Whoop Adds Social Network for Sharing Health Data

On November 12, wearable maker Whoop introduced Humans, a social feature in its app available to members at every subscription level without an additional charge. Members can follow other users and choose whether to share information such as sleep, recovery, workouts and achievements. They can also post photos with captions and respond to other members’ updates.

The feature is designed to give users more control than Whoop’s existing Teams option, which centers on groups and leaderboards. With Humans, members decide who can follow them and which information followers can see. Whoop says users can hide sensitive activities by default, keep Moments posts private, remove followers or use Stealth Mode to temporarily conceal health and performance data.

Whoop CEO Will Ahmed said the company saw more engagement when people shared low recovery scores than nearly perfect ones, and expects families to use the feature to check in on one another. The company says medical information and health alerts are not shared. It also says it does not sell or license member data to outside parties. Whoop’s minimum membership age is 13, though Ahmed did not directly address whether parents can follow a teenager’s data, pointing instead to the privacy controls.