WHOOP 4.0: A New Elite Wearable
Wearable technology has become ubiquitous with health and fitness. Most athletes—as well as people who work out regularly—can be found with some sort of wearable, whether that be WHOOP, Apple Watch, or the countless other devices that are now on the market.
WHOOP is a pioneer in the wearable industry, as they continuously add new features and options for fitness tracking. WHOOP 4.0 is the newest iteration of their classic device and works seamlessly with the WHOOP app to provide live coverage of an assortment of fitness metrics. The company continues to innovate and provide users with new ways to keep track of their health and wellness.
Why Use Wearable Technology?
Wearable technologies (usually just called “wearables”) are electronic devices worn by users to collect, track, and analyze personal data. Most commonly, these devices are used for the purposes of fitness and health and are worn on the wrist, finger, or other inconspicuous locations.
Wearables can track a myriad of important health metrics, such as heart rate variability, calories burned, steps taken, sleep time, and much more. A few important metrics are discussed below.
Heart Rate Variability
Heart rate variability is an important fitness metric that WHOOP 4.0 can help you track. Heart rate measures the number of heartbeats per minute—simple enough. Heart rate variability (HRV) measures the change in time intervals between heartbeats. This is a distinctly different measurement that provides valuable insight into your body and how it’s operating.
HRV can help you determine how your body is functioning—it has ties to blood pressure, autonomic balance, gas exchange, and other important information about your insides. WHOOP 4.0 provides to-the-minute tracking of HRV, amongst other vital metrics.
Calorie Burning
Calorie counting is an important aspect of many nutrition plans, so it can be useful to know how many calories you are burning each day. To help with calorie tracking, WHOOP will first calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR), a measurement of your calorie needs based on height, weight, and gender. Then, by monitoring the changes in your heart rate, WHOOP 4.0 is able to provide your estimated calories burned throughout the day.
Recovery
WHOOP follows the maxim that “the more recovered you are, the more you can achieve.” By analyzing your HRV, resting heart rate, sleep, and breathing, WHOOP determines how ‘recovered’ you are, giving you a green, yellow, or red score, accordingly.
Strain
Strain is a WHOOP-exclusive metric that calculates the physical and mental exertion that you put your body through. By calculating your recovery from the previous day’s activities, WHOOP 4.0 can provide you a reasonable level of Strain that your body can handle that day—whether that be from exercise, work, or other stress-inducing activities.
So What’s New With WHOOP 4.0?
WHOOP 4.0 continues to provide the essential data that the wearable company is known for, while adding new features to the world of wearables. The WHOOP 4.0 features software and hardware upgrades that put it a cut above the competition.
Hardware and Software Upgrades
The new WHOOP adds four times the amount of photodiodes over the 3.0—in addition to five LEDs—all of which helps provide more accurate data and new metrics.
Ingenious engineering allows the WHOOP 4.0 to provide haptic feedback, even though the device’s small size might have traditionally prevented such a feature. Haptic feedback allows you to receive subtle alerts throughout the day, and the Sleep Coach features are further enhanced.
The WHOOP 4.0 is only two-thirds the size of its predecessor, taking up significantly less space on your wrist. Even with the size reduction, the battery can still last five days without charging.
Using the enhanced LEDs and pulse oximetry technology, WHOOP 4.0 can monitor blood oxygen levels (a feature usually reserved for finger wearables). Other sensors allow for skin temperature monitoring, providing a live look at how your temperature varies from the baseline throughout the day.
With the release of the 4.0, the WHOOP App can now provide even more detailed health and sleep monitoring. The WHOOP Health Monitor provides a live overview of vital physiological metrics—respiratory rate, blood oxygen, resting heart rate, HRV, and skin temp—all at one quick glance. You can opt to receive alerts as these metrics fall outside of baseline ranges.
A Better Night’s Sleep
The haptic feedback of WHOOP 4.0 allows the device to provide a more gentle way to wake up in the morning. Instead of the usual blaring alarm that practically scares you out of your slumber, WHOOP 4.0 provides gentle vibrations to ease you awake.
WHOOP also provides a horde of sleep data, including sleep efficiency, time in bed (vs. time actually spent sleeping), respiratory rate, and more. The data will give you an accurate picture of your sleep health, allowing you to make adjustments as needed. If you’re only averaging 5 hours of sleep, you will be able to see it plainly and alter your schedule accordingly. Or, maybe you’re having restless nights, waking up constantly—you will now have an accurate picture of just how much sleep you’re losing in the night.
WHOOP 4.0 Any-Wear
The size reduction has allowed WHOOP to integrate the technology into other accessories and articles of clothing, besides the typical watch-style usage. Each piece of WHOOP Body Any-Wear clothing provides a small pocket to hold the WHOOP 4.0. If a watch isn’t your style—or you just prefer to workout without one—you can opt for boxers, shorts, sports bras, and other articles of clothing that support the WHOOP device.
Whoop Pro: A New Membership Option
Using my promo link, you will receive a free WHOOP 4.0 device and one free month of membership. With the launch of the WHOOP 4.0, the company is also offering an upgraded Pro membership for an extra $12 month. This is completely optional but will provide subscribers with 20% off of items in their store, free shipping and returns on all purchases, early access to new products, and best of all: one free accessory item every three months. Each quarter, you can receive a free battery pack, Any Wear clothing, Pro gear, and more.
