So, after persevering with the latest iteration I’ve given up. I’m not convinced that something that can’t consistent track HR can then dig deeper into HRV and hence recovery/strain.
All I actually need is a reliable HRM that I can wear all the time as always forget my chest strap when training, and something that tracks sleep. Ideally wrapped up in a package smaller than something like a watch as I find them uncomfortable to sleep in.
Any suggestions?

https://ouraring.com/

Disclaimer: I know nothing about its performance and it’s definitely a style choice but it is smaller than a Whoop, tracks hr and sleep data.

Garmin Vivosmart 4 will do what you need I think. Small and discrete enough to wear a “normal” watch on the other wrist too. You can turn off the display if needed.

I really like my Garmin, but the sleep tracking is terrible – if that’s really important to you, I’d look elsewhere. For everything else, it’s great though.

Anything using your wrist (or finger) will be shite. I used whoop for 18 months and it was very inaccurate. I honestly do not know why I continued. Most wrist HR I’ve tried are inaccurate including Fenix 6 using wrist sensor. The Apple Watch 6 was the best wrist based HR sensor I tried.

Personally I hate wearing a watch to sleep so recently got Withings sleep analysers which I’m really impressed with. More & better quality data than a wearable, too.

As above, we have inadvertently become Withings slaves.

I can’t wear watches too long any more as they weirdly annoy me, so ended up with a Withings sleep analyser mat thing under the mattress.

Combined with their smartwatch and scale, the app gives loads of metrics and information. How much of it I actually need and use is another thing.

Also have their wireless blood pressure monitor, which again links into the app. Use that mainly as a check as I have ticker issues.

All in all works perfectly as a suit of products.

The wife wears a Garmin watch 24/7 and it doesn’t bother her so there is no one size fits all answer.

I found my Vivoactive 3 to be much more accurate in tracking sleep than my Whoop (gave up on that after a year). But as mentioned above, HR tracking from the wrist is massively inaccurate Vs chest, IME.

But since my Garmin started randomly sending messages to the work Slack channels, I’ve binned it and found that it’s actually pretty easy to tell whether or I’ve had a good night’s sleep ;o)

Thanks all. Might look at the withings doofer

Not tried a Whoop, but I’m probably gonna give Fitbit another try after moving from a Fitbit 3 (several of them because they kept failing) to a Xiaomi, or whatever they are called.

The hardware’s not that much better, but I miss the excellent software from Fitbit and found the HR monitor worked fairly reliably and accurately for me.

Wonder how they’ve developed in terms of monitoring energy/strain levels?

Garmin Vivosmart 4 will do what you need I think. Small and discrete enough to wear a “normal” watch on the other wrist too. You can turn off the display if needed.

+1

Do it up tighter if it doesn’t seem to track properly.

I have a Withins Scanwatch. It looks like a normal watch but contains some good technology. It can monitor sleep, detect sleep apnea, detect irregular heartbeats, can take an ECG – medical grade – and track activities in conjunction with your phone. It doesn’t have HRV yet but apparently they are working on incorporating that in a future over the air update.

I had exact same thing, i found Whoop data good when it worked, but it didn’t often work. I’d sit on turbo and Wahoo chest HR strap and Apple watch would read the same, Whoop HR would be all over the shop, and as it needed to sit an inch up the wrist, if i rode over rough ground, the thing would just slip down. Returned it after a month.

I am using Athlytic app via Apple watch, it gives % recovered, sleep quality, O2, respiration, HRV etc, for £20 a year if you have the watch. Not quite as detailed, but ties in well with Apple health app for all the info i need.

Are any of them worth it? Even if accurate what do you do with the data once you have it. Personally I wore a Garmin fitness band for a year and a half until the novelty wore off and don’t feel the need to bother with that kind of thing again.