Whoop bows to pressure and adds most basic fitness tracking feature

The Whoop fitness tracker might be designed for serious athletes tracking the relationship between strain and recovery, but even the peak performers get a little curious about their step count every now and again.

Whoop has long resisted calls to introduce perhaps the most basic fitness tracking data for years now, but the CEO has finally relented, despite his previous personal aversion to the metric.

In a post on X, Whoop founder and CEO Will Ahmed said he’d changed his mind on adding steps to to the vast array of heart-rate based data already captured by the subscription Whoop 4 proposition.

Ahmed said he’d come around to research showing a high step count can lower obesity and disease risk. He said members wanted it, there’s no reason why it can’t be offered, and that some members were doubling up wearables just to check steps.

He called the latter “a lousy member experience.” Thankfully, that experience has been consigned to the past because steps are now available to Whoop users in beta, with further updates to come.

The Whoop Strap 4.0 offers one of the most inventive approaches to athletic performance and recovery. It offers metrics like skin temperature, blood oxygen, respiratory rate, sleep tracking and loads more.

It offers great activity tracking, has a slim form factor with no distracting screen and is swim proof too. Now it’ll also count your steps!

Whoop has been around for a number of years now is regarded as one of the most comprehensive and unique solutions on the block. The company made mainstream news in the summer when it published Cristiano Ronaldo’s heart rate data during the Euros.