WHOOP 5.0/MG Activity Tracker Review: data-heavy fitness band with a subscription catch

I’ve been using the WHOOP 5.0 with the 12‑month membership for a few weeks now, after coming from years of using Garmin and a couple of Fitbits. The pitch is simple: it tracks everything 24/7, crunches the numbers, and then tells you how hard to train and when to rest. In practice, it feels less like buying a gadget and more like signing up for a service that happens to come with a band.

The first thing that hit me is how different it is from a normal smartwatch or fitness watch. There’s no screen at all, no step count on your wrist, no notifications, nothing. It’s just a small sensor on a band. Basically you wear it and forget it, and you live inside the app. If you’re used to glancing at your wrist all day, this is a big change. For me it actually lowered the urge to obsess over numbers every 10 minutes, but it took a bit to get used to.

What WHOOP is really selling here is data and coaching: sleep scores, recovery scores, strain targets, VO2 max estimates, menstrual cycle insights, and a ton of habit tracking through their Journal. The app tries to tell you, “Today push harder,” or “Today back off,” based on your recovery. Sometimes it lined up with how I felt, sometimes it didn’t, but it did make me think more about sleep and stress instead of just steps and calories.

Overall, my first impression is: solid idea, pretty good execution, but you really have to be okay with paying a yearly fee and waiting a couple of weeks for the data to become useful. If you’re just looking for a cheap step counter or a watch with notifications, this is overkill and not the right product. If you like numbers and long-term tracking, then it starts to make more sense.

Let’s talk money, because that’s where WHOOP gets tricky. This package includes the WHOOP 5.0 device plus a 12‑month WHOOP One membership. After that first year, you’re looking at a recurring cost (around the $399/year range mentioned in one review, though prices can change). So you’re not just buying a tracker; you’re basically committing to a subscription to keep the thing useful. If you stop paying, the band is basically a useless bracelet.

Now, what do you get for that cost? Compared to a regular fitness band, WHOOP gives you more in-depth recovery, sleep, and habit correlation data. The Journal with 160+ behaviors, the Healthspan / fitness age, detailed HRV trends, strain guidance, and the AI coach — all of that is more advanced than what you get from a basic Fitbit. If you’re the kind of person who actually uses that information to adjust training, sleep, alcohol, caffeine, etc., then you can squeeze real value out of it. One reviewer who switched from Fitbit after 13 years felt it was worth the money because they actually changed habits based on the data.

On the other hand, if you just want steps, heart rate, and some sleep tracking, there are way cheaper options that you pay for once and then use for years. A midrange Garmin or Fitbit has no mandatory subscription and still gives you plenty of data. You won’t get the same style of recovery score or AI chat, but you also won’t have a yearly bill hanging over your head. For a lot of casual users, that’s a better deal.

So in terms of value, I’d say: good for data nerds and serious trainees who will actually use the insights, not great for casual users who just want basic tracking. The hardware alone is not worth the price; the membership and the ongoing software development are what you’re paying for. If you’re okay with that subscription model and you like digging into your health metrics, it can make sense. If the idea of paying every year for your fitness band annoys you, this will probably feel overpriced.

Design-wise, WHOOP 5.0 is as minimal as it gets. It’s basically a small black sensor clipped into a nylon strap, no buttons, no screen, no flashy branding. On the wrist it looks more like a simple bracelet than a tech gadget. For someone who doesn’t want a bright smartwatch screen in meetings or at night, that’s actually nice. People barely noticed I was wearing a tracker unless they already knew WHOOP.

The trade‑off is obvious though: no display means zero glanceable info. You can’t quickly check time, heart rate, or steps; you have to pull out your phone and open the app. Coming from a Garmin, I caught myself flicking my wrist for the first week and then remembering there’s nothing to look at. If you’re someone who likes live heart rate during workouts or seeing your splits on the wrist, this can be annoying. For me, for strength training and general daily life, it was fine. For running intervals, I kind of missed a real watch.

The actual hardware feels decent: the sensor is light, the clasp system is secure once you get used to it, and it sits low enough that it doesn’t catch on sleeves much. It’s ambidextrous, so you can wear it on either wrist or even use their body placement accessories (biceps, clothing, etc., not included here). The all‑black look is pretty neutral, but if you want something more fun you’ll need to buy extra bands, which are not cheap.

In practice, the design is clearly focused on 24/7 wear and recovery, not looks or smartwatch features. I’d call it “pretty solid but basic.” It gets the job done, doesn’t scream for attention, but you’re definitely paying more for the software than for this little black brick on a strap.

Battery life is honestly one of the best parts of the WHOOP 5.0. They claim 14+ days, and in my use I was getting around 12–14 days depending on how many workouts I logged and how often I synced. That’s still miles better than an Apple Watch and on par or better than many Garmins when you factor in 24/7 HR and sleep tracking. Not having to think about charging every couple of days is a big plus, especially since this thing is meant to stay on your wrist all the time.

The charging system is a bit different from most trackers. Instead of taking the device off and putting it on a dock, you slide a battery pack onto the band while you’re wearing it. The model here comes with the corded Basic Charger, which you plug in, charge up, and then clip onto the WHOOP. It charges while you go about your day. This is nice because you don’t lose data or break the “24/7” streak. The downside is it’s a bit awkward the first few times, and the charger is something else you can misplace.

One important detail: this package only includes the corded charger, not the waterproof Wireless PowerPack they mention as an optional add‑on. So if you imagined charging while in the shower or swimming, that’s another extra cost. Still, with 14 days of battery, you don’t really need to charge that often. I just clipped the charger on while I was working at my desk and forgot about it.

Overall, I’d say the battery story is very strong. Long life, simple top‑up, and you can truly keep it on almost all the time. If constant charging annoys you on other devices, WHOOP does a good job here. Just don’t lose that little charger brick, because it’s not a standard cable you can easily replace with something else you have lying around.

Comfort is where WHOOP does pretty well overall. The device is light (around 3.8 oz total with band) and after a couple of days I basically forgot it was there. No big watch case, no crown digging into the wrist, nothing like that. I wore it day and night, including in bed and during workouts, and it never really bothered me from a weight or bulk point of view.

The band itself is a nylon CoreKnit strap, and that’s where I’m a bit mixed. It’s soft and flexible, easy to tighten just enough for the optical sensor to read properly without cutting off circulation. For normal daily wear, it’s comfortable. But after showers or sweaty workouts, it stays wet longer than I’d like. One Amazon reviewer mentioned switching to a silicone band because they hated the damp feeling, and I get it. I didn’t hate it, but it’s not ideal either. If you train hard and sweat a lot, you’ll probably want to budget for a different strap material.

Sleeping with it was fine for me. Compared to sleeping with a chunky Garmin or Apple Watch, this is definitely less intrusive. No screen lighting up, no crown pressing on the side of your wrist. It just sits there and does its thing. I had no skin irritation, but to be fair I made a point to rinse under the band in the shower and move it a bit so sweat and soap didn’t get trapped.

Overall, I’d say comfort is good but band‑dependent. The sensor itself is easy to live with 24/7. The stock nylon band is okay but not perfect once it gets wet. If WHOOP included a silicone option in the box, I’d probably give this a higher score. As it is, it’s comfortable enough, but you may end up spending extra to make it feel just right.

Physically, the WHOOP 5.0 feels sturdy enough for daily life and workouts. I wore it in the shower, during runs, strength sessions, and general day-to-day stuff. No issues with water, no condensation under the sensor, and no obvious scratches or damage after a few weeks. The nylon band didn’t fray or loosen on me, and the clasp held tight even during pull‑ups and barbell work. It definitely feels like it’s meant to live on your wrist 24/7.

On the reliability side, my unit behaved fine: data kept syncing, sleep was recorded every night, and there were no random disconnects that lasted more than a few seconds. But reading through other reviews, there are some worrying cases. One person said their WHOOP worked well for three weeks and then just stopped tracking sleep. That completely broke their daily metrics, and it took them multiple support contacts and more than two weeks without a working unit, with no clear replacement date. For a paid membership product, that’s not great.

WHOOP advertises a lifetime warranty, which sounds reassuring, but in reality the experience will depend on how fast support handles your case. If you get a fast replacement, then fine, you’re covered. If you end up waiting weeks while still paying for a membership you can’t use properly, that’s a different story. So I’d say the hardware durability seems fine, but the overall reliability feels tied to their customer service, and that’s a bit of a gamble based on the mixed stories.

In short: the device itself seems tough enough for sports and daily wear, water is not an issue, and I didn’t manage to break it. But be aware there are enough reports of failures plus slow replacements that it’s something to keep in the back of your mind if you rely heavily on your tracker data.

On the performance side, WHOOP leans hard into 24/7 tracking and coaching. It constantly monitors heart rate, HRV, sleep, and activity strain. For me, the basic stuff like resting heart rate and general sleep duration lined up well with my Garmin and how I felt. The sleep auto‑detection was usually on point: it caught my bedtimes, wake times, and naps with decent accuracy. One night I fell asleep on the couch and it logged that too, which was actually useful to see how broken my sleep was.

The recovery score is the main number WHOOP pushes at you every morning. It combines HRV, resting heart rate, sleep duration/quality, and maybe some other metrics into a single color-coded score (green, yellow, red). On days after heavy training and short sleep, it usually dropped, which made sense. There were a few mornings where I felt fine but WHOOP said I was in the red, and I just ignored it and trained anyway. So I treat it as a useful hint, not a strict rule. Same with the strain goal: it gives you a target number for how hard to push that day. I liked using it as a rough guideline, especially for cardio days.

The AI coaching / WHOOP Coach is basically a chat-style helper that looks at your data and answers questions like “How much should I sleep tonight?” or “Why is my recovery low?” The answers were decent: nothing mind-blowing, but it pulled in my past few nights of sleep or recent strain and gave simple suggestions. Sometimes it felt like a smarter FAQ rather than a real coach, but for a quick explanation of “what did I do wrong yesterday,” it was handy.

On the downside, a few users have reported bugs and failures, like one review where the unit stopped tracking sleep after three weeks and support was slow with the replacement. I didn’t hit that issue, but it’s something to keep in mind. Also, a lot of the more interesting metrics take weeks to unlock, which feels slow. In short: performance is pretty solid overall, especially for recovery and stress focus, but don’t expect perfection or instant magic insights in the first few days.

Out of the box, the WHOOP 5.0 setup is pretty simple: you get the WHOOP 5.0 sensor, a CoreKnit band, a corded Basic Charger, and a 12‑month WHOOP One membership. No fancy extras, no extra bands, no charger dock — just the basics. The band comes pre‑attached, you snap the charger on, download the app, and you’re off. Took me around 10–15 minutes from opening the box to having it paired and on my wrist.

The app is really the core of the whole thing. Right after setup, it starts tracking heart rate, sleep, HRV, strain, etc., but some of the more “fun” metrics like WHOOP fitness age / Healthspan and more advanced VO2 max stuff don’t show up for a while. You need days to weeks of constant wear before those unlock. That delay is a bit frustrating if you’re impatient; you buy it, you want all the features now, not in two weeks. But I get why it needs data first.

In terms of what it tracks, it’s pretty packed: heart rate, HRV, sleep stages, menstrual cycle, VO2 max estimates, and your workouts (including weight training with sets/reps and muscular load). On top of that, the WHOOP Journal lets you log 160+ habits: things like alcohol, screen time before bed, caffeine, supplements, stress levels, etc. Then it spits out correlations like “when you drink coffee after 4 pm, your recovery drops by X%.” Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes it’s just interesting trivia.

Overall, the presentation is very app‑centric and data‑heavy. If you want a polished unboxing with lots of accessories, this isn’t that. But if you want something you slap on once and then mostly deal with on your phone, it fits that profile. Just be aware: the price is not really for the plastic band; it’s for the year of membership and the software behind it.