In today’s world, it seems like everyone has some sort of wearable where they track health stats, like steps, heart rate, and even sleep and stress levels.
If you’re considering a wearable for yourself, you may have come across WHOOP and Fitbit as possible options. We've already compared Whoop vs Oura Ring, and our readers have been loving it.
This article will compare the two wearables, in terms of what they track, their cost, and key features to help you decide which might be a better fit for you.
Why Wear A Wearable Wellness Tracker?
A wearable wellness tracker is a great way to keep tabs on your overall habits. While there is some variety in what is tracked depending on the wearable, most will keep track of your daily steps and workouts, and more advanced options can track things like heart rate, stress levels, respiration rate, and sleep.
Having this type of information available can help you identify areas that could use some work. For example, if your wearable is showing that your sleep has been consistently poor, you may decide to design a relaxing bedtime routine and improve your sleep hygiene.
Alternatively, maybe you are looking to get more active during your otherwise sedentary days. Having a step goal could help motivate you to get up and move more regularly in order to meet it.
At this time, wearables don’t have the capability of tracking eating habits, but some will sync with a software where users can log their own intake. This can be helpful if you are working to improve your nutrition or even lose weight.
Of course, there are a few things to keep in mind. For one, technology is imperfect and as such, the data from wearables isn’t always 100% accurate. So, try to pay attention to overall trends and don’t get too caught up in the small nuances.
Additionally, while a wearable can definitely help you to make healthy changes in your lifestyle, which can improve your health, it can never replace the care of a healthcare professional.
Quick Comparison Summary of Whoop 4.0 vs Fitbit
VS. | WHOOP 4.0 | FITBIT |
|---|---|---|
Tracks Sleep: | ||
Tracks Stress Levels: | ||
24/7 Tracking: | ||
Waterproof: | ||
Portable Battery Charger: | ||
FHM Rating: | 9.5/10 (Excellent) | 9/10 (Great) |
Website: |
WHOOP 4.0 Overview
WHOOP 4.0 is a wearable that is worn on your wrist and syncs with an app on your smartphone. According to the website, it will help you sleep better, train smarter, recover faster, and feel healthier.
Let’s take a look at what specifically WHOOP tracks and some of its key features.
What Does It Track?
WHOOP tracks activity levels, sleep, stress, and health in detail. It’s meant to be worn 24/7, even in the shower, so that it can constantly gather information on your health.
With all of the data tracked, WHOOP uses its coaching to provide personalized recommendations aimed at improving overall health, performance, and recovery.
WHOOP App Key Features
The app provides several scores based on your day to day activity and rest levels.
The Recovery Score is based on heart rate variability, resting heart rate, sleep, and respiratory rate. Each day you’ll wake up to a recovery score, 0-100%, that lets you know how ready your body is to perform or if you need some rest.
Then, during the day it will measure your WHOOP Strain, the amount of strain on your body, on a scale from 0 to 21. Exercise increases strain on your body, but so do things like stress, running errands, traveling, and many other things that come up during your day.
WHOOP will combine your Recovery Score and your Strain Score to determine when you could use a little extra rest and when your body is ready to push, to help you achieve an optimal balance.
This wearable also tracks sleep, based on the different stages of sleep, light, REM, and deep sleep. During sleep, it will also track your respiratory rate and of course, the amount of time you actually sleep. Based on all of this information, you’ll get a Sleep Score of 0-100%. Depending on how well you sleep one night, as well as your activity levels and recovery needs, WHOOP will recommend personalized bed and wake times. If you’d like, you can turn on the vibration alarm to help wake you at the most optimal time in your sleep cycle.
There is a Behavioral Journal within the app too, where you can track your day to day habits including, stress levels, caffeine intake, nutritional supplements, and more.
The newest feature of WHOOP is the Health Monitor, which tracks your heart rate, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, and blood oxygen levels, all of which are important factors of overall health. WHOOP then allows individuals to export 30-day or 180-day data trends into a PDF that you can share with your healthcare professional to better monitor your healthcare.
Pros
Cons
Cost
The cost depends on how long of a commitment you choose for your WHOOP membership. The options are as follows:
- 24 month membership for $480 upfront
- Annual membership for $288 upfront
- Monthly membership for $30 per month, with a 12-month commitment
Fitbit Sense Overview
The Fitbit Sense is Fitbit’s most advanced watch that tracks sleep, activity, stress levels, and more. It’s designed to help users make smarter choices and improve well-being.
Let’s dive in on some of the specs and key features of the Fitbit Sense.
What Does It Track?
The Fitbit Sense tracks several health metrics, including blood oxygen level, heart rate, breathing rate, and skin temperature, as well as activity levels, sleep, and stress.
Just like the WHOOP, Fitbit Sense is waterproof and meant to be worn 24/7 so that it can continually track your health data.
Fitbit Sense App Key Features
The Fitbit app on your smartphone gathers the data from the watch in order to make recommendations based on your progress.
You’ll receive a Stress Management Score, which is based on the sensor on your wrist detecting electrodermal activity, which may be related to your body’s stress levels. You can also log your mood, which is used to determine your Stress Management Score.
Your health metrics are based on things like your body temperature, oxygen saturation, and data from the compatible ECG app measures for potential heart rate irregularity. It will also alert you of any high or low heart rate readings.
The sleep features of the Fitbit Sense not only measure your sleep quantity and quality, it also can detect snoring and noises that you’re making in your sleep. You can also set it to wake you up with a quiet vibration at the optimal time so you wake up feeling ready for the day.
Similarly to the WHOOP, each day you’ll receive a Readiness Score that lets you know how recovered your body is and whether or not it's ready for a productive day, or if it could use a little more rest.
Activity tracking is where Fitbit got its start. The Fitbit Sense is swim proof for water workouts, and has GPS capabilities for outdoor activity. During your workout, you’ll see your stats, including heart rate, heart rate zones, pace, and more.
You can also use the Fitbit Sense to make calls, text, play music to bluetooth headphones, and even pay with Fitbit Pay.
Pros
Cons
Cost
The Fitbit Sense costs $199.95 and includes a 6-month premium subscription, which includes all of the available features and insights. After 6 months, the cost is $9.99 per month. For a limited time, new customers also receive a free 6-month subscription to Calm, a meditation app.
Breaking Down the Main Differences Between WHOOP and Fitbit
We’ve covered a lot of the details of both WHOOP and Fitbit. Reading through all the specs and features of a wearable can be a little overwhelming. If you’re still unsure which wearable is right for you, keep reading. We’ll simplify the key differences between the two below.
Is Fitbit Better Than WHOOP?
It depends on what you’re looking for in your wearable! FitBit Sense has some features and capabilities that are lacking in WHOOP, but depending on your preferences, this may or may not be a dealbreaker for you.
Let’s break it down.
Choose WHOOP If…
If your main focus is improving overall health, particularly optimizing the balance of stress and rest in your body, WHOOP is a great fit.
You can think of it as a measurement of your strain vs. your recovery over every second of every day. While it will track your activity, it’s mostly focusing on balancing that overall stress and recovery.
It’s also a great choice if you’re not able to pay a large sum upfront for a wearable, as you can start with just $30 per month. However, keep in mind that does require a 12-month commitment and you’ll have to re-up your membership to continue using the watch, so the cost will add up.
Choose Fitbit If…
If you want smartwatch and fitness tracking capabilities, Fitbit Sense will likely be a better fit for you. You’ll get all the benefits of health tracking, just like the WHOOP, but you’ll also get the added features of a smartwatch and fitness watch.
Unlike WHOOP, the Fitbit Sense has a color touchscreen where you can enable GPS capabilities to track your outdoor workouts, or use it to make calls and send texts. It’ll also send notifications from your phone right to your watch.
Final Thoughts
Wearables can be a fantastic part of anyone’s health and wellness journey, but they aren’t all created equally.
While we’ve only covered two in this article, there are plenty others available. If you’re shopping around, be sure to take time to read reviews and all of the specific features of each wearable.
Some wearables have a ton of tracking available, which can be great for a numbers person, but it could also be incredibly overwhelming for others. If you think all of the information would be data overload for you, you may want to check out wearables with fewer bells and whistles.
In my personal opinion, when it comes to WHOOP vs. Fitbit Sense, I would prefer the Fitbit Sense because I want to see my information on my watch in real time and be able to pull up more in-depth data in the app later. However, this is MY personal preference and yours may be different. That said, WHOOP is really cool and is constantly improving their wearables with high-profiled athletes like Super bowl winning quarterback Patrick Mohomes, major champion Justin Thomas and more.