Hey guys, it's Michael
Kummer. A lot of people have asked me why I wear both the Apple Watch as well as the WHOOP Strap
4.0. So in this video, I want to give you a quick comparison and tell you about the pros
and cons of either of those devices. Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel,
and you click on the little alert button so you get notified when I publish more videos
like this. I should also mention that I have a fairly in-depth comparison article on my blog,
and I'm going to link that down below. So if you want to learn more about all the details,
the nitty-gritty, that I won't be able to cover in this video. I highly recommend you check that out.
Comparing the Apple Watch and the WHOOP Strap
is really comparing apples to oranges because both are entirely different devices. Yes. There
is some overlap in terms of activity tracking and maybe sleep tracking, but that's really it.
The Apple Watch first and foremost, as the name implies is a watch, is an excellent timekeeper.
I use it to make phone calls, to send text messages, to look at my calendar, to open the
garage door, and many other things, none of which I can do with a WHOOP Strap. In fact, there are
not really any buttons and there is no display. So there is no meaningful way to interact with the
WHOOP Strap. Other than maybe double-tapping it, so I can see the battery level, but everything
else I have to do through the app. Let's talk about the areas where both devices have something
in common. Let's start with activity and fitness tracking. Now I use my Apple Watch to start and
stop activities. So when I go to the gym or I do CrossFit I either use Siri
or I use the little complication here on my app to start an activity. It's fairly straightforward,
super simple, and it makes sure that all of my activities and workouts are properly tracked
via the health app or the fitness app. Now, the good news is that I, even if I don't do that, the
Apple Watch can automatically detect certain types of workouts. The Apple Watch has in total about,
I think maybe a dozen or so workouts that I can choose from and maybe a handful
it can automatically detect if they last long enough. And if my heart rate goes up high enough
during the workout, if it doesn't, if they work on it's either too short or the heart rate is too low
or remains too low. Then the Apple Watch wouldn't be able to detect it, but of course, it can always
manually start and stop the activity. WHOOP does something similar, obviously,
I can't start and stop the workout on the WHOOP Strap because there is no button or
anything or no display. But WHOOP can have a huge laundry list of available activities that
I can choose from and manually start via the app, but also WHOOP can automatically detect
all of these activities if they are long enough. And if they increase my heart rate or if they
cause my heart to stay elevated for a certain period of time, both of those devices use
a slightly different formula to calculate a threshold when they can automatically pick up
and automatically detect the workout. So there are slight differences. But
in a nutshell, if the workout lasts 15 or so minutes or longer, if it increases your
heart rate significantly, either of those two devices can pick up certain types of work.
Now the good news is that WHOOP actually, and finally integrates with Apple Health Kit,
so any activity I start on my Apple Watch WHOOP can automatically pick up and I can see
it in the app. So I don't have to start anything manually anymore in the WHOOP app. Besides that,
both devices can track calories, the Apple Watch can track steps and
do a lot of, you know, show you the basic metrics basically at the end of the workout.
What I feel is most beneficial is WHOOP's ability to calculate my cardiovascular
strain. That's an indication of how hard my heart was beating, not only during workouts
but throughout the day, because my strain, the cardiovascular strain that I put on my system
has an influence on my sleep and recovery needs. So the higher,
my cardiovascular strain is. The more sleep I might need and the more I might have to do to
recover, so I'm ready to roll the next morning. The Apple Watch doesn't do any of that. It just
shows it a bare metrics and you can make with it, whatever you want to. In terms of sleep tracking,
there is really no comparison. I mean, yes, the Apple Watch can
technically detect sleep, but it's really, it can tell you how long you stayed in bed
pretty much. Maybe it can detect when you slept versus when you were awake, but that's pretty
much it. There is no in-depth sleep stage analysis, so the Apple Watch cannot tell you,
at least not without any third-party apps. How much time you've spent in deep sleep in REM
and in light sleep. How often do you wake up, woke up? How many disturbances you had,
how your heart rate variability and resting heart rate was during the night. I mean, the latter,
the Apple Watch can actually show, you can show you the heart rate, but the sampling rate of the
Apple Watch is fairly low. It only tracks your
core biometrics, meaning your resting heart rates, your HRV maybe, and your blood oxygen saturation.
At least if you have a new Apple Watch every couple of minutes. The WHOOP on the other hand
constantly tracks my heartrate during the day, as well as during the night. So 24 7, if you can
actually see it, if you turn the sensor around it's green all the time. That is an indication
it constantly measures the heart rate. WHOOP also uses a skin temperature sensor to help figure out
when I fall asleep and it uses certain other sensors that the Apple Watch doesn't have
like an electric dermal activity sensor. So it can measure how much electricity
flows through your skin because that's changes as you fall asleep. And WHOOP is
one of the better, if not the best and most accurate sleep trackers on the market is at
least as far as wrist-worn devices are concerned of wearables are concerned. So I really like
WHOOP they've done a lot of research. They've done a lot of work on making sleep tracking
as accurate as possible. The Apple Watch on the other hand as far as I'm concerned
is a gimmicky kind of sleep tracker. You don't really want to rely on it. It doesn't produce
good enough results and no details. You can use third party apps that try to bridge
those gaps. But because of the sensor and hardware and sampling rate limitations,
there is only so much they can do. So I don't really look at
the Apple Watch as a sleep tracker at all. I fully rely on my WHOOP Strap 4.0,
to tell me how well I slept. I mean, I can feel it in the morning, but just to see it in data,
how much time I spent in the different stages of sleep et cetera. One thing that the Apple Watch
doesn't do at all, but that WHOOP does and that's actually one of my
favorite features: is recovery tracking. And many people think that, well,
if I'm not a professional athlete, I don't care how recovered my body is, but it goes way beyond
physical recovery. The WHOOP every morning shows me a recovery score. That's an indication of how
my nervous system was doing while sleeping, and it uses certain metrics like heart rate
variability. The difference in timing between heartbeats, resting heart rate and some other
factors to determine how recovered my body is the next morning. And the recovery can be
influenced by not only by a physical activity and exercise. Of course, if you're run down, if you
worked out a lot, then you might have a lower recovery because your body was
having difficulties, maybe recovering from that intense activity. But there are other factors like
stress, like diet alcohol consumption. There is a host of factors that can either positively or
negatively influence your recovery. And every morning WHOOP shows me a recovery score and
some of the core metrics behind it, so I roughly know how my body is doing and how my body is
trying to recover from the stressors of the previous day. The Apple Watch doesn't do it
at all. More importantly, and that's really how everything comes together in the WHOOP Strap.
The WHOOP Strap has a, well the WHOOP app offers a Journal. It's basically a huge database of
lifestyle choices and behaviors that I can give WHOOP feedback on.
So for example, I can tell WHOOP, yesterday I had two glasses of alcohol and I stopped
drinking at 7:00 PM or I had a late meal, or I supplemented with magnesium or I, you know,
there was a huge list of those activities that I can choose from and I can choose to answer
every morning and WHOOP then correlates those answers those lifestyle choices with changes in
my sleep quality and in my recovery score. So at the end of the month, I get a performance
assessment where WHOOP tells me, Hey, every time you drink, your recovery score goes down by 10
points and you have less deep sleep, for example. Or every time you intermittently fast, then your
recovery score goes up, et cetera, et cetera. So it really helps me to make changes to my
lifestyle and to make different choices with the goal of improving my quality of sleep, as well
as my recovery, the Apple Watch doesn't do any of that. In terms of battery life, there's also
a huge difference, obviously because the WHOOP doesn't have any screen and nothing to power.
So the battery lasts for five days. What's really cool about the WHOOP Strap is that it don't have
to take it off to charge. So I can slide on a battery pack like so, and it charges my WHOOP
Strap takes about one and a half hours or so then I can take off. And I can charge the battery pack,
which is waterproof using a USB-C cable. So I never have to take the strap off and it
never runs out of battery if I continue, you know, sliding it on and then charging the battery pack.
The Apple Watch, on the other hand, I made it a habit to charge it every night.
That's also one of the reasons why it wouldn't be a good sleep tracker for me.
Yes, Apple has made significant improvements, so the charging time, so think at 15-minute charge
gives you a couple of hours, more of battery life. So that works really well. But the fact is that
you have to charge the Apple Watch every 18 hours or so, and you have to take it off for that.
So you have to remember that to take it off, charge it, and put it back on.
In terms of pricing, the Apple Watch, you buy, you pay one time, depending on the model you like,
the size, if you want the cellular connectivity or not, you pick the one, you pay a couple of
hundred dollars and the Apple Watch is yours. There is no additional fees. WHOOP on the other
hand goes a slightly different route. You don't buy the hardware, you sign up for a subscription
and you can do that either on a monthly basis, you can do it for six months,
12 months, 18 months, et cetera. In based on how long you want to commit, you pay a monthly fee.
The fee goes down the longer you commit. I also have a discount code down below,
or a discount link, I should say. So check that out. If you do that, you get $30 off that
helps you that helps me. But it's a subscription model at the end of today. Some people like it,
some people don't like it. I do like it because WHOOP constantly improves the platform.
So they add features. They add firmware updates where you suddenly get new features,
they unlock new stuff. The app constantly improves, the WHOOP Journal improves,
et cetera. So you always get value for the membership fee that you're paying, and also
when WHOOP releases a new strap, like the recently did with the WHOOP Strap 4.0, as long as you have
at least six months left on your membership. You get the new hardware free of charge. So there
are again, pros and cons, not everyone likes it. I do, but it's ultimately a personal choice. Now,
ultimately, the reason why I decide to wear both is because I need a timekeeper. And I really
liked the Apple Watch as a timekeeper. I like it as my notification center.
I can use it to communicate. I can open the garage, turn off the lights, et cetera, all
of those things. I really liked that. I also liked the fact that I can easily start and stop.
But the WHOOP Strap I wear for everything that's important to me, as far as improving
my performance, recovery, and sleep. And by that, I don't necessarily mean
my physical performance because I'm not a professional athlete. I don't get paid to
perform. I just want to perform as a human mentally, as well as physically. I want to
be the best possible version of myself. And WHOOP helps me to unlock the secrets of my body
is trying to tell me so it can tell me you know, if you do certain things, then
your sleep is negatively impacted, et cetera. So I can take those. It can take that information
into account to help improve my overall life and performance as a result, and that's why
I wear both. I like both. I've been wearing the WHOOP Strap since 2019, the Apple Watch.
I think I got since series one, really, so a couple of years already I'll continue wearing
them. I liked that there is now a integration between those two via Health Kit. So WHOOP
has finally made that feature available. And with that, we're going to wrap it up again,
if you want to know more information exactly about those differences and all the technical details,
check out my blog posts, but if you liked this video, give it a thumbs up.
If you didn't like it, let me know in the comments what I could have done better. Until next time.