Me too…and if that’s true, it’s pretty horrible. I’m betting it means something else. Otherwise I don’t know why you would publish it.
? That sounds really damn accurate to me. Most wrist based sleep monitors are luck to hey inside and hour accuracy
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Let’s assume you slept 7 hours. That’s 7x3x20 minutes. So 20 minutes is approximately 5% of total sleep. Would you buy a power meter that bragged it was +/-5% accurate?
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Not when other pm are 1% at similar prices.
I hope we keep getting these kind of papers featuring other popular consumer sleep trackers too so we can see if 4% really IS poor as far as consumer-priced sleep tracking goes (it would be for power). It would be great if the fulltext reveals they tested multiple trackers in addition to Whoop.
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We aren’t comparing PM’s, we are comparing sleep trackers. That’s a nonsensical argument.
I don’t have a Whoop and have no plans to get one, but have a lot of experience with sleep trackers, and that is a pretty good number. Much better than say Withings, or the Garmin watches.
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I’m happy to agree to disagree. I just expect more accuracy from a company that charges me hundreds of dollars a year to provide me data.
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Well, we agree on that. I don’t have any plans to get one because I don’t think that it’s a very good value proposition as it sits now.
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Ha. And maybe that’s why I feel so strongly. I DID pay for it. And it’s now a lousy paperweight. 
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It was total bull when they moved to a monthly model instead of buy it, it’s yours.
And the fitness press bought it and parroted the line that it’s cheaper now.
If I were not grandfathered in, I would never go with it. Monthly charge in perpetuity. Go F yourselves.
They better get the money while they can. Their time is limited before Apple or some other gorilla decides to own this segment.
anybody ever had a very high jump in HRV the day AFTER a very hard, overreaching workout?
Whoop says that i am strongly green today after two hard days in a row and i feel pretty beat. From what i can see, it’s all because of a big jump in HRV. But i suspect that high HRV post-heavy exercise may not mean you are recovered and ready to go. And my resting HR is up.
Any thoughts on this? I"m a relatively new Whoop user so maybe this is just part of it “learning” my baseline.
BTW, i think it’s a useful product. HRV4T has good analytics but it is one measurement, once per day, and it is very sensitive to confounding factors (even including what you are thinking about while you are taking the measurement). At least Whoop does it in your sleep while you’re not aware of it. I doubt that Apple or Garmin will do it any better. Accuracy will still be subject to the limitations of wrist-based measurement etc. And at least you can move the Whoop around (bicep etc.)
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More on this study in the new whoop podcast episode
I’ve been sick this week, started Wednesday and I did Petit +1 that evening. Skipped Thursdays session as I knew I couldn’t do 75mins of over/unders, woke Friday feeling worse and whoop said I was 90% recovered. Absolute rubbish, wish I’d not bought a 12 month subscription card, only plus side is I got it in the Black Friday sale so didn’t pay full price.
I looked into the whoop but the cost!!! Im not saying it isn’t worth the money but i don’t want to spend 350 dollars every 18 months and that’s if they don’t raise the prices.
I found a review on YouTube of someone who uses whoop and also uses the app closed Auto Sleep with an apple watch series 5. In his review, he says they both line up pretty well. The sleep part of the auto sleep is really detailed and accurate in his review. The cost of the watch plus the app is 400 dollars basically. But No more money from now unless i decide to upgrade my watch.
In the auto sleep app, it has a readiness score that is pretty accurate. It uses a hrv score and your walking heartbeat to give you a readiness score. I also use HRV4T app with my polar strap. Different scoring but very close in terms of results.
This is what i have been using for the last 2 weeks and it seems to be accurate.
I have been really impressed with the auto sleep app. I work nights and have really seen how just one bad day of sleeping habits will just destroy me. When i have alcohol i pretty much get no deep sleep and with one drink just kills my hrv score. yes this is common sense, but a lot of people say 1-2 drinks a day is ok. Not with me. I actually measured my hrv every 15 minutes between shots and wow with in 15 minutes my body was under a greater amount of stress. Like a 20-30 point rise in hrv score. Which is huge!!
With this knowledge its now time to change habits and look for better results. I’ve listened to many whoop podcast and they say over and over again, by measuring many metrics you can make new choices and improve your life or performance.
jeff
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So i actually really like the whoop, although you can definitely query whether the price is right or not.
But this, we should give them this feedback–i.e., that a big day-over-day increase in HRV to the high end or even above baseline might signify a bad thing instead of optimal recovery. Like if it drops substantially they’ll reflect that in the recovery score, but tehy should do the same thing if it goes too high. This is something in their algorithm that could be improved. IIRC that aligns with the science of HRV as well (and not just with our two anecdotes).
They’re not a fan of having their data questioned and if you’re not willing to take “we don’t know” for an answer, they’ll just keep replying without resolving the issue and “we’ll have someone look into that” until you give up and stop asking. Once I realized that, I just quit wearing it. If you can’t have faith that the data is good and consistent, or that they will fix issues, there’s no point in wearing it. $300 wasted.
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There are definitely times when the Whoop will report a spurious result in the morning related to recovery/HRV. Having some sense of where you think you should be falling is important. More often than not, the data is consistent and makes sense, but every once in a while I get a reading that I know isn’t right. It may be that it measured it when I was moving or doing something in my sleep out of the ordinary.
That all being said, I still continuing to find it helpful and, if anything, extremely reassuring in my training. I had come off a really hard three week block recently and was “in the red”. As soon as I hit my easy recovery days my HRV started climbing, resting HR dropped and recovery score went up into the Green again. I got out that weekend for a couple hard rides including an 85 miler on the road, and right back into the Red, so took another recovery day before hitting intervals the following week. All of this is what I would “expect”, but having the Whoop track it helps. It also helps me really prioritize rest and sleep at night knowing recovery is critical to getting the score back up.
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That’s disappointing.
I still find the sleep guidance helpful, as well as the HRV and resting HR readings (i like that they take it when you’re asleep so that what you’re thinking about doesn’t confound the results).
But it would be even more dope if they tried to use the data they gather to make the algorithm better
I hear you, but I can get those from my Apple Watch with AutoSleep, and while the data may not be as accurate, it never just randomly loses a day or has a crazy unexplainable reading. I had high hopes for the Whoop…maybe too high.
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I was a Whoop user for 8 months (V3). I loved that It gave me RHR, HRV, and sleep statistics that seemed fairly accurate most of the time (and by accurate, they matched how I felt). Strain score while interesting, wasn’t as interesting to me. The action items I got from Whoop:
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By quantifying certain the effects on certain things on my HRV, RHR, and sleep (alcohol, irregular sleep schedule, workouts in the morning vs evening, etc.), it changed some behaviors; and
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On what I labeled “dead days” (when my Whoop recovery score was below 15), I did not workout at all.
I then got annoyed with the Whoop subscription model and the “walled garden” of information. I started looking at Garmin watches. The cost of Garmin led to some real consideration of whether: 1) there would be action items, 2) if it was just information gathering for curiosity’s sake, or 3) whether it was a gimmick I would ignore. I decided, at the very least, it would be either the first or second; it would also be a cycling computer (I now use extended display on my Edge); and it would be a central place to record and view all of my exercise. I ended up getting a Fenix 6s Sapphire.
Here is my take on the Garmin, as compared to Whoop, in the three weeks I’ve had it:
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I wore it and the Whoop simultaneously for two weeks, and the Garmin gives similar measurements on HR, recovery, and sleep (the only material difference is in the measurement of “deep” sleep);
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HRV on Whoop and Body Battery on Garmin correlate very closely each morning, except Garmin goes the extra step of adjusting throughout the day;
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Garmin “Stress” measurements are seemingly accurate, useful, and very informative on how certain things affect my body;
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Garmin provides a lot more information than Whoop (I’m still trying to figure out the value of respiration rate and pulse ox, but I do like many of the others), and
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Garmin is a central repository for all my workouts.
As to action items, I tend to use it like Whoop - when my Body Battery is very low (under 20), I don’t train at all. When bad habits creep up and affect sleep and recovery, I note them and make changes.
All of this said, if cost is an issue, purchasing a Garmin can add up to a lot of months with Whoop. I went with the Fenix so it could connect to my power meter and for a couple of smaller features. There are Garmins that are a good bit cheaper than it.
Hope this way too long write-up helps someone out there.
Will
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