. (Oura is more expensive to start with, but it has a cheaper subscription.)
Smartwatches usually don’t require a subscription. Apple Watch works fine without them, although it depends on which apps you can use with them. Basic features are free, including the ability to see all of your metrics in the Fitness and Health apps.
Garmin, the brand most loved by runners, does not require a subscription for its activity tracking and recovery features, although you can pay a few bucks to get a data plan for certain models so you can leave your phone at home. (Apple Watch can do this too; check with your carrier.)
Fitbit doesn’t require a subscription for the most basic features, but you’ll need to pay $ 9.99 a month if you want detailed metrics. These include a breakdown of your stress monitoring and sleep scores, a readiness score, monthly summaries of your data, and the ability to see 90-day trends, not just your current week’s metrics.
Some smartwatches have GPS
If you want to go jogging, cycling, or hiking without taking your phone with you, you probably need a smartwatch. Whoop doesn’t have built-in GPS to track your location; you are supposed to have your phone with you. Apple Watch, Garmin, and more expensive Fitbit models have GPS.
If you’re going to go out without your phone, it’s also good to know that many smartwatches can play music (via Bluetooth in-ear headphones), can make phone calls or send text messages if you subscribe to a data service, and provide a display so you can keep track of time. Some, including Apple Watch and Garmin, may let you pay for things without bringing your wallet (for example, if you walk into a store to get a bottle of water). None of this is possible with your Whoop.
Accuracy varies
With so many smartwatches, I’m not going to do a full head-to-head comparison of dozens of models. Everything we talk about is likely to be good enough for most purposes. Recovery calculations (or readiness, or “body battery”, or whatever it is called on your gadget) will vary from algorithm to algorithm. There is no objective metric to compare them, so every manufacturer can claim their algorithm is the best.
It’s the same with sleep data. While gadgets have gained the ability to better identify sleep and differentiate sleep stages in more detail, the bottom line still hasn’t changed since we wrote in 2016 that you shouldn’t really trust a gadget to tell you how well you sleep. … For example, I might sleep with three different trackers and wake up with three completely incompatible interpretations of how much REM sleep I got. I trust my estimates of “sleep quality” in about the same way as my smart scale body fat readings , that is, they are not enough to make decisions.
One thing Whoop has that most smartwatches don’t have: weekly and monthly analyzes of your activity and sleep data. Every week I can see a comparison of my recoveries and workouts (there is an “optimal” zone where they overlap, and I’m usually inside it). If I fill out a small diary about whether I drank alcohol before bed and the like, I can see a monthly report on how it affected my sleep. Some smartwatch apps provide summary data and analysis; some don’t. Whoop definitely has one of the most detailed and readable out there.
When it comes to activity tracking, at least there is an objective metric that tracks and can capture: heart rate. Check out the reviews of the gadgets you are thinking of if you want to understand how accurate they are. In my experience, Whoop does not always accurately determine my heart rate – for example, it misses rapid heart rate surges. If I wear the Whoop with my old Apple Watch Series 4, I always get a good reading from the Watch that matches my anticipated effort and is consistent with my hand readings (fingers on my heart rate, counting with a stopwatch). Sometimes The Whoop agrees with the Watch numbers, but sometimes it doesn’t. If you really care about precision, grab a chest strap and pair it with your phone or compatible smartwatch.
Oh, and if you want to track how many calories have you burned? No device is accurate enough , so cross that off the comparison chart.
Smart watches are better than watches
After all these comparisons, I think the solution boils down to two things. First, do you have strong feelings about the Whoop subscription model? And two, do you want a watch?
Smartwatches can not only serve as an activity tracker, but also do a lot. It can buzz when you receive notifications, it can show you the time, it can show you the 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, this is definitely a yes. Then go for it – buy a smart watch. But if this all sounds like a bunch of distractions and all you need is activity tracking and daily recovery rate, go for Whoop.