Hi, I’ve been a Peak member since last May, and my initial experience with the Whoop band was very positive. When I started I was in a decent place with my fitness anyway, but I had a sense I needed a bit more focus on cardio, and the feedback from the band helped me increase my Vo2 Max by several points (with a noticeable increase in daily energy). I also used it to improve my sleep; again, I wasn’t in a particularly bad place with this, but the band definitely help me optimize it. So overall I was very happy with it.
My experience has turned much more negative since the latest push of the AI/LLM-enabled Whoop Coach. (I have a sense that this push has been since mid/late December 2025.) Around this time, I think the Coach icon became larger, and the bug as detailed here is a real problem. The bigger frustration, however, is that it has become much more intrusive, in that it automatically analyzes workouts without being prompted to do so. This is simply not acceptable- Use of AI/LLMs needs to be under the control of the user. Also, the ‘Analyzing…’ icon covers over the Key Statistics section when doing so. Again, this is incredibly annoying; when I finish a workout I just need to do a quick scan of the main details, and then get on with my day. The icon ‘owns’ the bottom of the screen and is a pain to get rid of. (I’ve added a screenshot of a quick rowing workout below as an example of what I’m talking about.)
Note that I have no problem with the roll-out of ML/LLM-based analysis tools. Before the latest roll-out I used the Coach to analyze several factors related to my recovery in particular, and found it useful. I also think that at a time when LLMs are proving ineffective in many applications, analyzing wearable data is something that such tools could actually be very good at (as they are working with a fairly small data set of very specific user data). So I have no problem with the LLM-based Coach per se, it is more that I believe the user should have full control over it.
I appreciate also that many people will be happy with the auto-analysis feature. That’s fine, but at least give users the option to turn it off or limit it in some way.
My subscription is up in May, and at the moment I don’t think I’ll be renewing it. The irony is that I chose the Whoop band because I didn’t want the intrusion/distraction of a watch-based fitness tracker, but the latest AI push has completely negated that.
Regards,
DM.