The world of sleep trackers is a confusing one. You might have ruled out Whoop, but that doesn’t make the decision of which tracker to get any easier.
To help, look for a sleep tracker that focuses on the metrics that make the biggest difference to your days: sleep debt (how much sleep you owe your body) and circadian alignment (how in sync you are with your circadian rhythm, or body clock).
That’s where RISE can help. RISE tracks your sleep and sleep debt, predicts your circadian rhythm and energy levels, and gives you advice based on your own body to help you feel and perform better each day.
Read on to learn why RISE is the best Whoop alternative for sleep tracking.
Here’s what to consider when evaluating sleep trackers:
You can learn more about non-wearable sleep trackers here, including why sleep apps are great for sleep tracking.
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Here are the metrics RISE focuses on and the ones it doesn’t.
Sleep debt is the amount of sleep you owe your body. Lower your sleep debt for more energy, sharper focus, better health, and stronger performance.
Sleep debt is worked out by comparing how much sleep you get to how much sleep you need.
Many sleep trackers don’t track sleep debt (like Sleep Cycle and Oura Ring), and those that do (like AutoSleep, Sleepzy, and Whoop) don’t track it accurately as they use generic guidelines or self-set sleep goals to determine how much sleep you need each night.
RISE calculates your sleep debt by working out how much sleep you individually need. This is known as your sleep need. It can vary from person to person quite a bit.
When we looked at how much sleep 1.95 million RISE users aged 24 and up need, we found sleep needs ranged from five hours to 11 hours 30 minutes.
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RISE uses a year’s worth of your phone use behavior and sleep science based models to work out your sleep need.
The app then tracks sleep duration using either:
From this, RISE calculates your sleep debt over the course of 14 nights and shows you one clear number to focus on. View your sleep debt in the app, on a widget on your iPhone home screen, on your iPad, or on the Apple Watch.
Learn how to evaluate the best sleep debt tracker here.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can view their sleep need here and view their sleep debt here.
Circadian alignment is whether you’re in sync with your circadian rhythm. Getting and staying in sync can boost your energy levels, performance, and mental and physical health.
Just like with sleep debt, many sleep trackers (like SleepCycle) don’t give you any information about your circadian rhythm.
Some trackers do give you information about your circadian rhythm (like Whoop, Oura Ring, Fitbit, and Polar watches). For many, this is only in the form of recommended bedtimes or sleep consistency scores, instead of advice on how to harness your circadian rhythm during the day for more productivity.
And many trackers give you a fixed recovery score or readiness score that doesn’t accurately represent how your energy levels change across the day.
Others, like RISE, give you detailed circadian rhythm insights.
RISE uses your recent sleep times, inferred light exposure, and algorithms built on the SAFTE model, which was developed by the US Department of Transportation and the Department of Defense, to predict your daily circadian rhythm.
You’ll see when your body wants to sleep and wake up and when your energy levels are expected to rise and fall across the day. Sync up with these times for better alignment, energy, sleep, and productivity.
Learn more about how RISE predicts your circadian rhythm here.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can see their circadian rhythm on the Energy screen here.
Many Whoop alternatives track time spent in deep sleep, light sleep, and REM sleep. That includes Garmin, Fitbit, Samsung Galaxy watch, and Apple Watch (and Whoop if you’re still considering it).
But there’s not much evidence connecting how long you spend in each sleep stage with how you feel each day.
Plus, we all need a different amount of each sleep stage — just like how we all need a different amount of sleep — and that this can change nightly.
Focus on getting enough healthy sleep with good sleep hygiene (more on that soon) and your brain will take care of the rest.
Even if tracking sleep stages was useful, research shows sleep trackers aren’t that accurate at tracking them. Even in polysomnography (sleep studies), experts only agree on results about 80% of the time.
You can learn why you don’t need to worry about how much deep sleep you need or get here, and the same goes for every other sleep stage.
You might also spot sleep quality being tracked by many sleep-tracking apps and devices.
But when it comes to sleep quality, there’s no agreed-upon definition for it. So sleep trackers often use their own scoring systems to give you a sleep score based on multiple metrics. This isn’t that useful as it’s hard to tell what you need to improve to improve the score, let alone get better sleep and energy.
Plus, the metrics sleep quality scores are based on may not even make that much of a difference to how you feel during the day. So, even if you could improve it, you might find your energy levels don’t change.
RISE doesn’t track sleep quality itself, but you can self-rate sleep quality in the app. That’s because research suggests how satisfied you are with your sleep can make a difference to your overall wellness.
Learn more about sleep-tracking metrics that matter here.
Heads-up: Sleep quality or time spent in sleep stages can’t diagnose sleep disorders. Sleep debt can be helpful to show how much sleep you’re losing out on. But you should speak to a doctor or sleep specialist if you think you have a sleep disorder.
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Some sleep trackers simply track your sleep duration and perhaps some other metrics without giving you much guidance on what to do with all this sleep data.
Others give you some semi-personalized guidance, like Oura Ring’s recommended bedtimes, or tools to help you improve your sleep, like Apple Watch’s blood oxygen tracking, which you could bring to a doctor if you think you’ve got sleep apnea.
Here are some of the RISE features that can help you get more sleep and energy:
Still considering Whoop? We’ve compared Whoop vs RISE here.
There are many Whoop alternatives out there, so considering other features you want in a sleep tracker can help narrow down your choices.
Devices like Garmin and Apple Watch can be good for fitness tracking and recording your workouts, heart rate monitoring, and in-depth health metrics, whereas apps like SleepCycle can record sleep sounds to identify snoring.
As you’re looking for a sleep tracker, though, consider features that’ll help you pay down sleep debt and get in sync with your circadian rhythm for better sleep and energy.
Additional RISE features include:
Whoop costs $239 a year. The basic Whoop strap is free, but other colors cost $49 to $99.
Here’s how Whoop alternatives compare on cost:
You can get a seven-day free trial with RISE. During this free trial, you’ll find out your sleep need and how much sleep debt you have, and you’ll see daily predictions of your circadian rhythm to find out your recommended sleep times and upcoming energy fluctuations.
Follow RISE’s 20+ personalized sleep hygiene notifications, relaxation exercises, and recommended sleep times to see how much you could lower your sleep debt and improve your energy levels.
We’ve found 80% of RISE users feel more energy within five days!
We obviously can’t compare reviews for every alternative to Whoop out there, but here’s a selection of what RISE users have to say about the app:
As well as 5-star user reviews, RISE has attracted the attention of some big names.
Sleep Foundation and Sleep Doctor named RISE one of the best sleep apps of 2024, and Apple nominated RISE for a design award and named it an Editor’s Choice app.
Even if you take Whoop out of the picture, there are hundreds of sleep trackers out there to choose between. Whoop alternatives range from everything from smartwatches and smart rings to mattress devices and apps.
If you’re looking for better sleep and energy, you don’t need to worry about metrics like blood oxygen levels, resting heart rate, or body temperature. You just need to focus on lowering your sleep debt and getting in sync with your circadian rhythm.
That’s why RISE is the best Whoop alternative going. It focuses on these two metrics and gives you personalized guidance to help you improve them, so you can get more energy and productivity each day.
And you don’t need a wearable to do this. RISE tracks everything from your phone. If you do want to use a wearable to get more metrics, though, RISE syncs with Apple Watch, Garmin, Fitbit, and Oura Ring.
If you’re still considering Whoop, it may make a great activity tracker, so you can use RISE to track and improve sleep while Whoop focuses on other parts of your health.
RISE makes it easy to improve your sleep and daily energy to reach your potential
RISE makes it easy to improve your sleep and daily energy to reach your potential
