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Whoop has made its way to the front of a crowded field of health trackers. With brand ambassadors like Cristiano Ronaldo, LeBron James, and Niall Horan, it’s become a tracker for elite athletes and celebrities. But what about the everyman?
Whoop has two devices in its lineup, the Whoop MG and the Whoop 5.0. While the 5.0 is technically the more basic of the two, it’s anything but. This unsuspecting wristband provides a bounty of data on sleep, physical performance, and recovery. I tried the Whoop 5.0 out, wearing it round the clock, to see what this health tracker is all about.
Whoop 5.0 at a glance
The Whoop 5.0 unlocks to slide onto your wrist.
Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable
The Whoop 5.0 brings advanced metrics to the brand’s most affordable membership tiers, One and Peak. The device accompanies the first two Whoop membership tiers, which offer plenty of health insights for the average person, including health span and stress insights. Plus, some users — including myself — think it’s a far better value than the Whoop MG. The Whoop 5.0 provides a lot of data, which may be overwhelming for the average user, and it also suffers from processing delays.
The Whoop 5.0 remains the most comfortable fitness tracker
The Whoop 5.0 has an extremely low profile, more so than most watches.
Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable
The Whoop 5 is a smart fitness band that sits on your wrist to measure biometrics. It doesn’t have a screen or watch face; instead, it operates and delivers health data through the Whoop app.
Having previously tested the Whoop 4.0, I knew the Whoop 5.0 would be comfortable. Between generations, it’s maintained the same design, except the 5.0 is 7 percent smaller. What that means is a slightly slimmer profile that remains lightweight.
It’s easy to forget the Whoop 5.0 is on your wrist. The included knit bands are comfortable, allowing your movement to flow without restriction. Plus, the device is out of the way enough that it won’t bother you when you’re sleeping or bending your wrist during training. While wearing it to sleep, I’ve never woken up with a sore or stiff wrist. Speaking of sleeping, the Whoop 5.0 includes a haptic alarm that gently vibrates to wake you up, which I have to say, is the most pleasant way to be woken up.
The Whoop 5.0’s charger slides onto the device so you don’t have to take off the health tracker.
Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable
The charger slides on the device so you never need to take it off, but I wouldn’t recommend that. It’s designed to be worn around the clock, including in the shower. However, when the band gets wet, it feels waterlogged, and keeping it on makes it take longer to dry, which, in my experience, was a miserable sensation. Word to the wise: don’t wear it while washing the dishes.
It’s for people who love data
In the Whoop app, dig into all the biometrics collected by the 5.0.
Credit: Screenshots courtesy of Whoop
If you’re looking for health data, including all the graphs you could ever dream of, the Whoop was made for you. Compared to other health-tracking apps I’ve used, like Apple’s built-in health apps and Oura, which deliver straightforward, easy-to-digest data in an aesthetically pleasing app, Whoop’s app focuses on the hardcore numbers.
The app is pretty plain, with three primary metrics at the top. Sleep, recovery, and strain data are front and center with health and stress monitors below (for those with a Peak membership). You can dig into specific measurements and view graphs tracking past measurements to see your gains.
Admittedly, it can be a lot to make sense of, especially for the average user who might just want to know their step count and sleep quality. But if you’re not sure what to make of your heart rate variability and how that relates to your health, Whoop has a built-in coach.
Need some guidance? Whoop’s got AI for that.
Talk through adjustments to your routine with the Whoop Coach.
Credit: Screenshots courtesy of Whoop
One of the best improvements in Whoop’s app doesn’t actually have much to do with the Whoop 5.0 specifically, but with the app. Now, Whoop Coach, which is still in beta in the app, helps you make sense of all the data.
The AI-driven feature processes all your data, making suggestions and starting a conversation with you about training adjustments based on your sleep and recovery scores. Since I’m not an elite athlete trying to dig into my biometrics every day, the Whoop Coach was far more accessible in deciphering what my scores meant and how to respond to them.
Performance is a mixed bag
The data provided by the Whoop 5.0 is accurate. The sleep score reflected how I was feeling. When I was only getting a few hours of sleep a night, my Whoop warned me to take it easy during the day, but after a full eight hours, it encouraged me to push it further in my workouts.
Whoop claims the longest battery life of any fitness tracker at almost any price, at 14 days. While my device didn’t make it a full two weeks, I was able to go a full week without sliding on the charger.
Often I’d wake up to check my sleep score and find that the Whoop app was missing data.
Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Whoop
What I was most disappointed in about the Whoop was its data-loading time in the app. If you close the Whoop app, it immediately prompts you to reopen it to keep the data updated, which definitely drained my phone’s battery.
Even when I was keeping the app open consistently, the Whoop 5.0 was slow to load data, especially in the morning. Often, I’d wake up ready to see my sleep data, to find that the Whoop was missing data from the previous eight hours. After refreshing the app several times, the data finally appeared, but it became frustrating how frequently this happened.
Overrides Apple Watch activity
While testing the Whoop, I simultaneously wore my Apple Watch to compare data and track my workouts in real-time. I synced my Whoop with Apple Health, and a curious problem arose. Whoop data overrode all my Apple Fitness data. Suddenly, my calorie count after my typical activities was far lower than expected.
The Whoop 5.0 has more conservative calorie counts than my Apple Watch. Normally, after my morning walk, my Apple Watch shows I’ve burned around 400 active calories, but with the Whoop 5.0, it shows only around 200. Both programs use the same weight, heart rate, and step count data, so it raises the question of which is more accurate, and unfortunately, I can’t ask my all-knowing body for that exact number.
Whoop 5.0 encompasses two membership tiers
Whoop has three membership tiers: One, Peak, and Life. One and Peak use the Whoop 5.0 while the Life tier comes with the Whoop MG. One is the most basic tier ($199 per year), but its data is far more than basic. It includes 24/7 biometric monitoring, along with sleep, strain, and recovery data. It also provides insights into automatic activity detection, step tracking, cardiovascular and musculoskeletal strain, VO2 Max estimates, and heart rate zones.
With Peak membership ($239 per year), you get all of that plus longevity data. That includes Healthspan, which tracks your Whoop age and your aging page. Plus, Peak features stress and health monitors that analyze signals from your heart rate, temperature, and blood oxygen levels.
What’s nice about the Whoop 5.0 is that you can upgrade from One to Peak at any time using the same device. Membership is charged annually, so you can pick the right tier for you without swapping out devices.
What’s missing from the Whoop 5.0
Technically, the Whoop 5.0 is the brand’s most basic fitness tracker. The more advanced option is the Whoop MG, which stands for medical grade. The Whoop MG is part of the most expensive membership, the Life tier, which costs $359. It includes everything in the Peak membership tier, plus blood pressure insights and AFIB detection. If both of those are non-negotiable for you, depending on your health concerns, then the Whoop 5.0 won’t suit you.
However, browsing the Whoop community on Reddit, most users say the MG isn’t worth the price for those two features and prefer the Peak membership and the Whoop 5.0.
It’s cheaper than that other fitness tracker — at first
Because of Whoop’s peculiar pricing structure, it’s deceivingly cheap. With other fitness trackers like Apple Watch, Oura Ring, and Fitbit, you buy the device outright and use it freely, or maybe pay a small membership fee. But since you’re buying a membership with Whoop and getting the device with it, the pricing is different.
An Oura Ring 5 starts at $399, plus an annual $69.99 membership fee, for a total of $468.99 in the first year. The mid-tier Whoop membership, Peak, is $239 annually. The Whoop remains cheaper after two years of use, but after three years of paying $239, it’s more expensive than an Oura Ring plus three years of membership.
However, if you don’t want to deal with any membership fees, that’s where an Apple Watch or a Fitbit comes in.
Should you buy the Whoop 5.0?
Should the Whoop 5.0 accompany you on your workouts?
Credit: Samantha Mangino / Mashable
Yes, the Whoop 5.0 is a great fitness tracker, best suited for individuals focused on the strain and recovery of daily life and workouts. It provides bountiful data and a Whoop Coach to help you make sense of the data. Its low-profile, stretchy knit band makes it extremely comfortable to wear all the time.
If you want training data during your workouts, you’ll need another fitness tracker in addition to the 5.0, as it’s screen-free. Not to mention, while the overall data is fairly accurate, the app’s processing speed is frequently slow.
But for $239, or the more affordable $199 membership option, the Whoop 5.0 is a solid health tracker.
Topics
Fitness Trackers
Fitness Tech