u/gumgum_bazuka

I still have about six months left on my WHOOP membership, so I decided to test the Fitbit Air before making the switch completely.

Unfortunately, I found the Google Health app to be quite unreliable, especially when it comes to HRV and some of the other health metrics. After doing some research, I came across the Bevel app, and even its free tier works incredibly well with the Fitbit Air. They officially support it too!

The cherry on top is that the UI feels very similar to WHOOP. So, if you are an iPhone user thinking about moving away from WHOOP, this combination feels like a no-brainer.

I am going to test both side by side for the next couple of months before sharing a more detailed comparison and my final thoughts.

I have been getting bombarded with ads from multiple Fitbit Air resellers, with prices ranging from ₹14.5K to ₹16K. Most resellers have now dropped below the ₹15K mark, which is a strong indication that the official India launch is just around the corner, most likely alongside the new Pixel devices.

I usually order my Blue Tokai Silver Oak every week from Swiggy (not Instamart) because my nearby cafe always has freshly roasted, perfectly aged beans in stock. Today I was surprised to see that only the 75g sample pack was available. Since Silver Oak is my go-to evening milk drink, I ordered two 75g packs for ₹161 each.

To my surprise, they accidentally sent me two 250g packs instead.

I immediately called the cafe and asked them to send me a QR code so I could pay the difference. They told me they couldn't interfere with third-party platform orders and asked me to raise it with Swiggy instead. Since I have Swiggy Black, I chose the priority support option because I didn't want the cafe staff getting into trouble while closing their books.

The weird part was the chat agent, which I'm pretty sure was AI. It said they tried arranging a replacement, but the restaurant wasn't accepting it. Then, without asking me anything, it offered me a ₹300 refund as an apology.

My brain just froze. I said no to the refund and closed the chat.

A few minutes later, a Swiggy support agent called me and kept insisting that I accept the refund. I explained the whole situation. In the end, they said that as a goodwill gesture I could keep the order and they wouldn't process any refund.

I just asked them to make sure the cafe wasn't taking the hit for it, but their response didn't exactly inspire confidence.

So yeah... I guess this is what it feels like to be God's favorite child. 🤣

​

If you are planning to buy a PS5, do not sit on it for too long. The closer we get to launch, the more people will start hunting for consoles.

​

Sounds ridiculous, but a used console for ₹57k might end up looking like a pretty good deal in a few months.

What I changed: dropped "no subscription" everywhere, swapped the "$30/month / paperweight" opener for an ownership/privacy one, reframed the "Vs WHOOP" digs about membership/cancelling/paywalled tiers into ones about their cloud vs your device (capability/privacy is fine, business-model jabs are the risk), reworded the funding + "why anonymous" lines off "free alternative to a subscription," and added a one-line disclaimer at the end as cover.

Title: No cloud, no account, no import. NOOP is out now, Mac + Android, open source. It computes your recovery, strain and sleep on-device, straight from a WHOOP strap. Full feature list inside.

Body:

Follow-up to yesterday. Two big criticisms last time: "it's just viewing your export" and "vapourware, open source it." Both dead now.

It reads your strap and scores you, live, on your own machine. Pair a WHOOP 4 or 5 over Bluetooth and NOOP computes your recovery, strain and sleep itself, from the strap's own data. No WHOOP account. No cloud. No import required. And the whole thing is open source:

github.com/NoopApp/noop has the Mac app and Android APK under Releases, with all the source.

(People said the last post read like ChatGPT. Wrote this one myself, so excuse the rough edges.)

I built it for one reason: to read my own data, off a strap I own, on a machine I control, without it living in someone else's cloud. That's the whole idea.

It needs a few nights, same as WHOOP

Because it scores on your device instead of in a cloud, it has to learn you first:

• Live heart rate the second the strap connects.
• Strain and sleep after you've worn it and it's synced. The strap holds about 14 days and offloads on its own.
• Recovery needs a few nights to learn your baseline, then sharpens nightly. WHOOP makes you wait for the exact same reason.
• In a hurry? Import your WHOOP export and your whole history fills in about a minute.

Read this before you pile in

It's an enthusiast project, not a polished product with a support desk. I build in public and move fast, so expect bugs and breakage, especially on Android which is newer. That's not an apology, it's how software gets made. You ship, you break stuff, you fix it. You'll need to be fine sideloading an APK or right-clicking to open an unsigned Mac app. Want bulletproof? Bookmark it, come back in a few months. Not technical and just want it to work the second you tap it? It is not for you yet, and that's fine. The way to help is at the bottom.

And yes, my recovery and strain are my own maths, not WHOOP's secret formula. Computed on your device from published methods, and it's all open for you to read. They track well but they're approximations. Run them next to your WHOOP and judge for yourself.

Everything it does

Talks straight to the strap

• Pairs with WHOOP 4.0 and 5.0 / MG over Bluetooth, no app, no login, no account
• Real-time heart rate, smoothed and spike-filtered
• Live R-R intervals and live HRV
• SpO2, skin temperature, respiratory rate, accelerometer and gravity
• Battery, charging state, wrist on/off and double-tap events
• Pulls the strap's onboard ~14 days of history automatically, in the background

Vs WHOOP: their app sends everything to their servers. This just reads hardware you already own and keeps it local.

Scores you on-device, no cloud, no import

• Recovery, a 0 to 100 score, HRV-led against your own baseline
• Day strain on the 0 to 21 scale
• Sleep with a full hypnogram: wake, light, deep and REM, plus efficiency, performance, consistency, debt, latency and disturbances
• HRV as RMSSD and SDNN
• Resting heart rate and respiratory rate
• Stress and autonomic-load monitor
• Health monitor across all your biometrics
• Auto-detected workouts with strain, heart-rate zones and calories
• Illness early-warning that flags the classic signature: resting HR up, HRV down, skin temp up

Vs WHOOP: their numbers live on their servers. Yours are computed locally, in a file you keep, with the maths in the open.

Bring your whole history in

• WHOOP data export (.zip): years of recovery, strain, sleep, workouts and journal
• Apple Health export: HR, HRV, sleep, SpO2, steps, energy, VO2 max, weight, body fat
• Android Health Connect: pull native Android health data, no file needed
• It cross-references every source instead of siloing them
• Export and import your entire NOOP database as one file to move between machines

Vs WHOOP: try getting your raw data out of theirs and into a tool you control.

Actually interrogate your data

• Metric Explorer: drill any metric across week, month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year and all-time
• Compare: overlay anything against anything, recovery vs sleep vs weight vs strain
• Behaviour insights from your journal, like recovery 12% lower on days you logged alcohol
• Lagged correlations, today's strain vs tomorrow's recovery
• Month-vs-month deltas, distributions, and a year heat-grid
• Hover any point on any chart for the exact value

Vs WHOOP: here you can ask your own questions, all the way back, on your own machine.

Haptics, coaching and automation (things the official app doesn't do)

• HRV breathing: the strap buzzes to pace your breath while your HRV responds live, with Relax, Coherence and Box presets
• A silent haptic HIIT interval timer that buzzes every transition so you train without a screen
• HR-zone haptic coaching, the strap tells you to ease off or push
• An experimental resting-stress nudge that taps you when you need to breathe
• Smart alarm that arms the strap's own firmware alarm, so it still buzzes you awake even if your Mac is asleep or NOOP is closed, with an optional light-sleep wake window
• (Mac) double-tap the strap to lock your Mac, run any macOS Shortcut, mark a moment, or buzz back
• (Mac) auto-lock your Mac the moment you take the strap off, run a Shortcut when you put it on
• (Mac) relay your phone and Mac notifications to the strap as buzzes, calls, messages, emails, per app, with quiet hours and only-when-worn
• (Mac) live heart rate right in your menu bar

Vs WHOOP: none of this is in their app. The strap can already do all of it; this is just software that asks it to.

Your own AI coach, optional

• Plug in your own OpenAI or Anthropic key
• With your permission it reads your actual data and coaches you on it, properly, not a canned chatbot
• Off by default, never required, never phones home otherwise

Built right

• 100% offline, the only thing that ever touches the network is the AI coach with your own key
• No account, nothing locked
• Dark, instrument-grade dashboard that pulls everything onto one home screen
• Onboarding and pairing wizard
• Open source, top to bottom

What's different from the WHOOP app

• Fully offline. Your most personal data never leaves your device.
• It scores you from the strap itself, on your machine, not in their cloud.
• You own the database. Plain file, export and back it up whenever.
• Unlimited local history and real interrogation.
• It runs on a Mac. They don't make one.
• Haptics, automation and notifications the official app doesn't have.

Platforms

• Mac: the most complete build. Pairs, offloads, scores, solid day to day.
• Android: full app, scores on-device too, sideload the APK (Android 8+). Newer, so rougher.
• iOS: the engine is already iOS-ready, the app follows. No waitlist, just watch the repo.
• There's also a demo build with sample data baked in if you want a look without a strap.

Helping out, because I'm asking straight

Self-funded, real money and a lot of late nights, and it's barely two weeks old. It only gets better if I can justify the hours. So if it's useful to you and you want Windows, more straps (Garmin, Oura, Polar), tunable models, all of it, throw a bit of crypto at it. It's the only way to chip in, because I keep this anonymous. Completely optional, nothing is ever locked, but honestly even a few quid keeps me building.

• BTC: bc1qn2gkl7wslwpws06mvazjn2uu689zlkv7kg3kf5
• Cardano (ADA): addr1qxsju3y0mlke2h6h2g6qgnq4r3jstngtyjxs0nnp5zrv28zv8p5rgzruxyjz33j9k23pffta8z639e2snjdd4vcetfqsn4vwr3
• ETH: 0xd64D508b531c4b1297Ca4023C774e0E97aA67B7F
• XRP: rpvijHi2nVY9WWAJhojsAX5tJmHdmLtFhq
• SOL: GPXxzWJAMCQAabcghfrK7NNyKTWAFiD6UvasoHomvo6V

Why anonymous and why crypto: it's an independent interoperability project and I'd rather keep my name off it, so crypto is the only way to chip in, no name attached. It only ever talks to a strap you own and never anyone's servers, so I'm comfortable where I stand, I'd just rather not have my name on the end of a letter.

Massive credit again to my-whoop and goose for the reverse-engineering this is built on. Both credited in the repo.

Independent and unofficial, not affiliated with WHOOP. It reads data from a strap you own and contains no WHOOP coding or assets. Use it only with a device you own. Not a medical device, every number is an approximation.

I have already checked with most local retailers and resellers, but none of them currently have the Switch 1 version in stock.

I can arrange the porter. Bit urgent need it today.