These Independent Apps Allow You to Use Whoop Without a Subscription (for Now).
Overall, I really like my Whoop bracelet , but there’s no doubt that the company’s subscription model isn’t for everyone. A few weeks ago, a hobbyist created an app that can connect to an older Whoop 4.0 band. I liked the idea, as a standalone app seemed like a great way to preserve privacy and make use of an older device. But as I was compiling and testing the newly published code, I noticed more and more similar apps popping up on Reddit and Github.
Since then, some of these Whoop-compatible apps have been removed, at least one of them at the request of a Whoop executive. Here’s what I learned from speaking with several of these app developers, and whether I think independent Whoop apps have a future. (Preliminary: yes.)
Are these independent Whoop apps legal?
“In cases where apps violated our intellectual property rights, trademarks, or terms of use, we have contacted individuals to have their apps removed,” a Whoop spokesperson said in a statement. The developers I spoke with, for their part, believe their actions are legal and ethical.
Whoop’s position is that the value of the Whoop platform lies in its own analytics capabilities and features, which others have tried to imitate but have failed to directly replicate. The company provides developers with an API through which they can access the data processed by Whoop. Using the API requires working through the Whoop system—meaning the user must have a Whoop membership and authorize the company to process their data. This differs from what is happening with the independent projects I’m writing about today. These new projects aim to allow people to use Whoop hardware without any contact with the company itself or a prior subscription.
But before I get into why I’m so drawn to indie projects, I’d like to share Whoop’s full statement to me so you understand their stance:
“WHOOP is always thrilled to see how passionate our members are about using data to better understand their health and performance. WHOOP is designed as an integrated platform that brings together hardware, software, and data. Access to WHOOP’s proprietary analytics, coaching, insights, and key metrics and features—including recovery, strain, sleep score, stress monitor, healthy lifespan, and WHOOP Coach—is not available outside of a WHOOP membership. WHOOP’s value lies in transforming continuous physiological data into validated, personalized, and actionable insights.”
“We support third-party app development through our developer APIs and have even created a user-friendly developer platform . However, not all third-party apps or independent tools are created, verified, or authorized by WHOOP.”
The Prospects of Independent Whoop Apps
Whoop has always been a premium product. It’s a screenless fitness tracker, now in its fifth generation , that’s worn like a bracelet. It records heart rate and movement data, sending it to an app on your phone, which in turn sends it to the cloud for processing. You pay for this service—the typical price is $239 per year—and in return, Whoop provides you with detailed analysis of how well you recover from your workout.
In my opinion, the Whoop app is good; it goes far beyond basic tracking, and I still think it’s worth the money if you’re a keen athlete or you really enjoy understanding how your body handles the stress you put it through.
But ever since Whoop launched, many have wondered if the device could be repurposed. While we finally have competing devices without a mandatory subscription (like the Fitbit Air ), there are still plenty of old Whoop devices out there. Almost everyone who had Whoop 4.0 has likely already upgraded to version 5.0 (since the company is sending out the newer version for free), and their old band has become electronic waste. What if there was a way to reuse that old device?
That’s the idea behind apps like Noop, Goose, Wearable, and others. These new apps aren’t the only ones compatible with Whoop hardware, but they’ve emerged recently and quickly supplanted several older, long-developed projects that were addressing the same question: how can a standalone app read data from a Whoop device? Because if a free app can read data from a device via Bluetooth, you can use the hardware for your own purposes without the Whoop app or a subscription.
How a Non-Whoops App Can Interact with the Whoop Bracelet (and Why It Took So Long)
The idea of a standalone app for the Whoop bracelet isn’t new. Several projects have attempted it over the years, with varying degrees of success. One such project I found useful was called Whoomp, and it was simple to use: you load a special web page in your browser, and your computer starts communicating with the Whoop device via Bluetooth. (A public version of Whoomp was previously available here .) The first time I tried it was thrilling: I put on an old Whoop 4.0 bracelet and saw my heart rate on my computer screen. I could press a button on the web page and feel the device vibrate on my wrist. The device hadn’t been connected to my phone for years; I felt like Dr. Frankenstein, reviving the dead with technology.
As several developers told me, a Whoop device, fresh out of the box, exchanges certain data via Bluetooth. If a computer or phone communicates correctly, the two devices can pair and communicate, exchanging data and commands. For an app like Whoop to work, the phone must be able to communicate.
The Whoop device uses BLE, or Bluetooth Low Energy . This is a connection type also used by many other wearable devices. However, Whoop hasn’t published public instructions on how phones or computers can access Whoop’s features via BLE. The official Whoop app knows what to say to the device to establish a connection and transfer data, but independent developers had to figure out through trial and error how to decipher the device’s “language.” This was a slow process, and until recently, apps like Whoomp were intended for those who wanted to experiment with the device, knowing that it only had partial functionality. A project like Whoomp can certainly read your heart rate, but it’s not a complete replacement for the official Whoop app or a subscription.
How Independent Whoop Apps Came (and Disappeared)
A few weeks ago, developer Jonathan Middleton posted on the Whoop subreddit that he had, with the help of Claude Cod, deciphered more of the Whoop 4.0 communications protocol than was previously known. He posted the code for an iPhone app and a server that can be run on your own computer to process the data. The project was hosted in a Github software repository called “my-whoop,” which has since changed to “Wearable.” It’s still available here , but using it requires some knowledge of compiling and installing iPhone apps—a process not ideal for beginners.
I spoke with Middleton over video. He works as a software engineer and says he created the Wearable project over a weekend. He used Claude Code to automate some of the more labor-intensive tasks, like sending signals to the device and testing its response. Middleton’s work built on decoding done in earlier projects, which he references in his notes. (That’s how I learned about Whoomp, one of the projects mentioned.) The resulting app is somewhat similar to Whoop, with Middleton’s scores and analysis calculated based on published algorithms; these won’t necessarily align with Whoop’s own scores.
Middleton announced his project on the Whoop subreddit on May 30th. On June 2nd, another developer announced a project called Goose, designed to work with the newer 5.0/MG wristbands. On June 7th, another developer posted the first of many announcements about the Noop project, which, building on Wearable and Goose, works with both types of wristbands.
I contacted Noop’s developer via email; he provided his pronouns but did not reveal his name. In the initial announcement, he proudly claimed to have used $1,500 worth of AI tokens to develop the app. More Reddit posts followed, and the code has been updated hundreds, if not thousands, of times in the project’s short lifespan. Users of the Whoop Reddit forum roll their eyes at the mention of “all these apps with vibe code,” because, yes, there have been even more since then. (Here’s Bandmate from June 4th, Seraph from June 11th, a modified version of Goose also from June 11th, and Edge from June 13th.)
On June 17th, I noticed that the Noop code had disappeared from Github (the platform where almost all similar projects host their code). The Noop developer said he hadn’t received any direct messages from Whoop, but Github had removed the code. He appealed the decision, and the repository was restored. In the meantime, he’s created a mirror of the code here .
Whoomp disappeared from GitHub even earlier, on June 10th. Its developer, John Fitzgerald, told me that Robert Johanson, Whoop’s VP of Software, contacted him and asked him to remove the project. Johanson also made a similar request to Middleton, the developer of Wearable, but Middleton left his code available, and it remains online to this day.
Goose planned to launch its app on TestFlight (an iPhone beta testing platform) on June 13th, but it never happened. I was unable to contact the developer. The code is still available on Github , but archived as read-only, indicating the project has been abandoned.
How to run the unofficial Whoop app
When I decided to test Wearable—Middleton’s first app I encountered—I had a hard time figuring it out. Apple doesn’t allow amateurs to compile apps and distribute them widely, at least not without a bunch of extra steps. From Apple’s perspective, this makes sense, since a mysterious app could do all sorts of things to your iPhone you don’t want. (First, Apple requires apps to be signed by the developer, so you know who created them.)
Large developers often distribute apps for testing through the TestFlight platform. You’ve probably used it if you’ve ever participated in beta testing of iPhone apps. Ultimately, of course, such a developer may aspire to publish the app on the actual App Store. But if you simply want to experiment with the uploaded code, you need to be able to compile the app using Xcode and then install it locally (usually via a USB cable). To do this, let’s just say I had to go through a lot of steps. I managed to build Wearable and sideload it on my iPhone; later, when I was testing Noop, I found an unsigned .ipa file (the app) another enthusiast had created from Noop’s code and installed it via Sideloadly , which simplified the process a bit—though it’s still risky, because it’s difficult to confirm that the .ipa file contains the app I think it does.
On Android, this process is simpler, but again, risky. Someone might give you an .apk file that’s already compiled and ready to install. Installation is incredibly simple: just follow the link to the .apk file on your Android phone and click a button confirming that, yes, you probably shouldn’t install it, but you still want to.
But do these apps work?
I tested several of the apps I’m writing about with varying success. Wearable detected my 4.0 chest strap and showed my heart rate in real time, but it couldn’t fully sync all the data. Noop, tested on Android, worked with my 4.0 strap for a while, but then started experiencing errors. Noop on my iPhone was able to read data from my MG chest strap. None of the apps I tried worked 100%, or consistently.
This isn’t uncommon when testing code that’s still in development. Perhaps I messed something up, or maybe the apps are just buggy. I’ll need more methodical testing to figure out why I’m having problems. I’ve seen posts on Reddit from people who’ve managed to get Wearable and Noop working better than me; Middleton showed me his phone, where Wearable works flawlessly.
If I’d taken the time to do this, I might have been able to figure out what was wrong on my end and make some fixes to the code. That’s the beauty of open-source development: people working together to test and develop something that everyone can use. If the projects can survive Whoop’s legal threats, and if the developers retain enough interest to support them over time, we may have useful and reliable alternatives to Whoop in the future.
I’m looking forward to it. Reverse engineering, as such projects are called, is generally legal as long as the developer doesn’t directly copy a company’s work or violate its terms of service. But most hobbyist developers aren’t prepared to fight a lawsuit, even if they could theoretically win, so takedown requests can often slow down development. Aside from Noop, the projects I mentioned haven’t been actively developed for at least the past week. I also haven’t seen any new copycat apps on the subreddit. This seems rather odd to me.
Why I Don’t Think This Is the End of Whoop Alternatives
For years, Whoop was the only device of its kind. I wrote about it in more detail here , but in short, having a heart rate monitor on a wristband is no longer particularly special. Whoop’s only advantages as a device are its branding and top-notch app; many seem willing to abandon the platform if they can get a free app, an inexpensive device, or both.
Whoop certainly understands this. It no longer limits its business model to a single device (or app subscription) and is expanding into healthcare. It now offers blood tests , which are expensive and require repeat testing. Earlier this year, Whoop joined the ACCESS Medicare program . According to Forbes, the Mayo Clinic and medical device company Abbott have invested in Whoop. The Whoop device and app may be the company’s best-known products, but they’re not the only way the company plans to make money.
Looking to the future, I hope Whoop-compatible apps will remain, and I think that’s entirely possible from a legal standpoint. But will there be enough amateur developers dedicated enough to debugging, maintaining, and distributing these apps, especially knowing Whoop is monitoring them? Will people with older Whoop bands risk using these apps when they could just buy a Fitbit Air for $100 and avoid much less hassle?
These are the questions I’m pondering. I’d love to have a reliable, free alternative to the Whoop app or even the Google Health app. Wearables are incredibly personal—they know every beat of your heart—and I hate that the only way to use them in most cases is to share that personal data with a large corporation. I think we need independent apps, especially those that work with abandoned technologies. Let’s hope they stick around and continue to improve.