Three Whoop Band Members Are Coming Soon, but I Doubt They Can Compete With the Whoop App
If you like the idea of tracking your health and fitness with a screenless band but don’t want to shell out for a Whoop subscription, you’ll soon have more options. Maybe. Likely: Three different Whoop-like devices have emerged in the last few weeks, but I still don’t know the details of what they’ll offer, and none of them are (yet) available for sale to the public. In order from most likely to least likely to be actual products you can buy, they come from Polar, Amazfit, and Garmin.
There’s a lot of buzz around these devices because a lot of people would like a fitness tracker that’s not a watch. Maybe you already have a mechanical watch and don’t want anything on your wrist; or maybe you don’t want anything on your wrist at all and would like a nice, comfortable band instead (it’s really easy to forget you’re wearing a Whoop band, and it’s my favorite when I’m at the gym, since a watch can get in the way of some exercises).
So far, the only fitness tracker on the market is Whoop, which uses a subscription model. You pay for the service and get the device for free, a polite fiction of sorts that falls apart every time the company announces a new version of the hardware and the upgrade turns out to be a paid one .
If a well-known fitness watch maker released a band without a screen, it wouldn’t be a Whoop killer because it wouldn’t have the Whoop app, which is honestly the best part of it and clearly took a lot of effort to develop. I wouldn’t expect either device to be a true competitor to Whoop as a service, but the device itself would give people another option, and that’s pretty cool.
You might think that making a fitness tracker is easy — just design a watch, but don’t show it on a screen. For some reason, it’s not a product that other brands have been able to release, despite the potential demand. Until now, maybe! Here’s what we know about three trackers that could hit the market this year.
Polar Group: Officially announced, but without photo or name
Today, Polar announced the launch of a “completely new product category,” and you’ll be able to buy the product, whatever it is, in September 2025. Polar describes it as a “screen-less wrist device,” and clarifies that it will be “free to subscribe to.”
The device could be a consumer version of the Polar 360, a screenless wristband the company sells to businesses. Use cases on the Polar 360 website include corporate wellness, sports teams, and some downright dystopian-sounding employee monitoring for truck drivers. Device reviewer DC Rainmaker said in a video that he heard from a viewer who bought some of these devices through a business, and they cost 90 euros each.
Amazfit Helio Strap: Exclusive to Hyrox Athletes (for now?)
Amazfit, on the other hand, has photos and a name for its device. It’s called the Helio Strap , and it’s currently only available to the top 15 athletes in Hyrox, a sport similar to CrossFit. (Note that they’re not calling it a “band,” since Amazfit already sells several products in the form of a Fitbit-like band, with names like “Amazfit Band 7.”)
The company clearly plans to sell them to the public at some point, as their website boasts about the battery life (11 days), the number of sports modes (27), and other things that are important to potential customers, not just Hyrox watchers. Amazfit also clarifies that there are no subscription fees.
Even more promising, Walmart’s website briefly reportedly listed a product for an all-black (non-Hyrox branded) version of the Amazfit Helio strap with a price tag of $79.99. There’s no word yet on when this product might launch.
Garmin Bracelet: One Tiny Alleged Leak
Garmin users have long expressed hope for a ring or bracelet that would allow them to continue to feed data into the Garmin ecosystem without having to wear a sports watch every time they step out for a formal event. (This is a surprisingly common complaint/request/dilemma on Garmin user subreddits.)
The idea for a Garmin band may have leaked to The 5K Runner , a site that has a history of publishing Garmin leaks that sometimes turn out to be true . The post about this potential device was accompanied by an image of an AI, making it seem real at first glance — but no, it was created by an algorithm that can’t even make a sleeping woman’s head look like it’s attached to her body, and certainly has no idea what Garmin may or may not have planned for a sleep band.
The 5K Runner author is “100%” sure this is a real product, predicting a launch date of “soon, August at the latest, and most likely by the end of July.” But without more information, it’s hard to know if we can be that sure. I asked a Garmin representative about this rumor, and they declined to comment.