Training (but not app) related

First of all, Happy New Year!

Just after some advice/recommendations.

I’m looking to start tracking sleep, stress etc and wondered if there was a better or cheaper alternative to Whoop.

Whoop looks to be the daddy but £30 a month seems a lot for the service (though the hardware is included within the price).

Is there a better alternative? Garmin offers similar functionality without a subscription but the hardware is more expensive whilst Fitbit is cheaper than Garmin but has a lower cost subscription (than Whoop) for the full service.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks, Dan.

So I built one of the first HRV apps in the iOS store and have fairly a lot of experience playing around with this stuff. I own a Whoop and a Garmin 935. For me and I think most people there is a direct relationship between HRV and lowest sleeping HR. I don’t really use the Garmin for sleep tracking but I was looking at my lowest HR in the morning on the Garmin. Generally the software for Whoop is way better than Garmin but Whoop version 3 HR is not super accurate considering the price. I have version 4 coming this week and it is supposed to be a lot better. I bought the 18 month version so it’s like 18 euro/month or something. I like the comfort of the whoop better but my friend that has a Oura ring bought the whoop too and returned it because he hated something on his wrist all the time and he say Oura and Whoop were always different but he did not get a clear feeling as to which was more right. If you don’t mind spending the time using an app and a HR strap for 60 seconds in the morning can teach you a lot. If you really want a better picture of your sleep patterns then I think a Whoop is the best choice. Not sure if that helps.

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Many thanks.

I’ve a Polar h10 but trying to lay still when you’ve a 20 month old wanting to climb in bed first thing in a morning is tough :rofl:

I have twin 7-year olds and still don’t think I could take a minute in the mornings to relax :slight_smile: so I can fully appreciate the need for night time monitoring. Even though I feel like I am some what of a expert in recovery and the importance of sleep, with small kids Whoop really gave me better insight and got me to focus on trying to get to sleep earlier. I don’t really remember what Garmin sleep tracking was like but it never inspired me to care about it like Whoop does. The funny thing is due to it’s inaccuracies I don’t even like the Whoop that much but still I would say it does work. I should have V4 next week, that should be better.

I’ve had god luck tracking sleep / resting HR with my Apple Watch. The buy-in is more expensive than some other tools. But the tracking and data recording is $0 per month.

Disclaimer, I’m definitely not an expert. The Polar H10 actually monitors the ECG signal so you can get the heart voltage waveforms (PQRST) if you really wanted. So I’m fairly confident the Polar H10 reading is quite good.

The other part of the equation is the analysis. I looked at a couple apps and it seems like Kubios HRV is actually used in research so that’s the one I settled on. I do a morning Kubios HRV reading with my Polar H10.

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Many thanks

I’m fully onboard with Android but good to know and thanks for your reply :grinning:

I’m also using a Polar H10 (considered Gold standard as HRM) and Kubios HRV app. But this is only morning HRV and not full sleep analysis. My Coros Pace 2 watch gives me some very basic sleep info: sleep time, light sleep, deep sleep, awake time, avg HR during sleep.
Kubios app and Polar sensor logger app can show your ECG with the H10. Fatmaxxer stores an ECG strip of 10 seconds around any detected artefact.

The Quantified Scientist youtube channel (www.youtube.com/c/TheQuantifiedScientist) does detailed testing and comparison of many devices. For watches & straps, heart rate can be off compared to the golden reference Polar H10 but is probably ok during sleep. For sleep analysis and classification, the accuracy is probably 40-70% compared to EEG (brain) reference devices.

I’m waiting on a Wellue O2Ring but that’s mostly to make sure I’m breathing properly during sleep.

The subscription model for Oura and Whoop is a bit galling though.