For the last 60 days, I have been wearing an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the latest WHOOP MG. I wanted to better understand the hype surrounding WHOOP. If you spend enough time online, you can see that WHOOP users are loud and proud. It’s marketed as a serious wellness and fitness tracker that high-profile athletes and Silicon Valley tech founders wear. So, as someone who cares about their fitness, wellness, sleep, and overall health, I felt like I had to experience this for myself and, of course, compare it to the fitness tracker that I have been wearing for well over a decade: the Apple Watch. This is what I learned after 60 days.

Completely different design philosophies
The first thing I noticed when I finally got my WHOOP set up is that these fitness trackers are built around completely different ideas. The WHOOP has no screen. It’s lightweight at just 26.5g, low-profile, and designed to disappear on your body. I wore it on my right wrist, but you can wear it on your bicep or even on your waistband with the correct accessory. There is nearly nothing to interact with. You put it on and let it collect your data in the background. And that is the point, it’s meant to feel passive.

Then you have the Apple Watch, and it’s the complete opposite. In my testing, I used the Apple Watch Ultra 2, but everything I mention applies to any Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is a smartwatch first; an extension of your iPhone on your wrist. It has a bright display, tactile buttons, apps, notifications, and can make phone calls, doing pretty much everything your iPhone does at a smaller scale.

Battery life
The WHOOP’s distraction-free nature results in amazing battery life. It is rated for about 14 days of battery life, and I consistently got around 10–12 days with the WHOOP MG before needing to charge it. The charging system is also pretty clever because, in a perfect world, WHOOP does not want you to take the device off at all. So the charger is actually a battery pack that can be slipped onto the WHOOP to charge it, even while you are wearing it.

Then you have the Apple Watch. Again, I am using my 2-year-old Apple Watch Ultra 2. At its best, the Apple Watch is rated for 36 hours and has a low-power mode that extends that to 60 hours. But since it is 2 years old, I get about 30-32 hours of battery life on it before I need to charge it. I usually charge it daily when I am in the shower or doing dishes. Battery is something I think about constantly with my Apple Watch. If your number one priority is uninterrupted 24/7 tracking, WHOOP absolutely has the edge here.

The health sensors situation
This one actually surprised me. Going into this comparison, I assumed the WHOOP would have every advanced health sensor imaginable. But in reality, the Apple Watch actually has more sensors than the WHOOP MG. Apple Watch sensors include: optical heart rate sensor, electrical heart sensor for ECG, blood oxygen sensor, skin temperature sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, dual-frequency GPS, altimeter, compass, ambient light sensor, depth gauge, and water temperature sensor. Meanwhile, the WHOOP MG has: PPG heart rate sensor, heart rate variability tracking, skin temperature tracking, and accelerometer for movement and sleep. The interesting part is that even though the Apple Watch is doing more overall, the core fitness and recovery data between the two is very comparable.

The app experience
Now this is WHOOP’s bread and butter. The WHOOP app experience is actually great. You get recovery scores, strain targets, sleep coaching, and an overall experience focused on proactivity. In their most recent update, they also added an AI assistant, which I really like. The Apple Health app is the opposite. Apple gives you all the raw data, but it’s mostly up to you to interpret what that all means. Personally, I think that when it comes to tracking all of your health and fitness metrics, most people want guidance on what to do with this data.

WHOOP’s issue
Coming into this experience, I thought the hardware was what set the WHOOP apart. But I quickly learned that the Apple Watch offers far more sensors. Then I found the app called Bevel. This app essentially turns any modern Apple Watch into a WHOOP. Bevel has everything WHOOP has: recovery scores, sleep analysis, strain tracking, and AI-based insights. When I found the Bevel app, things just clicked. I realized I did not need the WHOOP hardware at all.

The pricing and subscription situation
This is where things get interesting for my comparison. The WHOOP MG costs $359 per year. For that price, you get the WHOOP, the fabric band, and a battery pack that doubles as a charger. But you can literally get a brand new Apple Watch Series 11 from Amazon for $299. So you could technically buy a brand-new watch every year for less than the price of a WHOOP MG subscription. Apps like Bevel cost significantly less. So if you already own an Apple Watch, it becomes very difficult to justify the long-term cost of a WHOOP.

What makes WHOOP special
But, even with everything I mentioned above, I can still see the appeal of the WHOOP. There was something refreshing about wearing a device with no screen. There were no notifications, no distractions, no phantom buzzing; it was purely built for health and recovery. However, there were a few annoying nuances that a $359 priced product should not have. For example, the vibration motor is terrible, the alarm turn-off is clunky, and the fabric band gets nasty quickly.

Final thoughts
After this comparison period, I did learn who the WHOOP was for. If you want great battery life, no distractions, passive wellness tracking, and a more guided health experience, then I get the appeal. But for me personally, it’s not enough to pull me away from the Apple Watch. Especially once I realized that the Apple Watch can basically give you all the advantages the WHOOP has through third-party apps like Bevel, and the Apple Watch Series 11 is cheaper than the WHOOP MG and does way more. So for that reason, I would recommend an Apple Watch to 9 out of 10 people.

Source: 9to5Mac News