Whoop Vs Garmin: Which One Is The Winner?
Whoop and Garmin are one of the most competitive brands in the market. Both offer useful health and fitness tracking features helping you maintain an active lifestyle.
But Garmin seems better than Whoop because it has the lead in all the outdoor activities with exceptional features, but when it comes to sleep tracking and accuracy, whoop is quite ahead.
However, choosing the best fitness tracker for you needs some research. You need to know the product that you are buying correctly. There can be some features in either of the watches that might not match your use, making you feel disappointed in the end.
So, in this article, I will compare Whoop and Garmin and conclude which one is best for you according to your preferences.
Whoop VS Garmin: Which One Is The Go-to Option?
Here are the essential features which may help to decide between Garmin is the best pick for you or whether you should go with Whoop.
1. Sleep Tracking
One of the best things about both trackers is that they are exceptional in sleep tracking, but whoop is way ahead of Garmin.
Garmin watches will track your sleeping time. It will calculate your total sleeping time in the day, measure your sleep stages accordingly, and present those to you. Like when you were in deep sleep or light sleep and REM (rapid eye movement).
The whoop isn’t a lot different. It can also do everything that Garmin can, like providing you with your full sleep time, how many times you wake up, and the resting rate. Besides, it can also give a rating to your sleep performance and offer you a personal sleep coach guiding you about how to improve your sleep.
It allows you to monitor your sleep in 4 stages: SWS, REM, Light, and awake. You can also check how much sleep you need depending on your day. A busy day shows more resting time, whereas off days represent the opposite.
This indicates that Whoop takes the win as it offers more features than Garmin.
2. Calorie Tracking
One of the essential features of a fitness tracker is calorie burning. That’s another place where both brands are exceptional and identical.
Whoop can track your calorie burning, and you can look at the percentage by logging into the whoop app via any smartphone. You can assign yourself a specific target and work it out accordingly.
The same applies to Garmin. They also have the feature of tracking your calories getting burned; both watches are very accurate in their results. You can view the result on your smartphone via the Garmin mobile application.
3. Heart Rate Monitoring
Heart rate is where you can notice a difference between the two huge brands. Garmin and Whoop can calculate and provide accurate heart rate data.
However, when it comes to needing more accuracy, Whoop is the one to go for. Because of its new HR sensor, whoop can collect data 100 times per second, making it the best and most accurate heart tracker.
Garmin watches include HRV alerts, so in case of any irregular heart rate pattern, it will notify you immediately.
4. Stress Tracking
Stress tracking can be vital if you have a hectic work routine or feel stressed regarding anything in your life.
Well, Garmin watches are excellent at measuring stress, but that isn’t the only thing they can do. The Garmin watches have a stress coach asking you to take deep breaths and do specific exercises to get through the phase, which is excellent.
Whoop also does the same, and its stress-tracking results are admirable. It has a recovery feature with 3 main stages, which are red, yellow, and green.
All have specific purposes indicating when you need to rest and start working again.
5. Accuracy
One of the most significant innovations that Whoop announced in their trackers is the data tracking system. Because Whoop captures Data 100 times per second throughout the day, it has the upper hand on Garmin.
Garmin is undoubtedly very accurate, and all of its results are reliable. But there is a close difference between both of them. You won’t even note these differences if you are a moderate user.
However, if you are concerned about accuracy, which is an important feature for you, Garmin might become disappointing compared to Whoop.
6. Training Features
Garmin allows its users to choose their specific exercises. They have workout tracking modes to help the user. Like any fitness tracker, the watch can automatically detect common activities such as swimming, running, etc. Moreover, Garmin also provides their users with a GPS tracker that is excellent for route tracking making running and hiking easier and quicker.
Most of their latest watches can track over 25 activities, including high-intensity interval training workouts, making them exceptional in this field.
Whoop trackers are also good, but Garmin is better. Its latest trackers have the features of collecting health metrics up to 100 times per second, and they can also track running, swimming, and cycling automatically.
No doubt it is good, but if you want more variety, you should go with Garmin.
As mentioned, both trackers don’t lack anywhere with accuracy, but when it comes to tracking activity, both have a huge difference. The difference between them might not be visible to an average user. But a small difference does exist.
7. Pricing
Another big difference between them is the prices. You can get a Whoop Strap 3.0 right after subscribing to their 30$ membership program. But there might be an issue with that.
You can’t get it outright as to get a whoop band; becoming a monthly or annual subscription holder is mandatory. You will need to spend extra dollars if you plan to buy some additional accessories.
In contrast, Garmin watches are standalone products. You can purchase them without subscribing to any additional plans and also use them.
However, the usage is where you will need to purchase additional plans to use the premium features such as LTE maps, etc.
Purchasing plans isn’t mandatory in both cases. In Whoop, you need to buy it first, whereas, in Garmin, you must buy it after purchasing the watch. It all comes down to your preference about how you like it.
8. Battery Life
Another essential feature is the battery of these fitness bands. Although the battery has been fine, some users are involved in sports and activities that need a more extended battery to support and assist them in any way possible.
Both companies are well-known because of their great battery backups and no brand disappointments.
Their battery life is also similar as both watches can easily have a week of battery backup.
The whoop offers a battery pack in their watch that can slide on the top. It will allow you to charge your watch as you are on the go.
Garmin, on the other hand, has done something admirable. They have introduced solar-powered watches that don’t require charging if you are on a trip. Let the sun do its job, and you can focus on yours.
However, this technology isn’t present in all of their models, but you can still charge some of their watches normally.
9. Durability
Both trackers have excellent built quality, but when talking about water resistance, Garmin always takes the win. The reason is that most Whoop watches batteries are not water resistant, whereas Garmin’s batteries are.
Discussing their latest models, the Whoop Strap 4.0 is water resistant up to 10 meters. It is decent for daily use as you won’t dive into the water every other day.
However, when we talk about Garmin, it has a massive lead as it can withstand a depth of 50 to 100 meters. A mesmerizing pick if you need a watch that is durable and good on the features side. The ATM rings are the main reason for it being so waterproof.
10. Applications
Both Whoop and Garmin have excellent applications which are not only user-friendly but exceptionally responsive.
These applications have all the latest features and can assist you in almost every other possible way. Responsiveness is the only site where Whoop takes the lead, as it is a little more responsive and works well even on less connectivity, but it is minor.
But in terms of features and in-depth data analysis, the Garmin Connect app seems more powerful. You can not only view the detailed data, but it also allows you to download third-party apps on your Garmin watch. Moreover, you can also share your performance in the Garmin community. You can also create courses according to your fitness routine and preferences.
But it depends on your use. If you remain in an environment with decent internet 24/7, you won’t feel any difference.
Which One Is The Best For Runners?
Garmin is best for runners as it has a GPS tracker, which will help you throughout your running or hiking routine. It will save you time and thus would be more effective. But that isn’t all of it. Garmin has introduced features that are specifically dedicated to runners.
Most of the Garmin watches comes with Running dynamics feature that explains your running physics. This will help you in improving running by directly looking at Cadence, Vertical Oscillation, Ground contact time, Ground contact time balance, Stride length, vertical balance and more.
- The Cadence feature allows you to look at your number of steps per minute and can also sum up and display the total steps.
- Vertical Oscillation helps you to understand the vertical motion of the torso. Your bounce will also be calculated and displayed.
- Ground contact is the time that you spend on the ground. This can be in seconds or milliseconds, displayed during running only.
- Ground contact time balance is the balance of your ground contact time. It is displayed in percentage.
- The length of your stride from one footfall to the next is called stride length. This is measured in meters.
- The ratio of vertical Oscillation to stride length is called the vertical ratio. A lower percentage means you have a better running form, whereas a higher percentage means you need some improvement.
Which One Is Best For Sports Tracking?
Regarding outdoor activities, Garmin always wins because even in sports tracking, Whoop is no match for its various sports activities. As mentioned above, features like GPS tracking and running dynamics, Whoop, will disappoint you to a great extent comparatively.
Moreover, Whoop is not optimized for such kinds of outdoor activities as its durability is also a big question mark. Whoop is just a personal health coach that can work like a sports tracker but is not optimized like one. If you look at Garmin and its variety in sports tracking, it can clearly take the win against Whoop.
Garmin includes some useful features for athletes, including a recovery advisor that tells you when you will be ready for your next hard workout. It also measures your VO2 max performance, HR, Pulse Ox rate, and respiration rate during sports activities.
Which One Is Best For Health Tracking?
Health is one of the specialties of Whoop. Since it has the HRV sensor, the results provided by Whoop will be much better and more accurate. Garmin is a tracker you should go to when you are a sports coach embedded into your tracker.
Whoop is the best because Calorie Tracking, Heart rate monitoring, and accuracy are its expertise. That’s where it will never disappoint you. Garmin might not perform up to remarks because it is more of a sports tracker and less of a personal health coach.
It performs well as a health tracker, but Whoop has the upper hand here.
Final Verdict
If you need a fitness tracker for outdoor activities, it should be more durable, water-resistant, and reliable. For this, you should go for Garmin because it amazes you with its features when it comes to outdoor activities.
But if a personal health coach with more accurate results and some outdoor features is your dire need, you must opt for Whoop as its sensors are more accurate, and with those coaches in sleep tracking, nothing can get wrong.
Thus, there is no definitive winner among these brands; what matters most is how you plan to put them to use. Our opinion will only be beneficial if you know your uses properly, so before making a purchase, sit back and think for a second about why you are purchasing a watch.
What is your primary use? Questions like these will be beneficial in making a purchase. Also, another important thing is keeping your budget in mind. Some watches are expensive, but what if they have essential features that are unimportant to you? That is why we always recommend thinking before purchasing.
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