Whoop Review you as well as Garmin Cirqa review revealed how each of these products is doing. But it's time to see how they stand up head to head. What is the main difference between Whoop and Garmin Cirqa and is it worth paying €399 per year for it compared to the one-time price of Garmin Cirqa, which is €199? We will discuss all this in the following lines, where we will compare especially my own experiences. While I have been wearing Whoop for almost a year, I got Garmin Cirqa for comparison a few weeks ago and since then until today I have been wearing both bracelets to find out what each brings and what it lacks.
What you see at first glance is of course the design. It must be admitted that the body of the device itself is simply made of cheap plastic in the case of Garmin and does not give a premium impression. In contrast, the Whoop looks much more precise and also of better quality. On the other hand, however, you practically cannot see the body itself, or rather what measures your values, because in the case of both the Whoop and the Garmin Cirqa, the device is completely hidden under the bracelet. While Garmin only offers textile sports bracelets, in the case of the Whoop, wearing it has literally become a piece of jewelry and there are sports bracelets available, such as the one I have, rubber ones, and even all-metal ones. There are also a number of third-party manufacturers who can even embellish your Whoop with real gold and the like. The Whoop is shorter, but it is a little taller than the Cirqa, so it depends on you what suits you better. I have a relatively thin wrist and the Whoop fits me better, but the Cirqa isn't bad on the wrist at all and doesn't restrict you in any way, it just feels a little more massive.
Garmin Cirqa has a huge advantage in the form of a button on the side, which you can use to notify the bracelet that you are going to do some activity. Both bracelets should recognize this automatically, but in the case of Whoop, for example, it cannot recognize swimming, and since I don't bring my phone to the pool, I have no way to notify it, so I simply miss this activity and have to manually add it to the so-called Whoop Journal. In the case of Garmin, you just need to press the button and the activity starts to be recorded. So in this respect, Garmin definitely has the upper hand, but on the other hand, I have to say that the only time when automatic activity detection doesn't work reliably for me is when I'm swimming, otherwise Whoop always knows what I'm doing.
Gallery
Quite honestly, I have to say that Whoop is a much sexier affair than Garmin Cirqa, both on the wrist and within the interface of the application itself. However, whether being sexy is worth paying €399 per year is up to everyone to decide. As for data collection, the only thing that Whoop can measure in addition, and only in the best version, that is, in the €399 version that you get the Whoop MG bracelet, is ECG and within the algorithmic estimates, also pressure, but as we already mentioned in the previous article, it is just I wouldn't rely too much on the blood pressure measured by a smart bracelet.. In terms of appearance, Garmin is completely incomparable to Whoop, but on the other hand, in the case of Garmin Cirqa, you pay €199 for the device and that's it, you don't pay a single cent extra until you destroy it. In the case of Whoop, you pay €399 every year for the bracelet to measure your data. Although, if Whoop releases a new version of the bracelet, they will replace your current one for free with a newer one, but in this case, the bracelet is actually free, you pay for a Whoop membership and, hand on heart, Garmin Cirqa will definitely last you four years before its battery doesn't last even a day, and during that time you will pay an incredible €2000 for a Whoop membership.
Whoop app
As for data collection, during the 14 days of wearing both bracelets simultaneously, I had data that measured only miniminor differences that are practically negligible. The interpretation of the data is that while Garmin only shows you the so-called Body metric Battery and that's all, so in the case of Whoop you get recommendations from an AI coach and thanks to Whoop Journal you can add notes to your days. Whoop will tell you around 17:00 PM how much stress you had today, what your performance was and how best to spend the evening, then it will notify you around 21:30 PM when it would be a good time to go to bed and whether you can get up earlier in the morning or sleep a little longer to feel your best. In short, Garmin is still primarily for athletes who, for whatever reason, do not want to do sports or hiking with a watch, but with a smart bracelet without a display. In short, you collect data about your body and the activities you do, but they lack a bit of context. In the case of Whoop, you can much better deal with things like what influence it has when you had coffee during the day, what you ate, what supplements you used and much more. In short, if you are a biohacker or someone who deals with longevity, Whoop is definitely a more interesting solution. If you are an athlete who does not want to be disturbed during sports and wants to measure activities and performance, then Garmin Cirqa is a better solution for you.
Garmin app
As you can probably guess, I will continue to use Whoop, on the other hand, the price I pay for it annually is quite scary to me in the context of the fact that I will be using it for the next few years. Maybe Garmin will force Whoop to lower the subscription price or force it to come up with some fundamental innovation that will allow it to run miles ahead. Practically, what I like most about Orpavd is the whole design and how sexy Whoop is compared to Garmin Cirqa, but of course that is just a matter of perspective and someone may like Garmin more. The advantage of Whoop is also wireless charging, when you click on the bracelet wirelessly battery pack and thanks to this, I haven't taken the bracelet off my wrist once in a year. When charging the Garmin Cirqa, you must use a classic charging cableonewho and the bracelet to take off for those few dozen minutes of charging.
