Your WHOOP membership ended, or you are thinking about ending it, and the question is the same either way: is the strap now a bracelet? Short answer: no. The strap is a sensor. The membership pays for the app and the cloud that turn that sensor into scores. Take the app away and the sensor still runs. You just need something else to listen to it.
What actually stops when a WHOOP membership lapses
- The WHOOP app locks. It stops showing new recoveries, sleep and strain. Old data stays visible for a while, then the account goes dormant.
- Sync to WHOOP’s cloud stops. The strap keeps a buffer of recent data on the device, but nothing is uploaded.
- Firmware updates stop. The strap keeps the firmware it has. That is fine for reading it, but there are no more updates from WHOOP.
- The strap itself keeps working. It charges, the light comes on, and it records heart rate and beat to beat intervals around the clock.
What keeps working, and how
A WHOOP strap talks over Bluetooth Low Energy. Any phone app that speaks that protocol can pair with the strap and pull what it records: heart rate, the intervals between beats, and motion. From those three streams an app can compute the things people actually bought WHOOP for: resting heart rate, overnight HRV, sleep detection and a recovery score.
People on r/whoop have written open source projects that do exactly this, and they are a good sign that the approach is real. They are also projects: you build them yourself, you keep them running, and the scores are whatever the author implemented.
Sixteen does the same thing as a finished app. It pairs with the strap directly, keeps reading it in the background, and scores your sleep, recovery and strain on your phone with methods we publish on the science page. There is no WHOOP account involved and nothing goes through WHOOP’s servers.
How to set it up with Sixteen
- Charge the strap and keep the WHOOP app closed. Two apps cannot own the same Bluetooth connection. If the old app is still installed and signed in, sign out or delete it so it stops grabbing the strap.
- Install Sixteen and open Setup. Choose Connect your band, then WHOOP, then Pick. Every setup step is optional, so you can skip anything else.
- Accept the Bluetooth pairing request. Sixteen bonds with the strap before it starts listening, which is what makes the connection survive the app being closed and the phone locking.
- Wear it for one night. Recovery and sleep need a full night of beat to beat data to score. The first morning you will see resting heart rate, HRV, sleep and a recovery percentage. Strain builds through the day from heart rate zones and anything you log.
- Leave Bluetooth on. The strap stores hours of data on the device, so a missed sync catches up when the phone is back in range. Sixteen drains the oldest records first so nothing is skipped.
What you get, and what you do not
You get: resting heart rate, HRV against your own baseline, sleep and a sleep score, a daily recovery score, day strain, a stress line during the day, and everything Sixteen adds on top: nutrition, a strength log, GPS activities, a coach, and screen time control that runs on your recovery. Pay once for the app, or monthly, with no hardware membership.
You do not get: WHOOP’s own algorithms and coaching, the WHOOP journal and community, blood oxygen, skin temperature, or respiratory rate. The strap does not send blood oxygen or temperature over this connection, and respiratory rate cannot be estimated reliably from the beats it delivers, so we do not show a number we cannot stand behind. If those readings are why you bought WHOOP, keep the membership.
Is it worth it?
Run the numbers on the WHOOP cost calculator. A lapsed strap plus Sixteen is $99 once. The cheapest WHOOP membership is $199 a year and the strap stops when you stop paying. If you already own the strap and mostly want the morning number, the maths is simple. If you want WHOOP’s full experience, WHOOP is still the way to get it, and we say so.
