I have found woop incredibly helpful for managing my chronic illness. I have a condition where a small amount of exercise can be beneficial, but doing too much can cause a lot of harm. I've been using woop for 3 months now and it has been hugely beneficial to be able to track how much exertion and stress I've had so far that day, so I know how much deliberate exercise it's safe for me to do. I chose to use woop rather than visible (which is designed specifically for chronic illness) because woop tracks sleep, and is able to measure your resting heart rate and heart rate variability while you're sleeping. If I was using visible I would have to take it off to charge, and then take the measurements as soon as possible after waking up. I wear my woop in addition to the simple analogue watch I've always worn, so it's not a problem for me that it doesn't show the time. Woop is supposed to be non-distracting, but one of the things I've found most helpful is being able to set a strain target for an activity. When you reach the strain target, it will vibrate on your wrist. This helps me know when to stop and avoid accidentally overexerting. I have found the woop insights helpful, but I agree the morning questionnaire is annoying. I wish there was an option to fill in the information as you go through the day, and then just review it in the morning to make sure you didn't miss anything. I'd much rather log "I'm drinking coffee right now" than try to remember the next morning whether I had coffee previous day and what time I drank it. If you don't like the questionnaire and aren't finding the insights very helpful, I think you can turn off the questionnaire and only get the insights that woop is able to detect on its own. You also can't log activities that are short. Like I can't say I spent 10 minutes outside or 10 minutes chatting to a friend, the shortest time duration it will allow you to record is half an hour. I haven't had too much of a problem with it telling me what to do. Maybe it's because I know I'm not the typical user it was designed for, but it doesn't bother me too much when it suggests I do things that I know would be a bad idea or just not possible for me. If I tell the AI chatbot that I plan to have a rest day, it doesn't argue at all, it agrees and suggests rest activities instead. If the AI chatbot suggestions do bother you, I think you can turn them off in settings and have woop just record the data and not suggest activities for you. Your explanation of the differences between woop and the apple watch have validated that woop is a better fit for what I need. I would say that woop is good for helping you get the right balance between rest and exercise, whereas it sounds like the apple watch is mostly there to encourage you to exercise more, which isn't necessarily the best thing for everyone.
For anyone else thinking of using woop as an alternative to visible: you may want to manually change the theoretical max heartrate to be lower so it's more sensitive to detecting exertion. I have mine set to 148bpm. If you're healthy you probably don't need to change it but if you're under 30 you might need to lower it even if you're healthy because the default is based on age. If you leave it on the default, younger you are, the higher your heartrate needs to get before woop will detect anything you're doing as strain.
Why not an Oura 4 ring? You get sleep data that’s superior, resting heart rate, recovery, steps and heart rate which you can send over to apple health if you want to take off your watch. You get HRV readings and how much stress you experience during the day so you can try to fix that. They have meditation apps, sleep apps, blood oxygen reading at night and respiration rate. The list goes on. I have the black stealth with a black wedding ring and it’s hardly noticeable and very comfortable. My whoop is always different than Apple and Oura and Apple and Oura match up for me almost perfectly. I have a whoop and my subscription ends in two weeks so don’t know yet. The only thing I like about whoop that different than everyone else is the strain score. If I’m doing manual labor at work or cleaning the house or mowing the yard it gives you insights on how much strain you did for the day. Garmin will tell you to go for a big run on their suggested workout. Apple tells you nothing about your day which I also wear.
Oura is definitely something I'm looking at - I like the style, and I like the look of the data it gives you - my stumbling block is whether I'd like it enough for the price - in the UK they're not orderable directly, you have to go through 3rd party, and i think there's a subscription cost as well? I like that you can trial the whoop and return it if it doesn't fit with what you want... Thanks so much for your feedback!
11:30 It explains in the app video that it's physically impossible to get a 21 strain. The only way to do it would be to stay in the maximum heart rate zone for 24 hours, which is extremely unlikely.
I have found woop incredibly helpful for managing my chronic illness. I have a condition where a small amount of exercise can be beneficial, but doing too much can cause a lot of harm. I've been using woop for 3 months now and it has been hugely beneficial to be able to track how much exertion and stress I've had so far that day, so I know how much deliberate exercise it's safe for me to do.
I chose to use woop rather than visible (which is designed specifically for chronic illness) because woop tracks sleep, and is able to measure your resting heart rate and heart rate variability while you're sleeping. If I was using visible I would have to take it off to charge, and then take the measurements as soon as possible after waking up.
I wear my woop in addition to the simple analogue watch I've always worn, so it's not a problem for me that it doesn't show the time.
Woop is supposed to be non-distracting, but one of the things I've found most helpful is being able to set a strain target for an activity. When you reach the strain target, it will vibrate on your wrist. This helps me know when to stop and avoid accidentally overexerting.
I have found the woop insights helpful, but I agree the morning questionnaire is annoying. I wish there was an option to fill in the information as you go through the day, and then just review it in the morning to make sure you didn't miss anything. I'd much rather log "I'm drinking coffee right now" than try to remember the next morning whether I had coffee previous day and what time I drank it. If you don't like the questionnaire and aren't finding the insights very helpful, I think you can turn off the questionnaire and only get the insights that woop is able to detect on its own. You also can't log activities that are short. Like I can't say I spent 10 minutes outside or 10 minutes chatting to a friend, the shortest time duration it will allow you to record is half an hour.
I haven't had too much of a problem with it telling me what to do. Maybe it's because I know I'm not the typical user it was designed for, but it doesn't bother me too much when it suggests I do things that I know would be a bad idea or just not possible for me. If I tell the AI chatbot that I plan to have a rest day, it doesn't argue at all, it agrees and suggests rest activities instead. If the AI chatbot suggestions do bother you, I think you can turn them off in settings and have woop just record the data and not suggest activities for you.
Your explanation of the differences between woop and the apple watch have validated that woop is a better fit for what I need. I would say that woop is good for helping you get the right balance between rest and exercise, whereas it sounds like the apple watch is mostly there to encourage you to exercise more, which isn't necessarily the best thing for everyone.
For anyone else thinking of using woop as an alternative to visible: you may want to manually change the theoretical max heartrate to be lower so it's more sensitive to detecting exertion. I have mine set to 148bpm. If you're healthy you probably don't need to change it but if you're under 30 you might need to lower it even if you're healthy because the default is based on age. If you leave it on the default, younger you are, the higher your heartrate needs to get before woop will detect anything you're doing as strain.
this is amazing, thank you so much for sharing - this is exactly why I love this community - that is brilliantly helpful information!
Why not an Oura 4 ring? You get sleep data that’s superior, resting heart rate, recovery, steps and heart rate which you can send over to apple health if you want to take off your watch. You get HRV readings and how much stress you experience during the day so you can try to fix that. They have meditation apps, sleep apps, blood oxygen reading at night and respiration rate. The list goes on. I have the black stealth with a black wedding ring and it’s hardly noticeable and very comfortable. My whoop is always different than Apple and Oura and Apple and Oura match up for me almost perfectly. I have a whoop and my subscription ends in two weeks so don’t know yet. The only thing I like about whoop that different than everyone else is the strain score. If I’m doing manual labor at work or cleaning the house or mowing the yard it gives you insights on how much strain you did for the day. Garmin will tell you to go for a big run on their suggested workout. Apple tells you nothing about your day which I also wear.
Oura is definitely something I'm looking at - I like the style, and I like the look of the data it gives you - my stumbling block is whether I'd like it enough for the price - in the UK they're not orderable directly, you have to go through 3rd party, and i think there's a subscription cost as well? I like that you can trial the whoop and return it if it doesn't fit with what you want... Thanks so much for your feedback!
11:30 It explains in the app video that it's physically impossible to get a 21 strain. The only way to do it would be to stay in the maximum heart rate zone for 24 hours, which is extremely unlikely.
I must’ve missed that - that makes a lot of sense why I won’t ever achieve it!😂