Apple Watch vs Garmin vs Oura vs Whoop 5.0. Which is the best overall tracker?

For sleep, I have a RingConn. Looked at Oura, but I didn't want to have to get a monthly subscription. Does a great job tracking sleep (to the extent we believe any of the numbers - trends are more what I look for).

I use my Apple Watch for other fitness tracking, but I don't like to sleep with it on, hence the ring.

I've used Apple Watch, Garmin Fenix and Oura. They were all pretty much the same data.
The Oura 2 I had was nice enough but when the battery was dying it was hard to drop that money on something that really only did 1 thing and they were charging a subscription to get any real insights. The only real bonus is if you don't like wearing a watch to sleep, the ring doesn't feel like much.

Apple and Garmin are pretty similar. Just depends on what ecosystem you want the data in. I have an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and the battery life is enough to sleep in it. I generally just charge it when I'm in the shower or occasionally before I go to bed.

My Fenix battery lasted forever so that never even really entered my mind to charge it.

I would say, if you are comfortable sleeping with a watch, just use it.

Couple thoughts. About .02 worth.

For me it would be between Apple and garmin.

With that, two things I would consider :

1. If I want a tracker first and a smartwatch second I'd go garmin. If it's the reverse I'd go Apple.

2. Which ecosystem are you used to?

I've been in garmin system for years and I prefer the fitness over the smartwatch so unless something changes that's where I'll be for the foreseeable future.

I wear mechanical watches and don't want two watches, so that narrowed the options way down for me. I like my whoop and despite needing to pay to upgrade which isn't what they promised, I'm moving to the new whoop mg. Should get it this week and will see how it goes. I like having multiple ways to wear it (wrist, arm, other garments) and much longer battery life than an Apple Watch. Plus the haptic alarm is underrated for waking up in the morning.

I used to have Whoop, but WAY too expensive with the subscription.

When I got tired of how expensive Whoop was, I got the Garmin Quatix, which is the sailing version of the Garmin Fenix.

Absolutely love it. I get about 25-27 days out of one charge. I sleep in it every night, but sometimes I wear my mechanical watch during the day.

I really like all the apps and stuff that come with it, but I don't utilize it to its capacity. I track the hikes my son and I go on. I can load charts onto it for sailing, and if I had a nicer boat, I could control the boat's autopilot with it.

The coolest thing on it that I didn't even know it had is a flashlight. I use it every single day.

I think all the garmin fitness stuff is top notch. Highly recommended.

I have a garmin and my wife has a galaxy watch. Just like the above post if you want a smart watch get an apple or galaxy, if you want a fitness tracker then garmin is better.

Her sleep tracking doesn't seem to match how she feels. My garmin seems pretty accurate. It is interesting how alcohol really messes with sleep architecture and thus overall quality of sleep.

7yrplan said:

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Couple thoughts. About .02 worth.

For me it would be between Apple and garmin.

With that, two things I would consider :

1. If I want a tracker first and a smar****ch second I'd go garmin. If it's the reverse I'd go Apple.

2. Which ecosystem are you used to?

I've been in garmin system for years and I prefer the fitness over the smar****ch so unless something changes that's where I'll be for the foreseeable future.

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This. Have lived in both ecosystems extensively and this sums it up well.

However, I really wish the Oura rings or a like product would advance more for the fitness aspect. I have nice watches and I stopped wearing my Garmin because it's pointless to have nice watches if you don't wear them. I would love to have an inconspicuous fitness tracker like the Oura while being able to wear my nice watch. As it stands, I put my Garmin on just for when I work out which is annoying.

Edit: I have heard of Whoop. Looked that up sometime back. Too expensive and don't want something else on my wrist.

I have a few nice mechanical watches that I like to wear so I have always stayed away from smart watches. I would love someone to come up with a band I could put on my daily wear watches and the band has all tech in it.

AggieGunslinger said:

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I have a few nice mechanical watches that I like to wear so I have always stayed away from smart watches. I would love someone to come up with a band I could put on my daily wear watches and the band has all tech in it.

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I have four really nice watches and the Garmin. I used to wear a Whoop on my right wrist and my watch on my left. Now I wear my Garmin to sleep and physical activities.

Thoughts on Whoop?

OKCAG02 said:

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Thoughts on Whoop?

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Works well, but way over priced

I recently took a functional nutrition continuing ed course, I'm a physical therapist, and this topic came up specifically about tracking sleep. Most of these devices track movement/activity while sleeping, rather than sleep quality. Unfortunately, the course instructors were unable to make recs on any that accurately track sleep quality. So any sleep data you get is likely tracking movement while sleeping.

My sleep number bed actually does a good job of tracking my sleep. Whatever it is tracking works, if I string together multiple nights in a row with a sleep score over 85, I can really tell the difference.

I wear a whoop. You can't lie to it about how many drinks you've had. I will lie and say zero just to test it out and it's night & day as if I had not had a single drink. Crazy how much alcohol affects sleep & recovery.

That's honestly the biggest eye opener for me from whoop. Alcohol wrecks my recovery, and I feel every bit of it. Also, hard workouts really take my energy level down the next day.

REM sleep increases for me after hard workouts. I like toying with it to see what zones I hit in workouts. Even though I do CrossFit and push pretty hard, I spend minimal time in high zone 4 heart rate. I like using it for fun.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/06/garmin-monitor-review.html?fbclid=IwQ0xDSwLAQK9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHkSNKat77cWldaOQ-M6tZFaD04vvdE_teNxTdGe9pHItyPu85v3PQy3OU_D9_aem_LTNiqeXJBnjozWaXCA6qmw

Garmin introduces a sleep band.

My Platinum Amex just came out with an Oura credit of $200 and I'm interested in the Oura Ring 4. I already have a Fitbit Charge 6 and was wondering if the Oura would be worth $150? Would it be silly to both the ring and Fitbit?

what do you do with the data that you get from your FitBit? Do you see "I got X hours of sleep, great!" and move on? If so, the Oura probably isn't worth the $150 and then the subscription cost.

In my experience, once you know what gets you good sleep, the extra gadgets don't add much.

Those are good points. I already know I suck at sleeping, so if the Oura just does that better, it might not be worth purchasing. The Fitbit just encourages me to be more active, but I don't really do anything with the data.

Broke down and just got an Oura 4 after my wife got one and so far, I'm loving it. My Garmin is officially retired now. (I posted earlier that I had already retired it, but I kept going back to it.)

I love the more passive, wearing nature of the Oura and the app is superior to Garmin's. I'm flat out not going to wear a watch to bed so now having all of the sleep data baked into my data is very beneficial.

Both Garmin and Oura are data rich and have their pros and cons for both. If you are more of a hard-core athlete, then Garmin is still going to be better simply because you can dial into the weeds from a workout perspective. I no longer care about that deep of a dive into that particular data, so the Oura is way more compatible to me. The Oura is a much more holistic view of your health compared to Garmin, or at least how the data is presented.

The Oura does record activity better than I anticipated and since I use the Strong app to record the details of my strength workouts (i.e. exercises, reps, weight) which then feeds over to Apple Health>Oura then my Garmin watch is now truly defunct. Oura will automatically record aerobic activity.

The other really cool thing is that you can easily add Tags to your daily Timeline which then get incorporated to your overall metrics. It's damn slick.

Sleep number bed and Apple Watch. The watch tracks sleep and sleep level better, sleep number bed tracks HRV better. Happy with both.

Just ditched the Apple Watch for the Whoop with the free trial. I'm already missing way more texts and looking down at my watch for the time is driving me nuts. Not sure I'll be keeping it.

Had a whoop. It was OK. I found myself playing a game to make the data as bad as possible and still get the next workout in. As a sort of "I'm tough" badge of honor. So I dropped it. I use Garmin to collect workout data but I dont do anything with it other than tallying total miles for the year.

All of my workouts are "prescribed" by TriDot so getting them done in accordance with the plan is all I am after.

Loved my tridot workouts too.

Whoop doesn't seem that crazy expensive compared to my Apple ultra (with cellular). Might ditch the cell service plan as I'm usually always around my phone now.

The metrics on the whoop are great. I just wish it had a simple time option and another option to buzz when I get a text or call. It has the vibrating alarm so I would think it would be pretty easy.

TriDot owner is an Aggie.

YouBet said:

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Broke down and just got an Oura 4 after my wife got one and so far, I'm loving it. My Garmin is officially retired now. (I posted earlier that I had already retired it, but I kept going back to it.)

I love the more passive, wearing nature of the Oura and the app is superior to Garmin's. I'm flat out not going to wear a watch to bed so now having all of the sleep data baked into my data is very beneficial.

Both Garmin and Oura are data rich and have their pros and cons for both. If you are more of a hard-core athlete, then Garmin is still going to be better simply because you can dial into the weeds from a workout perspective. I no longer care about that deep of a dive into that particular data, so the Oura is way more compatible to me. The Oura is a much more holistic view of your health compared to Garmin, or at least how the data is presented.

The Oura does record activity better than I anticipated and since I use the Strong app to record the details of my strength workouts (i.e. exercises, reps, weight) which then feeds over to Apple Health>Oura then my Garmin watch is now truly defunct. Oura will automatically record aerobic activity.

The other really cool thing is that you can easily add Tags to your daily Timeline which then get incorporated to your overall metrics. It's damn slick.

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Only issue I have with oura, it'll last a year. On my third oura. Love it, but always get the insurance because at least for me, the battery will stop working after a year.

Can you provide more info about the insurance you use?

Pro Sandy said:

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YouBet said:

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Broke down and just got an Oura 4 after my wife got one and so far, I'm loving it. My Garmin is officially retired now. (I posted earlier that I had already retired it, but I kept going back to it.)

I love the more passive, wearing nature of the Oura and the app is superior to Garmin's. I'm flat out not going to wear a watch to bed so now having all of the sleep data baked into my data is very beneficial.

Both Garmin and Oura are data rich and have their pros and cons for both. If you are more of a hard-core athlete, then Garmin is still going to be better simply because you can dial into the weeds from a workout perspective. I no longer care about that deep of a dive into that particular data, so the Oura is way more compatible to me. The Oura is a much more holistic view of your health compared to Garmin, or at least how the data is presented.

The Oura does record activity better than I anticipated and since I use the Strong app to record the details of my strength workouts (i.e. exercises, reps, weight) which then feeds over to Apple Health>Oura then my Garmin watch is now truly defunct. Oura will automatically record aerobic activity.

The other really cool thing is that you can easily add Tags to your daily Timeline which then get incorporated to your overall metrics. It's damn slick.

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Only issue I have with oura, it'll last a year. On my third oura. Love it, but always get the insurance because at least for me, the battery will stop working after a year.

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Hmm, good to know. Unfortunately it looks like you have to do that at purchase.

BlueMiles said:

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Can you provide more info about the insurance you use?

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It is their Extended Protection Plan

https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/6546038435347-Extend-Protection-Plan-FAQs