Four years after the launch of Whoop 4.0, Whoop unveiled two new health trackers, Whoop 5.0 and Whoop Mg. While HOOP is considered a health tracker used primarily by professional athletes and fitness enthusiasts, the launch of the new wearables caters to a more general, health-conscious customer base that is willing to pay a higher price for cutting-edge health technology.
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The new health band, like other health trackers in the market, track sleep, activity and recovery. However, the band also offers innovative new features, such as blood pressure monitors that provide data from the wrist, ECG monitors that detect atrial fibrillation, and reviewed reports from clinicians for blood tests and vital monitoring. It appears Whoop has selected their favorite features to create the latest lineup from other smart wearable devices, including the Apple Watch, Withings, Oura, and Samsung Galaxy.
Features vary based on bands, with 5.0 supporting more general activity and health tracking, representing medical grades, and supporting features such as ECG and blood pressure monitoring.
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The most interesting feature of this launch is the advanced lab, which allows users to schedule blood tests and interact with clinicians on reports and recommendations using data collected through the device. Advanced Labs has additional costs and is not available at launch. Those who want to try out the features at launch will be added to their waitlist. This feature is similar to Withings’ aerobic exercise diagnostics. This allows members to assess their heart health data and connect with doctors who send back personalized reports.
The patent-pending blood pressure monitoring feature is similar to other health trackers with this feature. Using a traditional arm blood pressure monitor, WHOOP adjusts the data three times in the band. Next, start monitoring the systolic and diastolic range from the wrist, with no armband required. Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 7 has the same functionality and calibration requirements, but Huawei’s Watch3 includes an outpatient blood pressure monitor and does not require calibration.
WHOOP also introduced HealthSpan, a feature developed in Buck Institute’s research on Aging’s CEO. It quantifies physiological age by assessing overall health through nine biometric authentications. HealthSpan tells users whether their physiological age is low, high or paced for their actual age, for an overall picture of their health and habits. Wella has this characteristic in the form of cardiovascular age. I enjoy checking to see if my habits are helping or hurting me in my longevity.
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The Heart Screener feature adds ECG monitoring to WHOOP MG. This feature can detect high or low heart rates, atrial fibrillation, which are often undetected. Users can take this collected data to their doctor for diagnosis and condition maintenance. Other health trackers, such as the Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch, and Samsung Galaxy Watch, already have this feature.
The newly added health features reflect an increasingly changing fitness trackers as they become a health ally. Wella recently launched a continuous glucose monitor integration for users who want to track glucose and other biometrics all in one app. Meanwhile, Withings has launched an aerobic exercise testing service to quickly and directly connect people with clinicians.
Other improvements include battery life for ages 14 and up, smaller, more refined builds, more accurate images of bedtime quality, a 10x more efficient processor, and an updated sleep tracking for enhanced data capture.
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WHOOP has three subscription tiers: 1, Peak and Life. One is the most affordable, rich in features and least. Tiers provide sleep, strain, and recovery tracking and features V02 maximum and heart rate zone monitoring, along with hormonal health insights. Peak is a middle tier option with all of the above mentioned features, plus WHOOP’s new HealthSpan and Pace of Aging, health monitoring and stress monitoring. Life Tier is the most expensive layer, and comes with the WHOOP MG band, unlike the one and peak layer that comes with the WHOOP 5.0 band, as it adds blood pressure and ECG monitoring, Advanced Health Sensor Tech.
Health band brands are always more expensive, and the latest releases are no exception. One subscription tier costs $199 a year, Hoop Peak costs $239 a year, whoop’s lifespan is $359 a year.
