Whoop Strap 3.0 Review Australia - The Best Fitness Tracking Wearable That Tells You Everything

GearBodySleep

2 Jul

A sleep, recovery and fitness tracker you can swim, sauna, ice bath and race with.

The gossip in the world of biohacking is that you need look no further for the best fitness and sleep tracking wearable. We know, you already know biohackers are a passionate breed who search for extreme levels of optimising humans through the best sleep, supplements, practices, nutrition and of course tech and wearables.

The word is that the Whoop 3.0 strap is somewhat of a one stop shop in terms of tracking the all important data in fitness, sleep and movement. Are the rumours true? This is our brutally honest Whoop Strap 3.0 Review that you need to read before getting your FREE Whoop Strap (with subscription).

We have been putting it through its paces for about two and a half months now and have some things we want to share about how good (or bad) it really is. How does it stack up to its competitors? There’s a bit to get through here so to condense things down for those short on time who want it laid out in a nice concise visual we will first look at some pros and cons.

THE PROS

Sleep data is very reliable.
Actionable metrics like “strain” and recovery percentage make it easy to determine if you're doing things ‘right’.
Consistently updated features without having to upgrade the band.
5 days battery life is pretty handy.
Growing community aspect allows real-time statistics sharing and accountability between friends and teams.

THE CONS

Data syncing is slow, you also have to wear it for a month to unlock the system.
If you are concerned about EMF’s then having a bluetooth strap on your wrist 24/7 is an issue.
It is screenless which isn’t always suitable. Real time data needs to be viewed on your phone.

Whoop 3.0 Review

Bottom Line: It is FREE…That is, with whatever monthly subscriptions structure you choose from. At a potential price of $24/month you get a device that is supported by a super comfortable super comfortable band; has good compatibility with other Bluetooth-compatible fitness devices; excellent sleep tracking data with a broad range of data sets; a very long lasting clip on battery; and did we mention the Whoop Strap 3.0 is free with the subscription?

Price: Various membership options

Weight: 32 grams with battery attached

Battery Life: Up to 5 days continuous use

Buy the Whoop Strap 3.0 for 18$ on Whoop

What We Think About The Whoop Strap 3.0 - Is It Worth It?

To be honest, we know a bit about fitness trackers.

Between us we can count over 15 trackers tried and tested to date among the team. From the Oura Ring, to the SleepOn ring, to the FitBit, various Apple watches, various Garmins, a Suunto and more. At the end of the day we are looking for data. We want visual feedback about what we are doing and how well we are doing it. This brutally honest Whoop Strap 3.0 review is based on all of our knowledge pooled together and compared to the other options available for fitness and sleep tracking wearables.

The dream was to get absolutely shredded during round one of quarantine. While you might have only got as close as watching your most envied social media crush do so, with their painstaking meal prep, religious 8 hour sleep routine and extensive physical accomplishments every weekend covering vast distances swimming, riding and running with their shredded mess of a body, it's not too late.

You also might have noticed that that ultra motivated, shredded mess of a human (you were wishing was you) wore a Whoop strap. If they weren't they are probably about to get one. Why? Because it is tried and tested by some high level folks from military special forces to top level sporting legends and the general consensus is good.

How Does The Whoop Strap 3.0 Work?

The Whoop Strap 3.0 is secured to the wrist like a normal watch, but without a face, and uses the sensors that rest against the wrist to capture your data. Whoops mission is: “To unlock human performance. We believe every individual has an inner potential that you can tap into if you can better understand your body and your behaviors. We’ve built technology across hardware, software and analytics designed to continuously understand you.”

Designed by a Harvard scholar, The Whoop Strap 3.0 works off a very simple traffic light (green, amber or red) zone system to indicate your percentage of recovery, combined with a “strain score” for the day. This gets combined into a Weekly Performance Assessment visual which gives you an excellent visual on how well you are recovering, how primed you are to do more or if you need to do less.

It’s equipped with two LEDs and an accelerometer that give it the super powers to track all the good stuff. Biometrics that we biohackers simply dream of like sleep data, respiratory rate, and heart rate variability all combine to give us an extremely valuable snapshot of strain and recovery for optimal performance whether that be for training for your next ultra marathon or recovering from a solid working week.

Is The Whoop Strap 3.0 For Me?

The Whoop Strap 3.0 is highly suited to a really broad range of needs and athletic levels. This thing hasn’t just been slapped together. Science has created it. Not only that, science has tested its efficacy and in one study concluded that “In healthy people, wearables can improve sleep quality and accurately measure sleep and cardiorespiratory variables.” With the quality of data we see from the Whoop, it is quite a clear delineation as to who should be looking at kitting themselves out with a Whoop and those who just kinda like fitness.

We know most of you reading this are well aware of the kind of data to look for in a quality tracking device. The Whoop Strap 3.0 data may not make sense to you unless you already have some sort of experience with sleep and fitness tracking data and have a robust training regime. But don’t let us turn you off, it’s worth picking up. Biohacking, fitness freak, data junkie, type A’s please continue on as you were.

In terms of membership offering, Whoop even has something different to set it apart even more from the majority, if not all, of its competitors. A smart business model if you ask us, unlike Apple who releases a new version of their Iphone every year, Whoop has opted to simply update it’s hardware. An environmentally sound approach at that, the current iteration also boasts a battery life of up to 5 days which annihilates some of its competitors in the same tech spec like the Apple Watch and Suunto; connects to bluetooth and hits the sleep tracking data nail on the head.

Check out some of the Whoop Strap 3.0 Membership structures here.

What Data Does The Whoop Strap 3.0 Track?

In terms of metrics, like the vast majority of good fitness and sleep trackers, the Whoop Strap 3.0 tracks heart rate and Heart Rate Variability (HRV), which are both biomarkers for your stress and fitness levels.

At RG, we are most interested in sleep. The sleep data that the Whoop captures is off the chain. Sleep metrics include light, REM (rapid eye movement), slow wave (Deep), and awake times. It even captures your breaths per minute during sleep, all of which are priceless to know if you want to know if you are training right, eating right, sleeping right and recovering effectively. If you aren’t, the data won’t lie.

Sleep charts and your desired level of performance for the next day allow you to personalise reminders on best bedtime to achieve suitable sleep hours for “peak”, “performance” or just “getting by”. The last one is not for anyone I know, really.

As we mentioned earlier in the article, the Whoop strap 3.0 gives you a bit of a revolutionary approach to an indicative daily measurement for recovery - Strain.

This is the kind of stuff that gets us excited, and we know it revs you up too, numbers. At the end of each training/resting/working/bludging day you will get a total “strain” out of 21 which indicates, as you guessed it, your cardiovascular exertion accumulated by your day's activities. What we noticed out of the couple of months worth of data collecting so far is just how accurate this strain analysis seems to be. After punching out a few consecutive days of training we noticed the strain score rise and the overall recovery score slip into the red.

This is what we like to see, really. Not only that, you also have the option to view your stats in real time, while you train, through the app. And, since we are all about combining the best practices, supplements and tools for recovery, the Whoop journal is sensational at allowing you to document different habits and behavioural factors that may or may not be helping you.

When you splurge on the burgers, suck in too much blue light at night, have a few too many alcoholic beverages or have a week full of stress you can start to log these to see what hurts your scores.

Similarly, if you are experimenting with meal timings, sleep supplements, meditation, the Chilipad, infrared sauna routine, cold therapy, blue light blockers, mushrooms, CBD, light therapy or any of the other good stuff, you can really start to be mindful of what works for you by tracking the effects of different habits using the data captured in the Whoop Strap 3.0.

Can You Use Whoop In A Sauna?

It was difficult to find out from Whoop initially whether you can use the Whoop Strap in the sauna. To be honest we took the risk without finding out the answer as we assumed that a high performance and military style specification tracker would be built with a bit of heat resilience.

In the end we found out from Whoop that yes, you can use the whoop strap in the sauna. We have been safely using our Whoop Strap 3 in the sauna for the last 6 months with almost daily sauna use and it has not skipped a beat.

Not only that, we further shock the Whoop system by wearing it while we do contrast therapy which involves going between sauna and ice bath for a number of rounds. We would imagine, as for the body, this change in temperature is quite the test and creates stress for the Whoop. Nonetheless it has faired perfectly fine for months of doing such recovery routines not to mention the other rigours of training we put the fitness/sleep tracker through.

Final Word On Whoop Review

We know you can make good decisions for yourself. We would highly encourage you to continue to do so and try out the Whoop Strap 3.0. The worst that can happen is you have to action the 30-day return policy, but we are sure you won’t. It is streamlined, stylish, comfortable, has huge battery life, punches out some of the best and most simple data we’ve come across and is backed by science.

Sometimes we have noticed in the past when we commit to something with a financial obligation like the Whoop has its monthly subscription we are far more likely to remain active in getting after our fitness, health and recovery mastery.