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The market for fitness bands competing with Whoop is beginning to fill out, and the latest one I’ve gotten my hands on is the Polar Loop. (I recently reviewed Amazfit’s Helio Strap and Garmin’s screenless tracker, which turned out to be a sleep-only specialty device.)
My full review of the Polar Loop will have to wait until I have more data, but right away I noticed some significant physical differences between the Polar Loop and its competitors.
Below is a size comparison of the Whoop MG (left), the Polar Loop (center), and the Amazfit Helio Strap (right). The three devices are lined up in declining order of both price and size: the Whoop is the smallest and costs anywhere from $199/year to $359/year depending on which tier of membership you choose. The Polar Loop is $199.99 as a one-time purchase with no subscription, and the Amazfit Helio Strap is $99.99, also with no subscription.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
I’m not sure if the Loop will be able to justify being double the price of the Helio, at least on functionality (but we’ll see how I feel after I put it through its paces). In its defense, though, I will say it seems that the Polar team put a little more effort into styling than Amazfit did, and in one respect perhaps a bit more than Whoop. The Whoop device only comes in black, although you can cover it with bands of any color. The Polar Loop, meanwhile, comes in black if you buy it with a black or brown strap, and in a pale grayish color if you buy it with the greige strap.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki
The shiny accent under the band is a nice touch. Like both the Whoop and the Helio, the Polar Loop covers its device with a fabric strap. Its design looks simpler to replicate, though: just thread a 21-millimeter strap through the slots and you have a Polar Loop strap.
Meanwhile, the Whoop has its own unique shape of band and clasp (and the current 5.0/MG Whoop takes a different band than the 4.0 generation). The Helio can take any 22-millimeter watch strap, but only if you’re OK with the blank plastic face of the device showing. The third-party strap market looks more promising to me for the Loop than for its competitors. And while Polar probably doesn’t love to think about it that way, I consider plentiful, affordable strap selection to be a plus for any wearable.