Whoop angers users over reneged free upgrade promises

Whoop just announced its new Whoop 5.0 fitness tracker yesterday, but some existing users are already calling foul. Previously, Whoop said people who had been members for at least six months would get free upgrades to next-generation hardware. Now, the company says that members hoping to upgrade from a Whoop 4.0 to 5.0 will have to pay up.

Whoop is a bit different from other fitness trackers in that it runs entirely on a subscription membership model. Most wearable makers that have subscriptions will charge you for the hardware, and then customers have the option of subscribing to get extra data or features. A good example is the Oura Ring, where you buy the ring and then have the option of paying a monthly $6 subscription. Whoop, however, has until now said that you get the hardware for “free” while paying a heftier annual subscription.

Previously, Whoop promised users that whenever new hardware was released, existing members would be able to upgrade free of charge so long as they’d been a member for at least six months. However, that has since been scrubbed from Whoop’s site — though it was there as recently as March 28th this year, according to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

On Whoop’s current official “How to upgrade” site, the company states that existing members have one of two options. They can either extend their membership by another 12 months and receive new Whoop 5.0 hardware “at no extra cost,” or if they’d rather not extend, they can pay a one-time upgrade fee of either $49 for the regular Whoop 5.0 or $79 for the Whoop 5.0 MG, which includes EKG sensors. An official Reddit thread also notes that people who either joined or extended their membership in the past 30 days are eligible for a free upgrade.

Understandably, Whoop fans are none too pleased. The r/Whoop subreddit is full of angry users who are accusing the company of misleading them.

“One of the main reasons I chose a Whoop over an Apple Watch was due to the free hardware upgrades,” writes one Redditor. “Conveniently my 12 month subscription is up around the same time the Apple Watch is released. The cost isn’t the issue, it’s them changing what was promised.”

“I’m definitely cancelling mine now, over the Whoop hype. Was excited to see they had a nice update and deflated after I saw they went back on their word about not charging for future hardware,” writes another.

The Verge reached out to Whoop for comment about why its changed its hardware upgrade policy, but the company declined to comment on the record in accordance with our attribution policy.

It’s another example of how changes to subscriptions often results in customer backlash. Garmin recently angered its customer base by introducing a paid tier to the Garmin Connect app after years of touting its lack of a paywall. Oura also received hefty backlash when it introduced a subscription with its third-gen smart ring.

Update, May 9th: Added that Whoop declined to comment on the record.