Latest / Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson / Apple Watch vs. Oura, Whoop, and Withings

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Apple Watch vs. Oura, Whoop, and Withings · Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson

• 0:04
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Hello everybody, I'm Dr. Terry Simpson and today
• 0:06
  we're going to talk about health wearables. Whoop.
• 0:09
  The Apple Watch, Withings devices,
• 0:12
  Aura and ultrahuman rings. Which one is
• 0:15
  actually worth your money and do they really improve your health or are they
• 0:18
  just expensive digital trophies?
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  I've tested these wearables extensively and today I'm going
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  to break them down. Which device is best for fitness
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  recovery, sleep and heart health? The hidden
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  costs of these devices, the ah, subscriptions, fees and
• 0:32
  replacements and who really owns your
• 0:35
  data and why? I ultimately chose
• 0:38
  Withings as my go to wearable. Stick around to the
• 0:41
  end where I'll share my personal experiences with these
• 0:43
  devices and why I canceled my Apple
• 0:46
  Watch cellular plan.
• 0:48
  Let's dive in.
• 0:51
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: I am your Chief Medical Explanationist, Dr. Terry Simpson
• 0:54
  and this is Fork you fork University,
• 0:57
  where we bust a few.
• 0:58
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Myths and make sense of the mad.
• 1:03
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Things have come a long way since.
• 1:05
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Early in my surgical career when I would buy
• 1:07
  pedometers for my post op bariatric or weight loss
• 1:10
  surgery patients. I'd buy them and give them to.
• 1:13
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Them because I wanted them to walk.
• 1:16
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: In those days we didn't have the.
• 1:17
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Apple Watch and pedometers were something they.
• 1:20
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Could track on and get a visualization.
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  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Of what they did.
• 1:23
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Did it work?
• 1:24
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Well for some patients, it worked pretty well.
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  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: For others, they seem to put them away.
• 1:29
  Modern wearables have advanced tremendously. They
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  can track your heart rate, your sleep, your heart
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  rate, variability, activity levels, blood oxygen
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  levels, temperature, even do an EKG
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  and tell if you have atrial fibrillation. A dangerous
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  heart condition. Probably the most common one
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  that everybody has on the wrist today is the Apple Watch.
• 1:49
  It tracks all of those things that we talked about,
• 1:52
  including a fall detection. You know, I fall in and can't go
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  up. But Apple can no longer track blood
• 1:58
  oxygenation due to a patent dispute. And the
• 2:01
  cellular models of the Apple Watch, you know,
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  they require a monthly subscription. Whoop is a
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  device that came into fore in the last few years. It focuses
• 2:10
  on recovery, strain and sleep. And this device
• 2:13
  started by tracking really high caliber
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  athletes to help them say, nope, you've done
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  a little bit too much work and you've got to hang back.
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  So it's a really comprehensive device. The
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  Oura ring is pretty popular these days. It's a ring
• 2:27
  that tracks sleep stages, heart rate variability
• 2:30
  and body temperature. Withings is the
• 2:33
  only one besides Apple to be FDA cleared for
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  atrial fibrillation detection with a focus on
• 2:39
  medical grade tracking. Unlike Apple,
• 2:41
  Withings still tracks blood, oxygen and
• 2:44
  heart Rate continuously during sleep. Thanks to its
• 2:47
  longer battery life. It's being worn at night for weeks without
• 2:50
  interruption and there's no subscription required.
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  The ultra human ring and there are some others now are
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  newer rings with focuses on metabolic
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  tracking and recovery. A uh, 2020
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  Nature Digital Medicine study found that risk
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  based devices overestimate activity
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  but underestimate calories burned.
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  And rings tended to be more reliable for sleep and
• 3:13
  heart rate variability.
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  So what does heart rate variability or HRV and
• 3:17
  strain? What do those metrics mean? Heart
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  rate variability measures the variation in
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  time between heartbeats. It's a
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  reflection of how well your autonomic nervous
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  system is functioning. A higher HRV
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  means better recovery, lower stress, and
• 3:34
  improved cardiovascular health. A uh, lower
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  HRV means fatigue, overtraining,
• 3:40
  stress, or even illness. I
• 3:43
  noticed that my HRV went down down
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  for a couple of days before I developed symptoms of
• 3:49
  COVID Kind of scary if
• 3:52
  you think about it. But it's nice to know you're getting sick and
• 3:55
  it's time to hang back and recover a little bit. It's also nice
• 3:58
  to know when you've taken too much strain in your
• 4:01
  workout, which sometimes I tend to do.
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  But here's the problem. HRV fluctuates
• 4:06
  a lot based on hydration, sleep and time of
• 4:09
  day. So if I don't get much sleep at night, or
• 4:12
  if I'm dehydrated because.
• 4:14
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: I just didn't take in enough water.
• 4:16
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: My HRV goes lower. So
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  Whoop and Aura measure HRV during sleep, which is a
• 4:22
  little bit more stable. Apple Watch and Withings
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  measure HRV periodically through the day, which may be
• 4:28
  less reliable due to other external factors.
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  So HRV is great for trends over time,
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  but not necessarily on a daily health
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  score. Strain is
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  whoop's proprietary score that estimates how
• 4:42
  hard your body is working based on heart rate
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  variability, heart rate and activity levels.
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  The problem? Strain scores don't account
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  for individual fitness levels. What's a high
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  strain score for one person may be normal for
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  another. And remember, they started their
• 4:58
  company based on the most incredible athletes in
• 5:01
  the world and have been bringing it back down to
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  us. Caffeine,
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  stress, dehydration and alcohol can
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  all artificially or not artificially raise
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  strain scores. So strain tracking can really help elite
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  athletes. But for most people, it's just a number to obsess
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  over. Battery life is
• 5:21
  important. I mean, there's nothing worse than having a device
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  on you and then all of a sudden it doesn't work. The Apple watch
• 5:26
  is good for 18 to 24 hours. Its charging
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  time is 1 to 2 hours. The problem is
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  sometimes I have woken up and put on my Apple
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  Watch to see its low power because I didn't quite fit it on the
• 5:38
  magnetic device carefully enough.
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  The WHOOP is good for four to five days. And
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  actually that's what they say I find my whoop is good
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  now for about three days and it takes about an hour
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  and a half. Charging the Oura ring four
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  to seven days. I found it good to be about three to five
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  days. It takes about an hour to charge it.
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  The Withings watch three to four weeks and it takes two
• 6:01
  hours to charge. And the Ultra human, four to six days. One to
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  two hours. Withings wins by a landslide. It's
• 6:07
  the only watch you don't have to think about charging every night. And
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  that makes it really good for sleep
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  tracking. So I find that for
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  me, the Withings, which is FDA cleared for
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  continuous heart tracking, atrial fibrillation, blood
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  oxygen, has a great battery life, doesn't have a
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  subscription, and has strong privacy protection,
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  really tends to be the one that I liked
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  for heart health and for fitness. Apple watch. But
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  you have to be careful. The cellular fees are a lot.
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  The cellular fees for my Apple watch from Verizon were
• 6:38
  $21 a month for recovery
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  optimization, Whoop, if you can afford it, or Withings,
• 6:43
  and for sleep and metabolic training. The Withings,
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  Aura and Oura rings are great. So I
• 6:49
  told Verizon I didn't need to pay the $21 a month
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  for.
• 6:52
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Cellular surface on my Apple watch anymore.
• 6:54
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: The Withings looks better. It's sleek, it's classic.
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  It can stay on my wrist day and night. The battery
• 7:00
  lasts nearly a month. Apple watch barely a
• 7:03
  day. There's no subscription, and the whoop and
• 7:05
  aura of those subscriptions can get expensive fast.
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  Withings also integrates with an entire health system.
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  I use our blood pressure monitor, I use our scale to
• 7:15
  track my weight and a sleep pad, which is FDA cleared for
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  diagnosis of sleep apnea. I had the WHOOP
• 7:21
  for over a year and a half. And if you love your
• 7:23
  Rolex, Omega or Timex but still want health tracking,
• 7:26
  one Whoop is a great option since you can wear it on your arm and keep
• 7:29
  your classic watch on your wrist. Now I love watches,
• 7:32
  but day in and day out, Withings has become my
• 7:35
  go to. And the reason is it just
• 7:38
  looks like a watch. And I got tired of wearing an
• 7:41
  Apple watch and it constantly ticking me or uh,
• 7:44
  reminding me of something. But sometimes
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  I like going out at night and I wear the watch that my
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  dad gave to me in the last year of his life. I
• 7:53
  don't need to track everything. I, uh, can be free of the digital
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  age. So sometimes when I go out for a nice dinner,
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  I'll put on my dad's watch to remind me of my
• 8:01
  dad. And just because it's a great looking classic
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  Seiko and I go without
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  any tracking. Finally, I'm not a
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  ring fan. You know, as a surgeon, rings
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  don't work for me. Every surgeon I
• 8:15
  know, every surgeon loses rings in the
• 8:18
  hospital laundry. And that's why most of us don't
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  wear rings at all.
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  Wearables are great tools, but they don't
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  replace healthy habits. And tracking
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  is only useful if you act on the data, not just
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  obsess over it. Please do check
• 8:35
  out my new substack.
• 8:37
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Channel if you want more information about wearables, which you can
• 8:39
  find@tsimpson.substack.com
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  youm can also find me on YourDoctorsOrders.com
• 8:46
  and4Q.com this podcast
• 8:48
  was written and researched by me, Dr. Terry Simpson.
• 8:51
  And while I am a physician, I am not your physician. And before you
• 8:54
  embark on physical activity that might cause you some
• 8:57
  strain, please do check with your doctor to make sure you can
• 9:00
  handle that. Not a chiropractor, not an eastern
• 9:02
  trained guru, but a real board certified medical
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  physician. This was distributed by our
• 9:08
  good friends at Simpler Media and my friend, the pod God, Mr.
• 9:11
  Evotera, have a great week.
• 9:17
  Hey Evo. I remember when the first Apple watch came
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  out.
• 9:20
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: I was so excited and I picked.
• 9:22
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Up one and you said, I don't need a watch.
• 9:23
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: I got a phone.
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  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: I can look at the time, all that. You aren't a watch wearer. I am
• 9:27
  a watch wearer. And you know what I found about the Apple watch?
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  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: It's really not a watch. I just had
• 9:32
  to give it up.
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  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Although I do like wearing the Withings because it actually looks like a watch.
• 9:36
  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: But that's me. What's on your wrist these days?
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  >> Dr. Terry Simpson: Anything besides the arm of your beautiful wife?
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  >> Speaker C: My wrist remains unadorned, my friend.
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  Though now that I am the age that you were when we
• 9:50
  first met many years ago, maybe I
• 9:52
  need that, uh, Withings things.