Latest news with #Whoop
Stuff.tv
4 days ago
- Health
- Stuff.tv
Here's how you can track sleep on your Garmin – without having to wear your Garmin
Ever yanked off your smartwatch in the middle of the night because it's uncomfortable on your wrist? I have, and typically prefer using a Whoop or smart ring instead. It's even more of a problem on larger pro watches like those from Garmin. But the fitness giant has decided to do something about it. Garmin just released the Index Sleep Monitor. It's a smart band you wear on your upper arm instead of your smartwatch. It does all the same sleep tracking, so you're not missing out on anything. Read more: Best Garmin watch in 2025 reviewed and rated This thing isn't trying to replace your Garmin smartwatch during the day – it's more like its sleep sidekick. The Index Sleep Monitor quietly gathers all the data your wristwatch misses when you chuck it on the bedside table. You wear this band to bed, wake up, and have all your REM cycles, breathing patterns, skin temperature fluctuations, and other metrics neatly synced up in the Garmin Connect app. It can even nudge you awake during lighter sleep with a 'smart wake alarm.' As someone who doesn't like wearing their smartwatch while sleeping, this is the first Garmin wearable in ages that I'd actually consider – if I had a Garmin watch, that is. It looks surprisingly unintrusive, sits on your upper arm, and looks a lot easier to wear. Garmin's even thought ahead and made the band machine washable, which is the kind of hygiene feature that should be standard. Naturally, it also tracks the usual suspects: heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, respiration, HRV, and stress levels. The sleep scores roll into Garmin's Body Battery system, which basically tells you how ready you are for the day. Temperature tracking can also play a role in estimating past ovulation and offering period predictions. If you fancy slapping this new device on your arm, the Garmin Index Sleep Monitor is available now. You can get it in small-medium and large-extra large sizes for $170/£150.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Health
- Bloomberg
Garmin Launches $170 Health-Tracking Arm Band for Wear During Sleep
Garmin Ltd. on Wednesday launched an arm band for wear during sleep that can track vital health metrics, stepping up competition with companies like Whoop Inc. and other emerging players. The company's $170 Index Sleep Monitor — a first for the fitness devices maker — is worn on the upper arm like a blood-pressure cuff and tracks blood oxygen saturation, heart rate variability, respiration rates, breathing patterns and skin temperature. It also provides sleep metrics like hours slept and data on different stages of sleep.
Tom's Guide
5 days ago
- Health
- Tom's Guide
Garmin launches first sleep-only tracker — a screenless lightweight armband for maximum nighttime comfort
The rumours are true. Garmin has unveiled a new sleep and health tracking armband, designed to help you get on top of your rest and recovery for peak physical performance. Instead of a watch, the new screenless sleep tracking device sits in a machine-washable band that fits comfortably around your upper arm. The tracker keeps tabs on your sleep stages, heart rate variability (HRV) status, blood oxygen saturation, breathing rate, skin temperature and overall sleep quality while you snooze and even vibrates come morning to wake you up peacefully, helping you feel refreshed rather than groggy. The Garmin Index Sleep Monitor will be a sleep-focussed add-on providing insight to your rest, recovery and body battery rather than a replacement for your everyday health tracker. Instead, it leaves the fitness tracking and mile-logging to the best Garmin watches. Release date: June 2025 Sizes: Two sizes (S-M and L-XL)Warranty: 2 years Price: $169.99 at Garmin The Garmin Sleep Monitor is a screenless device, much like the wrist-worn Whoop band. In terms of sleep tracking, the Garmin Index Sleep Monitor will offer similar insights to the best smart beds and mattresses you can buy online (namely, the Eight Sleep Pod and Sleep Number mattresses), but for a fraction of the price. These beds are built with world-class sleep tech that measures every aspect of your sleep and generally costs upwards of $1000. Meanwhile, the Garmin tracker packs these sensors into a compact arm band that cost $169.99/£149.99. 'We are thrilled to add the Index Sleep Monitor to our suite of innovative health and wellness products. Wearing this smart sleep band every night can provide in-depth sleep insights and a more complete picture of fitness and recovery so users can wake up ready to seize the day," says Susan Lyman, Garmin Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing. Garmin Index Sleep Monitor: $169.99/£149.99 at GarminLevel up your rest and recovery tracking with this new Garmin device focussed on sleep insights. It is available at $169.99/£149.99 MSRP and pairs with the Garmin Connect app for a holistic view of your health. The Garmin Index Sleep Monitor is available in two sizes (S-M and L-XL), which will both retail at $169.99/£149.99. This price includes the sleep monitor and light-weight band. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The cheapest Garmin watch (the Forerunner 55) retails at $149.99 /£179.99. For this extra $10 you can get a daytime health tracker alongside basic sleep tracking. But if you're looking for a device solely focussed on getting into the nitty gritty details of your sleep rather than daytime activities and steps etc, the Index Sleep Monitor is the one for you. This sleep tracker is the first of its kind from Garmin. The Index Sleep Monitor is its first product focussed purely on sleep quality and recovery. Therefore, we can only compare its price to sleep trackers from outside the brand. The most notable comparison is the Whoop 5.0 band released in May this year. Whoop operates a unique pricing system where, instead of paying for the sleep tracking device upfront, you pay an annual subscription starting at $199/£169 per year. Immediately, you can see the Garmin's one-off payment is less than a one year subscription, suggesting you're getting better value with the Garmin Index Sleep Monitor rather than the rival Whoop band. Though, a word of warning, Garmin has recently introduced a subscription fee putting AI-powered insights and an enhanced performance dashboard behind a paywall. However, existing features in the Garmin Connect app remain free and there's no indication that the new sleep monitor will require additional fees. Honing in on your sleep health, the new Garmin device gives you a personalized sleep score every morning based on sleep duration, sleep stages, stress levels and breathing rate. It features Garmin's well-loved Body Battery energy monitoring that helps you understand how well rested your body is, so you can decide whether to hit the gym hard or take it easy. Sensors in the band track your overnight respiration rate, breathing variations and HRV to help you understand how well your cardiovascular system functions while you rest. These metrics give an indication of stress levels and how restorative your sleep has been. It also measures changes in your skin temperature which can potentially indicate illness. This measurement can also help women stay on top of their menstrual cycle, providing period predictions and ovulation estimates and helping them track energy levels in line with menstrual stages. Another impressive feature of the Index Sleep Monitor is the smart wake alarm. The device identifies when you are in a lighter phase of sleep around your desired wake up time and gently vibrates to wake you up, making for a more gradual, smooth transition from sleep to wakefulness, helping you get over sleep inertia. If you don't own a separate Garmin smartwatch, the Index Sleep Monitor directly syncs your sleep data to the Garmin Connect app. If you're a Garmin watch-wearer, the smart band sends your sleep metrics to your watch and Garmin app, giving you a more comprehensive view of your fatigue levels and health, straight to your wrist. Garmin is the brand behind five out of 10 of the best running watches we've tested this year. So, they clearly know what they're doing when it comes to helping runners make and track, progress. But can they succeed in the sleep industry too? We'll report back with a full Index Sleep Monitor review.
Tom's Guide
5 days ago
- Tom's Guide
Whoop rivals are coming — Polar launches subscription-free band as Garmin hints at new sleep tracker on Instagram
For years the best smartwatches have focused on providing bigger and brighter screens, but right now the trend seems to be ditching the display entirely. Whoop has long set the pace for screen-free fitness trackers and launched its latest Whoop 5.0 device in May, and now Polar has announced its first screenless wrist wearable will come out on 3 September. Meanwhile, rumors of a Garmin Whoop rival have circulated for months and the brand added fuel to that fire with an Instagram story on 17 June that suggested a new sleep tracker is set to launch soon. Polar hasn't given many details about its new wearable device, but it did confirm that it will be a subscription-free alternative to other trackers. That sounds like a reference to Whoop and its subscription-based model, but until Polar announces the pricing of its new band it's impossible to say whether it offers better value for money. The band is designed to be worn at all times, tracking activity and workouts alongside your sleep, and Polar suggests it will be lighter and less intrusive than having a watch on your wrist. 'Our users have been asking for a new kind of wearable,' Sander Werring, CEO at Polar. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. 'One that puts them in control of their health and fitness right out of the box, without the distractions of screens or the pressure of constant notifications.' Other details are thin on the ground, but Polar did launch the Polar 360 screenless band last year. It's designed for business-use only, but could give an idea as to what the new consumer tracker could look like, with a simple black band and an optical heart rate sensor. Rumors suggesting a screen-free Garmin device is coming have gathered pace in recent weeks, and Garmin poured fuel on that fire with an Instagram story on its main account yesterday. This showed a woman in bed with the caption 'how did you sleep? Find out soon'. No further info on the tracker has been released yet, but it would be somewhat ironic for a screenless tracker to arrive hot on the heels of the Garmin Venu X1 watch, which features Garmin's biggest AMOLED display yet. The focus on sleep in Garmin's story suggests that the new tracker could be designed to be used alongside a Garmin watch, which you'd wear in the day and could sync the sleep tracking over to. Fitness tech blog the5krunner has reported on unreleased Garmin devices in the past and claims the new band will launch in July or August. The appeal of a screenless product is simplicity and style. If you don't want another distracting screen in your life but do want to track your activity and sleep stats, a screen-free band is a great alternative to the best fitness trackers, and you can wear it alongside more traditional jewelry and watches. However, for screenless products to be a success, the partner app has to be exceptionally good, which they are for Whoop and indeed the best smart rings like the Oura Ring 4. These apps provide clear info in an engaging way. I've been testing Polar and Garmin watches for years and while I'm a fan of both as a keen runner, I'd say their apps will need some work to deliver the same experience as Whoop or Oura. Garmin Connect and Polar Flow are both very heavy on data, which is good, but that data is not always clearly presented, especially for the more casual fitness audience that might use a Whoop-style product over a traditional sports watch. Whether the new products can unseat Whoop as the top screenless band will depend on getting the presentation of data right, though price will be the key factor. The cheapest tier for using Whoop costs $199 a year, so Garmin and Polar may look to rival that figure with the price of a subscription-free band.
Business Insider
7 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
'30 Days of GPT': How a Whoop product leader ingrained AI in her team
Most tech leaders promote AI adoption through training sessions or performance metrics. A product leader at Whoop is more focused on creating habits. Hilary Gridley, the head of core product at the wearables company, said on an episode of "Lenny's Podcast" published Sunday that her goal is to make AI feel like a natural part of daily work, not a mandate. To do that, she relies on a three-part framework: consistency, friction reduction, and a strong reward loop. Consistency means building an everyday relationship with AI — and that starts small, said Gridley. "It has to start super easy. You have to give them things that take no more than a minute or two to do," she said. To help her team form the habit, she created "30 Days of GPT" — a list of daily micro-tasks designed to ingrain AI use. The list begins with simple prompts, like uploading your calendar into ChatGPT and asking for meeting talking points. It eventually moves into more complex tasks like "reverse-engineer prompts to make LLMs think like you." Grindley said she avoids frontloading real, complex work into the process. She's focused on forming habits, not on education. "Work is hard," she said. "I start with things that are just fun, simple use cases." "I don't know anyone who has gone through this and not come out the other side feeling a hundred times more confident in their skills," she added. Create a reward loop Another key to her strategy is designing a reward loop — a crucial but often overlooked part of behavior change. It needs to be powerful, immediate, and emotional, Gridley said. "When this person does the thing that you want them to do, they feel like a million bucks," she added. One way she makes that happen is through Custom GPTs. Team members can upload a document and get immediate feedback or an improved version — no advanced prompting needed. "They get the joy of, 'Oh, this helps me, this was cool' without any of the despair of, 'Oh, I'm not very good at prompting," she said. Gridley also said giving shout-outs in team meetings and encouraging demos when someone uses AI to solve a real problem are effective ways to recognize and reward adoption. "If I'm trying to build any kind of habit on my team," she said, "it's less about the accountability of how I'm enforcing this, and more about how I make it so rewarding for people to do it that they do it naturally." Gridley did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Her comments come as the corporate rush to adopt AI is shifting into high gear. More than three-quarters of business people surveyed by McKinsey said their companies used AI for at least one business task as of July 2024, up from 55% since late 2023, according to a March report. The consultancy surveyed nearly 1,500 participants online across various industries, company sizes, tenures, and regions, including 42% who said they work at organizations with over $500 million in annual revenue.
