Whoop has emerged as a top contender in the fitness tracker market, offering a unique blend of minimalist design and advanced health monitoring features. Unlike traditional fitness trackers, Whoop forgoes a display in favour of a more unobtrusive experience, appealing to both athletes and health-conscious individuals seeking detailed insights into their well-being.

Design and Build Quality
The Whoop band distinguishes itself with a minimalist and sleek design that prioritises functionality and comfort. Unlike traditional fitness trackers, the Whoop lacks a display, focusing instead on an unobtrusive experience.

The band is crafted from lightweight, durable materials, ensuring it can withstand daily wear and rigorous physical activities. Its minimalist design allows it to blend seamlessly with any outfit, making it suitable for both professional and casual settings. The clasp mechanism is secure and easy to adjust, providing a snug fit without causing discomfort. You can fully customise your Whoop device with up to 74,000 colour and material combinations.

Features
Whoop is packed with features designed to optimise your health and performance. Some of the key features include:

1. 24/7 Heart Rate Monitoring: Continuously tracks your heart rate to provide insights into your cardiovascular health.
2. Sleep Tracking: Analyses various sleep stages and provides a sleep score to help you understand your sleep quality.
3. Strain and Recovery Metrics: Calculates daily strain and recovery to help you balance activity and rest, optimizing performance.
4. Respiratory Rate Monitoring: Tracks your breathing rate during sleep, which can indicate overall health and detect abnormalities.
5. HRV Analysis: Heart rate variability (HRV) is monitored to provide insights into your autonomic nervous system and recovery.

Performance
Whoop’s performance is commendable, particularly in the accuracy of its health metrics. The continuous heart rate monitoring is precise, offering reliable data that can be used to guide training intensity. Sleep tracking is another strong suit of the Whoop band. It provides detailed insights into sleep stages, duration, and disturbances, which can be invaluable for improving sleep hygiene and overall health.

The strain and recovery metrics are especially useful for athletes and fitness enthusiasts. By balancing these two aspects, users can avoid overtraining and optimise their performance. The HRV analysis is another standout feature, offering a window into the body’s readiness and overall stress levels.

Health Tracking
In terms of health tracking, Whoop provides a comprehensive suite of metrics that go beyond basic step counting. It tracks heart rate, sleep, strain, recovery, and respiratory rate, offering a holistic view of your health. The detailed sleep analysis helps you understand your sleep patterns and make adjustments to improve sleep quality. The strain and recovery metrics guide you in managing your activity levels to prevent burnout and promote optimal performance. The HRV and respiratory rate monitoring add another layer of health insights, making Whoop a valuable tool for anyone serious about their health and fitness.

Whoop App
The Whoop app is where all the data comes to life. It is user-friendly and provides a wealth of information in a digestible format. The app offers personalised insights and recommendations based on your data, helping you make informed decisions about your health and fitness. The sleep and recovery insights are particularly detailed, providing actionable feedback to improve these critical areas.

The app features a customisable dashboard that allows you to prioritise and reorder the metrics that matter most to you. This includes daily strain, recovery, sleep performance, heart rate variability (HRV), and more. The overview screen provides a clear and concise view of your key metrics in one place.

The Whoop app offers detailed sleep analysis, tracking all four stages of sleep and monitoring wake events, efficiency, and respiratory rate. It provides a sleep score from 0 to 100% based on the sleep you get compared to the sleep your body needs. The Sleep Planner feature helps users determine the optimal time to go to bed to maximize performance the next day.

Whoop measures both physical and mental stress throughout the day to calculate a daily Strain score ranging from 0 to 21. The app also provides a Recovery score from 0 to 100%, based on HRV, resting heart rate, sleep, and respiratory rate. These metrics help you balance activity and rest to avoid overtraining and optimise performance.

The app includes a real-time stress score from 0 to 3, based on heart rate and HRV. It offers science-backed breathwork exercises to help manage stress, either by increasing alertness or promoting relaxation. You can also track stress trends over time to identify triggers and improve stress management.

Whoop allows you to track the impact of over 140 daily habits and behaviours, such as alcohol intake, medication, and stress. This helps users understand how these behaviours affect their health and performance. The WHOOP Coach feature uses AI to provide personalised answers to health and fitness questions based on your unique biometric data and performance science.

It also offers specific recommendations for training plans, recovery strategies, and more. The app also includes social features, allowing you to join teams and participate in challenges, adding a motivational and community aspect to the experience.

Pricing
Whoop operates on a subscription model, which is a departure from the traditional one-time purchase for fitness trackers. The initial subscription includes the Whoop band, and users continue to pay a monthly fee for access to the app and its insights. While the subscription model may be a deterrent for some, the continuous updates and personalised insights provided by Whoop justify the cost for many users. The subscription also includes access to a community of like-minded individuals, which can be a motivating factor.

Verdict
The Whoop band is a powerful tool for anyone serious about optimising their health and performance. Its minimalist design and focus on comfort make it suitable for continuous wear, while the comprehensive suite of features provides valuable insights into various aspects of health. The detailed and accurate health metrics, combined with the user-friendly app, make Whoop a standout choice in the crowded fitness tracker market.

While the subscription model may not be for everyone, the value provided by the continuous updates and personalised insights makes it a worthwhile investment for many. Whether you’re an athlete looking to optimise performance or someone seeking to improve overall health, Whoop offers a holistic solution that goes beyond the basics of fitness tracking.

Price: AED 919 (includes the band and an annual subscription)

The Weofly Active smartwatch carves a niche in the crowded wearables market by offering a feature set geared towards fitness enthusiasts at an attractive price point. But is it all sweat and no substance? This review offers a glimpse into the Weofly Active’s design, functionality, performance, and overall value to help you decide if it’s the right fit for your active lifestyle.

Design and Build Quality
The Weofly Active boasts a classic smartwatch design with a rectangular watch face and a silicone strap. While it won’t win any awards for groundbreaking aesthetics, it feels comfortable and lightweight on the wrist. The 1.85-inch TFT display offers decent clarity and brightness, making it readable even outdoors. However, some users might find the bezels a bit chunky compared to pricier options.

The watch itself feels reasonably sturdy. The plastic casing seems to hold up well to everyday wear and tear. The silicone strap is comfortable and comes in various colours, allowing for some level of personalisation. The strap feels secure with the clasp staying fastened even during strenuous workouts.

Features
The Weofly Active shines in its core functionality – fitness tracking. It boasts over 100 sports modes, catering to a wide range of activities, from running and cycling to swimming and yoga. During workouts, the watch tracks essential metrics such as heart rate, steps, distance, and calories burned. Thus, it provides a decent overview of your exercise performance.

The heart rate monitor offers continuous tracking throughout the day, allowing you to monitor your resting heart rate and gain insights into your overall fitness level. Sleep tracking is another key feature on the Weofly Active. It monitors your sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) and provides basic sleep quality data.

Beyond Fitness Tracking
The Weofly Active offers several additional features beyond fitness tracking. You can receive call and message notifications on your wrist, allowing you to stay connected without pulling out your phone constantly. However, responding to messages is not possible directly from the watch. The watch also includes basic weather information, music playback controls, and a remote camera shutter function. These features, while not groundbreaking, offer added convenience in everyday use.

Battery Life
The Weofly Active boasts a respectable battery life. Depending on usage, it can last anywhere from 5 to 7 days on a single charge. This makes it a good option for those who don’t want to worry about constantly recharging their smartwatch. The included magnetic charger provides a convenient charging solution, with a full charge taking approximately 2.5 hours.

App and User Interface
The Weofly Active pairs with your smartphone through the GloryFit app. The app is straightforward to navigate. It displays all your tracked data, allowing you to view historical trends and analyze your fitness progress. While the app isn’t the most feature-rich compared to some competitors, it provides all the essential functionalities for managing your smartwatch data. The watch itself uses a touchscreen interface for navigation. It’s responsive and easy to navigate, making it a breeze to access different features and settings.

The Weofly Active’s biggest selling point is its price. Compared to feature-packed smartwatches that can cost hundreds of dollars, the Weofly Active comes in at a much more affordable price range of $29.99. This makes it a compelling option for budget-conscious fitness enthusiasts who prioritize core features like step tracking, heart rate monitoring, and multiple sports modes.

Verdict
The Weofly Active smartwatch is a solid choice for fitness enthusiasts looking for a basic and affordable way to track their workouts and monitor their overall health. It offers a decent selection of fitness features, a comfortable design, and a respectable battery life, all at a price point that won’t break the bank.

Price: $29.99

Buy Now: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006995465292.html

Photography by Ryan Chris

The Huawei Watch Fit 3 is the latest entrant in the increasingly crowded fitness tracker market. Following the success of its predecessor, the Watch Fit 3 builds upon the core strengths of affordability, comfort, and design while introducing some notable upgrades.

Design and Comfort
The Watch Fit 3 retains the sleek rectangular form factor of the previous model, albeit with some design changes. On the right edge of the watch dial, you will find two buttons – a standard Function button and a rotating crown. It boasts a vibrant 1.82-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 408-by-408 pixels. You also get a pixel density of 347 PPI. The rectangular design offers good real estate for displaying data and notifications.

The display is bright, crisp, and easily readable even under direct sunlight. The included silicone strap feels comfortable and lightweight, making the watch suitable for all-day wear, including workouts and sleep tracking. The watch comes in a variety of vibrant colours and strap options, allowing you to personalise it to your heart’s content.

Features
The Watch Fit 3 offers a decent selection of smartwatch features. You can receive and view notifications from your phone, control music playback, and access weather information. It also comes packed with sensors such as a 9-axis IMU sensor (Accelerometer sensor, Gyroscope sensor, Magnetometer sensor), an optical heart rate sensor, and an ambient light sensor.

The watch runs on Huawei’s HarmonyOS 4.2.0 operating system. The overall user interface is very user-friendly and navigation is smooth. There are also a good number of pre-loaded watch faces to choose from, and the customisation options are good, too.

What’s more, the Watch Fit 3 is also 5 ATM water-resistant. This means the watch has a water resistance rating of 50 meters under ISO standard 22810:2010. So it can be used for shallow-water activities such as swimming in a pool or ocean. However, they should not be used for scuba diving, waterskiing, or other activities involving high-velocity water or submersion below shallow depths.

The Huawei Watch Fit 3 also offers Bluetooth calling features right from your wrist. Another highlight of the watch’s performance lies in its battery life. Huawei claims up to 10 days of typical use, and our experience aligns with this. This is a significant advantage over many smartwatches that require nightly charging.

Fitness Tracking and Health Monitoring
The Watch Fit 3 shines when it comes to fitness tracking. It boasts over 100 workout modes to keep your exercise routine fresh, and can automatically detect six common activities. Plus, the all-new Track Run mode uses built-in GPS to precisely measure your lap distances and map your running routes. The watch also offers continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, and SpO2 (blood oxygen) monitoring.

The Watch Fit 3 also comes with a high-performance PPG sensor, that sends timely alerts on potential A-fib and premature beat risks. There’s also an easy-to-use monthly calendar that lets you track your menstrual cycle and record physical changes from beginning to end. This insightful view helps you gain a deeper understanding of your body’s rhythms. Plus, you’ll receive helpful reminders about your upcoming period, ensuring you’re always prepared.

The accompanying Huawei Health app provides detailed insights into your fitness data, allowing you to track your progress over time. The app also offers guided workouts and training plans, which can be helpful for beginners or those looking for a structured exercise routine.

Verdict
The Huawei Watch Fit 3 delivers on its core strengths of affordability, comfort, and design. It boasts a vibrant display, a comfortable strap, and a lightweight design that makes it perfect for all-day wear. The 10-day battery life is a major selling point, putting it ahead of many competitors. The fitness tracking features are robust, covering a wide range of workout modes with accurate GPS tracking for outdoor activities. Sleep and SpO2 monitoring offer additional insights into overall health.

The Huawei Watch Fit 3 sits comfortably in the affordable fitness tracker segment, priced at AED 529. The Watch Fit 3 is available in a range of colour options, including Midnight Black, Nebula Pink, Green, White, Space Grey, and White (Leather). This competitive price point, coupled with its long battery life, comfortable design, and comprehensive fitness tracking features, makes the Watch Fit 3 a compelling option for budget-conscious fitness enthusiasts.

Price: AED 529

Photography by Ryan Chris