One of Whoop’s new wearables has a bug so bad the company is issuing replacements

Whoop’s new screen-less, fitness-focused Whoop MG wearable might have a major bug that can leave the device unusable, according to reports from Android Police and TechIssuesToday. Whoop launched the Whoop MG and Whoop 5.0 at the beginning of May, the company’s first major hardware release since it launched the Whoop 4.0 in 2021.

According to complaints on Whoop’s community forums and X, after setting up a Whoop MG, the wearable can mysteriously became unresponsive hours later, refusing to connect to a smartphone even when it should be charged. “I wore it for about 20 hours or so, but then it suddenly disappeared from the app, no sensor lights on, nothing appearing in the app,” one new Whoop MG owner shared on Reddit. On the company’s forums, Whoop suggests trying things like charging the MG, reconnecting it to your phone or resetting the wearable to see if that fixes things. Whoop owners have also been directed to contact Whoop’s Support team, and multiple faulty Whoop MG owners report that they’re being sent replacement wearables.

Engadget has contacted Whoop to get a sense for how widespread this issue is and what the company is doing to address it. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

Unlike other companies, Whoop doesn’t expect customers to buy a fitness tracker and then pay a subscription; Whoop’s subscription fee is inclusive of its hardware. With the Whoop 5.0 and Whoop MG, the company is also hoping to expand the number of metrics it tracks beyond just activity and sleep tracking to things like real-time stress monitoring and, in the case of the MG, blood pressure and ECG readings. What features you’re able to access ultimately depends on both the wearable you have and the subscription you’re paying for, though.

To access the Whoop MG in particular, you have to pay $359 annually, which starts to feel pretty egregious when the wearable might not work. Prior to this issue, Whoop was also caught denying free hardware upgrades to existing customers after previously suggesting it would send out new wearables to anyone who’d been a member for six months or more. Whoop reversed that decision a few days later.