Whoop knows, and users have been pointing it out for years, that the optical heart rate sensor struggles with activities like cycling, strength training, intervals, basically anything involving arms, sweat or movement. And still, in 2025, there is no way to connect a chest strap.
Not third party. Not your own. Just a complete refusal to accept external heart rate input.
Importing a workout? Sure. But heart rate data is ignored. You get the timestamp and activity type, but Whoop will happily calculate strain from a garbage heart rate curve instead of letting you submit something accurate.
What exactly is the plan here?
You already allow Whoop to broadcast its own heart rate data to other platforms. So clearly the hardware can communicate. But the one thing that would actually improve the core product, receiving better heart rate data, is apparently off limits.
If third party support is too messy, fine. Make your own strap. Put a Whoop logo on it. Charge premium. Just give users the ability to collect accurate data when your wrist sensor cannot deliver.
Or are we still pretending that the optical sensor is flawless and that feedback from thousands of cyclists and lifters is just noise?
Honestly it feels like data accuracy comes second to control.
Please fix this. Or at least acknowledge that it is a problem.
This is spot on. I believe this is one of the most important decisions that Whoop can make and implement right now. It will fundamentally change how beneficial this product is for those who participate in activities like you mentioned and beyond.
I’ve asked support about the consistent regular spike in heart rate riding downhill on my mountain bike. It’s consistently above my max heart rate when I’m hardly breathing hard. The answers are unsatisfying and they are unwilling to adjust for this and clean up the data, when they can obviously detect the activity type. I tried the recommended bicep strap, which is uncomfortable and doesn’t stay on, especially with short sleeves and brushy trails. A chest whoop strap would be a game-changer! If they did this, I might consider upgrading and renewing my Whoop rather than finally saying good-bye.
Even if Whoop has a chest strap, it still won’t reliably transmit data to a garmin watch, so you can see HR in real time. I’ve had this issue with my garmin 955, where Whoop 5 connection kept dropping, so I couldn’t see HR in real time, which is an issue if you are doing HR related workouts! Interestingly, Whoop 4 didn’t have this issue. Anyway, I’ve gone back to garmin HR strap for my activities. Much more reliable and accurate; and more importantly I can see real time HR. I still wear the Whoop (bicep band) just for recovery stats. But I do feel like a weird cyborg with two HR monitors.
Ugh, I’m glad I have not yet upgraded from Whoop 4. I do transmit the whoop data to my Garmin 1040 and it works for the most part. There was a time in the past when this didn’t work. Obviously there is a blind spot to Whoop product management about how we expect it to work in the real world, and therefore a lack of testing. I wouldn’t expect them to test with every known version of every Garmin, Wahoo, Karoo, etc. product out there, but they could at least keep a minimal matrix of “tested products” and publish it somewhere.
Yeah I’ve switched to Coros because of the integration with external monitors, simple as that. Until Whoop has its own chest strap or, the real win, until Whoop allows users to use an external device to track heart rate…it’s going to have true athletes that care about data leaving. Miss it, but honestly, love my Coros, so it’s not all bad.
I think it’s wishful thinking that Whoop will allow external chest strap connection. Developing a Whoop chest strap will not happen in my opinion. But let’s see
You have it straight. Also Whoop logic: “Take a GPS-tracked run with your Whoop to improve the precision of your VO2 Max estimate”. How do I do that - Whoop doesn’t have a GPS. “Easy, take your Whoop AND your giant mobile phone.” Seriously Whoop?
Indeed…with such a large—HUGE—segment of Whoop users being cyclists and triathletes it makes sense to offer a chest strap option. It’s ridiculous that even my indoor interval rides are so wildly off from what any chest strap will measure.
Bicep band? I get it, but I don’t like wearing a bicep band when I’m lifting weights, especially bicep curls or tricep dips, et cetera.
Dear Santa,
I’ve been really good this year. Could you please tell WHOOP to listen to the masses?
This is super unfortunate the refuse to address this. Will probably not renew my membership when it comes due. I can’t deal with the 40 bpm difference between my whoop and a chest strap