By: Munzir Ahmad WHOOP 4.0 Review: A fitness band was much talked about during the ODI World Cup 2023. Actually, Virat Kohli was constantly seen on the ground wearing this band. Apart from Virat, Mohammad Siraj and Surya Kumar Yadav were also seen wearing special fitness bands. Headlines were made across the country as to what kind of band players like Virat are wearing.
When Virar Kohli broke Sachin Tendulkar’s record during the World Cup, this band started garnering more headlines in India. Because in that match also Kohli wore WHOOP 4.0. We thought why not try this fitness band. That’s why we talked to Will Ahmed, the founder and CEO of this special band i.e. WHOOP. WHOOP is an American company that manufactures wearable fitness devices.
Not only Virat, but the world’s top athletes are fans of this fitness band named WHOOP. Many greats like Michael Phelps, who has won dozens of Olympic medals, to LeBron James wear this band.
Why is WHOOP Band special?
What is it about WHOOP band due to which the world’s top athletes are liking it? There are fitness centric wearables in the market from Fitbit and Garmin to Apple, but still why is there so much buzz about WHOOP Band?
To know about this, we talked to Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of WHOOP, and he told that he has worked together with scientists and doctors to create this WHOOP. WHOOP 4.0 does everything that other fitness trackers can’t.
I have also been wearing the WHOOP 4.0 band for a few weeks and will tell you my experience about what this band actually does. However, the full potential of this band will be known after about 30 months. Because according to the company, accurate data related to the body is available only after wearing it for 30 days, it is called calibration phase.
WHOOP 4.0 Setup Process
Setup of WHOOP Band 4.0 is quite easy. You have to download WHOOP app and connect. As soon as it is connected, it calibrates for the first few days and then starts showing the actual data. The skin temperature feature is enabled only after 30 days.
After setup, basic features calibration takes one to two days. After completion this fitness band will start tracking you.
During calibration, this band actually prepares a baseline according to your body and understands how your body handles everyday tasks and what are the requirements. Anyway, let me tell you about the features that have been unlocked so far.
WHOOP 4.0 Hardware
There is no display or button of any kind in WHOOP Band 4.0. The device is quite small. It feels quite comfortable in the hand and is light weight. After a day I did not feel that I had worn anything on my wrist. It doesn’t even have many physical buttons.
Many sensors are provided under WHOOP 4.0, two work 24X7. The company encourages users to wear it all the time, even while bathing. The charger given along with it is also water proof and you can take bath with the charger connected.
Like hardware, WHOOP has done a great job on software also. Since there is no display on this band, you will be able to see all the things on WHOOP app only. The user interface is quite simple and easy to understand.
It is explained near any graph or result and WHOOP Coach simplifies this detail and gives you better results.
Which data of your body does WHOOP band track?
— HRV: In Heart Rate Variability, this band measures how your heart rate changes during sleep.
— Sleep Performance: Sleep performance tells how much you slept and how much sleep you need.
— Calories: Get information about how many calories you burn every day.
— Avarage HR: Average heart rate measures what your average heart rate has been throughout the day.
— Hours of sleep: This tells you how much you are sleeping every day.
— Respiratory Rate: Respiratory rate measures how many times you breathe every minute while sleeping.
— Restorative Sleep: In this you are told how many hours you were in deep sleep and how many hours you were in REM sleep every day. Basically it analyzes the stages of sleep.
— RHR: Resting heart rate measures how many times your heart beats every minute while resting.
— Sleep Dept: Sleep Date tells you how much sleep you need on a regular basis. If you sleep less on some days, it suggests you to complete it for a few days.
Apart from all this, there are features of Sleep Needed, Time in Bed, Stress Monitor and Strain and Recovery. The Strain feature actually keeps reading all the activities of the users and prepares a score. The higher the strain score, the more activity you have done throughout the day. Activities range from normal day-to-day work to workouts. The lower the strain score the less activity.
Strain & Recovery Feature
An important feature after strain is recovery. This band tells your recovery score as soon as you wake up in the morning. If it is in green then understand that your body is ready to do a lot. It has a scale of 0-100%. Yellow zone, red zone and green zone will be seen. By combining how many hours of sleep you had, what was the heart rate variation during sleep and how was the respiratory rate, it gives you the recovery score.
Recovery Score helps users know how prepared their body is for today’s tasks. WHOOP 4.0 also suggests workouts based on recovery score.
Strain and Recovery features are very important for athletes and normally Strain and Recovery features are not available in other fitness trackers and smart watches. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons why WHOOP band is liked more by top athletes around the world.
I cannot tell how scientifically accurate the data shown by WHOOP after a week’s usage is. But the company claims that the data tracked by WHOOP is scientific and more accurate than other trackers.
Performance Assessment
Performance assessment is very important for any athletes. The option of weekly and monthly assessment is also available in WHOOP 4.0. In performance assessment, the user is given a PDF report which contains the complete account of the week or month. In this, it is told on a daily and week basis, how your body performed, the entire detail from sleeping to breathing is given here.
This report becomes very important for athletes, because on the basis of it they are able to decide how to perform further or what workout to do.
WHOOP Coach: GPT 4 Bases Personalized Health Coach
Recently WHOOP has partnered with OpenAI. This app has WHOOP Coach which works on GPT 4 model. It is highly personalized and provides data related to your health and fitness.
For example, you can ask it how healthy your heart and lungs are. It shows you results based on data tracked from your body. You can see the answer in the screenshot below.
Actually, this band tracks many types of data related to heart. Similarly, it also tracks breathing and on this basis gives a rough idea of how healthy the lungs are. Once again, keep in mind that this is not a medical device and it is not a replacement for this doctor’s health device.
You can also ask WHOOP Coach what your body is capable of doing today. How much has been the recovery, how is the heart rate, has there been any problem while sleeping or anything.
Whoop Coach is really interesting and if you are concerned about fitness then you will like it. The company claims that the data of your body that WHOOP Band tracks matches the results of medical devices to a great extent and for this the company works closely with doctors and scientists so that the tracking can be accurate.
You will get many types of information in WHOOP app. But if you do not want to go to different sections of the app to get information, then you can directly ask Whoop Coach. WHOOP Coach is basically like ChatGPT, but it is your own assistant as it responds based on the data tracked from your body.
WHOOP 4.0 Bottom Line
Till now I have used popular health fitness trackers like Apple Watch, Fitbit and Garmin. But no other wearable provides the comprehensive data that WHOOP 4.0 provides. The company has done a much better job on the software. This band has become even better because of WHOOP Coach which works on GPT 4 and in the future, because of GPT 4, it can become an even better fitness coach.
It also has some shortcomings – like there is no basic tracking. There is no step count. The absence of a display is also a drawback for many people. There is a fear of losing the charging PUC. The company should have also given the option of direct band charging. This band is also not for those people who become paranoid about their health and fitness and use any gadget to dictate their life.
This is not a medical device nor is it a replacement for any doctor or medical device. I think it is better to use it for fitness only. By wearing this device, you cannot think that it will fulfill all your health needs and will tell you everything what is happening in the body. Yes, it is true that you definitely get a rough idea of what you are doing in your life for health and fitness.
Since it is subscription based and has not come to India, it is difficult to tell its price. To use it in America, one has to pay $30. WHOOP 4.0 will also be launched in India next year, so it will be interesting to see what the company keeps the pricing here and how much importance people give to it.