Four years after the launch of the Whoop 4.0, Whoop has announced two new health trackers, the Whoop 5.0 and the Whoop MG. While Whoop is mainly considered a health tracker used by pro athletes and fitness enthusiasts, the launch of the new wearables caters to a more general, health-minded customer base willing to pay a high price for cutting-edge health tech.
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The new health bands track your sleep, activity, and recovery like the rest of the health trackers on the market. However, the bands also deliver innovative new features, like a blood pressure monitor that provides data right from your wrist, an ECG monitor that detects atrial fibrillation, and clinician-reviewed reports for blood testing and vitals monitoring. It seems like Whoop picked its favorite features from other smart wearable devices, like Apple Watch, Withings, Oura, and Samsung Galaxy, to create its latest lineup.
Functionalities differ based on the band, with the 5.0 supporting more general activity and health tracking and the MG, which stands for Medical Grade, supporting features like ECG and blood pressure monitoring.
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The most interesting feature of this launch is Advanced Labs, which allows users to schedule blood tests and interact with a clinician for reports and recommendations using the data collected through the device. Advanced Labs has an additional cost and is not available at launch. Those interested in trying the feature out upon launch will be added to a waitlist. The feature is similar to Withings’ Cardio Check-Up feature, which allows members to connect with a doctor who evaluates their heart health data and sends back a personalized report.
The patent-pending blood pressure monitoring feature is similar to other health trackers with this functionality. Using a traditional arm blood pressure monitor, the Whoop calibrates data with the band three times. Then it begins monitoring systolic and diastolic ranges from your wrist, with no armband needed. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 has the same capability and calibration requirement, while Huawei’s Watch 3 includes an ambulatory blood pressure monitor, with no calibration necessary.
Whoop also introduced Healthspan, a feature developed with the Buck Institute’s Research on Aging’s CEO, that assesses your overall health through nine biometrics to quantify your physiological age. Healthspan will tell users whether their physiological age is lower, higher, or on pace with their actual age for a holistic picture of their health and habits. Oura has this feature in the form of cardiovascular age, and I enjoy checking to see if my habits are helping or hurting my longevity.
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The Heart Screener feature adds ECG monitoring to the Whoop MG. This feature can detect high or low heart rates, and atrial fibrillation, an often undetected condition. Users can take this collected data to their doctor for diagnosis and condition maintenance. Other health trackers, like the Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch, and Samsung Galaxy Watch, already have this feature.
The newly added health features reflect a growing shift in fitness trackers as they become health companions. Oura recently launched a continuous glucose monitor integration for users who want to track their glucose and other biometrics all in one app. Meanwhile, Withings launched its Cardio Check-Up service to connect people quickly and directly to a clinician.
Other improvements include a 14-plus-day battery life, a smaller, sleeker build, updates to sleep-tracking for a more accurate picture of bedtime quality, a ten times more efficient processor, and enhanced data capture.
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Whoop offers three subscription tiers: One, Peak, and Life. One is the most affordable and least feature-rich. The tier offers sleep, strain, and recovery tracking, and features V02 max and heart rate zone monitoring, alongside hormonal health insights. Peak is a mid-tier option with all the aforementioned features, plus Whoop’s new Healthspan and Pace of Aging feature, a Health Monitor feature, and stress monitoring. Life tier is the most expensive tier, adding blood pressure and ECG monitoring, and advanced health sensor tech, which is why it comes with the Whoop MG band, unlike the One and Peak tiers, which come with the Whoop 5.0 band.
The health band brand has always been more expensive, and the latest launch is no different. The Whoop One subscription tier costs $199 per year, Whoop Peak costs $239 per year, and Whoop Life costs $359 per year.
Source: Robotics - zdnet.com
