The Best Fitness Trackers for Sleep and Recovery

This post is part of Find Your Fit Tech , a fitness wearable buying guide from Lifehacker. I ask tough questions about whether wearables can really improve your health, how to find the one that’s right for you, and how to make the most of the data wearables have to offer.

The fitness tracker’s work doesn’t end when you finish your workout or even when you take your last steps for the day. There are devices that are excellent at tracking how long and how well you slept, as well as devices that try to tell you when you’ve recovered well and are ready for the next challenge. Here are my picks for the best in this category.

What to look for in a sleep/recovery tracker

While our other buyer’s guides focus almost entirely on which smartwatch to choose, recovery-oriented devices are different. Some are shaped like watches, but two standouts in this category—the Oura ring and the Whoop strap—are not watches at all. None of them have a screen to look at; they simply collect data and present their findings in a smartphone app. They are also (optionally) worn on the wrist. This is great news for people who want something minimalistic and distraction-free. But that’s not all. Here are questions to ask yourself when shopping.

Do you need a sleep tracker or smartwatch that can track your sleep?

Before you start looking at devices designed for sleep, it’s important to ask yourself whether you want sleep tracking to be a feature of a device that does other things, or whether you really want a device designed for sleep tracking and recovery.

Most general purpose smartwatches can adequately track sleep. They’ll give you a good idea of ​​how late you went to bed, how many hours you usually sleep, and also often report some recovery metrics like your resting heart rate. (Even my old Apple Watch Series 4, with less than 24 hours of battery life, can track your sleep time and resting heart rate. Just charge it while you shower.)

I’ll list a couple of smartwatches below, but if you really need a smartwatch, check out our other guides on health tracking and running . In one of these categories you can find the watch that you really need.

Do you agree to pay for a subscription?

Both of my top picks require a subscription to get the most out of your data. Whoop sells a subscription as their core product and a group as a thing they add to it. In the meantime, Oura will sell you a ring and provide you with free sleep and recovery assessments; but to get the detailed information you probably came for, you’ll have to pay.

Do you need accurate activity tracking?

All of these wearables claim to be able to track your heart rate during exercise, but that doesn’t mean they do it well.

The niche of using Oura as a sleep tracker arose because it is very difficult to get accurate heart rate data from the ring while moving. (Longtime readers will remember that I reviewed the Motiv ring in 2018 and found it to be useless for exercise but great for sleep tracking.) Oura turned the ring’s weakness into a strength: since it requires you to be very calm and quiet. To take readings, they marketed it as a sleep tracker that should do just that very well.

But this means that when they later added activity tracking… well, that’s not great. Of course it’s better than I expected. But it’s definitely not my choice for workout tracking. I wear the Oura ring every day, but wear the watch when it’s time to run.

Whoop does a better job than Oura, but it still has its problems. I find that it can easily get confused with my actual heart rate; the numbers will seem low and then I’ll move the band and suddenly I’ll see my heart rate as 160 instead of 140. That’s a pretty big margin of error. Many people find Whoop to be good enough most of the time, but if you want really accurate workout metrics, you’ll probably be better off with a more traditional fitness tracker.

The best sleep and recovery trackers for every need

Best for minimalists: Oura Ring ($299).

This is my personal favorite; I fell in love with the Oura ring when I reviewed it many years ago. If you hate wearing a wristwatch and don’t care much about activity tracking, this is the device for you.

Oura provides accurate resting heart rate (RHR) and heart rate variability (HRV), two metrics that come more or less directly from the sensors with minimal levels of interpretation. Both can tell you something about your stress and fatigue levels. Typically, if you are well rested and not under too much stress, your heart rate will be low and your HRV will be high. I tend to see an elevated heart rate if I’m sick, drinking or staying up late, or if my weightlifting workouts are causing me a lot of stress. On the other hand, your heart rate may decrease over time as your cardio fitness improves.

The Oura app then uses these metrics and other data collected about you to give you sleep and readiness scores. The sleep score shows how long and how well you slept. The readiness score is highest when you are under the least stress (low heart rate, high HRV). But I believe these estimates are less useful than the raw data on which they are based . The subscription-free Oura Ring only provides these estimates without the raw data. It’s not worth it.

Oura is supposed to be the best wearable device for tracking sleep stages, and that may be true, but in reality, no wearable device accurately tracks your sleep stages. Focus more on total sleep time, which it measures relatively well, rather than the timing of each stage or overall sleep quality.

Another important note about the activity tracker: you won’t want to wear it during workouts where you’re lifting weights or hanging from a bar. The ring is quite massive, it will interfere with the grip and dig into the skin. You won’t be able to perform your best exercises while wearing it. And if the appearance of the ring is important to you, then lifting weights will definitely scratch it. I work out a lot, so I leave the ring on charge when I go to the gym.

So if you can’t lift weights in it, and it’s not very good for activity tracking or sleep management, why wear it? Honestly, because I can forget it exists and still get all the benefits of knowing my heart rate and HRV almost every night for the last three and a half years. (I never wear a wearable for that long.) These metrics help me understand whether I’m recovering well enough from daily workouts, and remind me that I need to pay a little more attention to sleep and stress when workouts get tough.

• Oura Ring , $299 for the Heritage shape in silver, gold, black or matte black (“stealth”). The subscription costs an additional $5.99 per month, and you can take advantage of a one-month free trial when you sign up.

Best for athletes: Whoop band (about $249).

If you want something that can track activity but works with an app that’s focused on recovery rather than exercise, you’ll probably want a Whoop band.

If you want to attach the device to your wrist, great—it’s the easiest way to wear Whoop. It will look like a watch, but without the screen (the fabric band covers where the screen would be if there was one). If you don’t need a bracelet, the Whoop device can also be attached to your arm, between your deltoid and biceps (they call it a “biceps band”). This was my favorite way to wear it.

The company also sells sports bras and other clothing items that have a small pocket for the device. (You remove the little plastic cube from the band and then insert it into your pocket.) So even if you hate wearing the watch or do exercises that aren’t compatible with the band, you can still wear it while working out. .

One of the great features of Whoop is that it can be worn 24/7. Instead of plugging it in to charge, you plug in a small, removable battery. Then, for about an hour every couple of days, you slip that battery onto your Whoop bracelet like a tiny backpack. When it is fully charged, the indicator changes color and you can remove it.

In addition to tracking your sleep, Whoop can also track activity, although as we noted above, it’s not as accurate as some of the more traditional gadgets. (If you really want the most accurate heart rate, you’ll still need a chest strap .)

The app models sleep and activity (which it calls stress) as two sides of the same coin. If you’ve been doing a long or hard workout, your workload will be high and the app will recommend the amount of sleep that will help you recover. In the morning it will tell you where your recovery is and recommend the appropriate amount of Strain for the day’s workouts. As I’ve written before , I don’t think it’s very wise to adjust your long-term training plan based on short-term recovery fluctuations, but how you use that data is up to you.

• Whoop Band is free with a $30/month subscription or $249 if you pay for the whole year in advance. There is also a one-month free trial where you can borrow a used device.

Best smartwatch option: Garmin Venu 3 ($399).

All Garmin running watches include recovery metrics, including Body Battery. As in Whoop’s approach, here exercise and sleep are seen as sort of opposing forces. Your body’s battery level will be close to 100% if you are sleeping well and have not recently engaged in strenuous exercise. It will become depleted during exercise or when under extreme stress. Sleep fills him again.

For a budget option, you can get this figure on, say, a refurbished Forerunner 45 for $119 . But if you’re looking to buy a new smartwatch just for sleep tracking, I’d recommend the Garmin Venu 3.

The Venu 3 has a Body Battery feature, as well as a Sleep Coach , which will tell you how long you’ve slept, compare that time to how much you need, and recommend how much sleep you should try to get tonight. The recommendations are based largely on your HRV (one of those recovery metrics it can read from its sensors) and your recent sleep and activity history. By the way, the Venu 3 also has sleep detection , so you’ll still get credit for falling asleep while watching a movie, but it also won’t confuse it with your regular night’s sleep.

• Garmin Venu 3 ($399)

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