Apple Watch Ultra vs Whoop Strap 4.0 vs Oura Ring 3: Can they detect my COVID-19 infection?

🟡 Twitter: @QuantifiedRob
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Timestamps:
00:00 My Infection
02:04 Oura Ring 3 Results
04:25 Whoop Strap 4.0 Results
05:16 Apple Watch Ultra Results
06:35 What Do These Results Mean?
08:03 Skin Temperature Data Quality
10:26 Respiratory Rate

In this video, I will be discussing if and how the Apple Watch Ultra, Whoop Strap 4.0, and Oura Ring 3 were able to detect and keep track of my COVID-19 infection. As many of you may know, these wearable devices are designed to measure various health metrics, such as skin temperature, heart rate, heart rate variability and sleep quality. I was curious to see if they would be able to pick up on the fact that I was infected with the COVID-19 virus, so I decided to put them to the test. I want to see if they noticed any changes, and if they did, how long it would take them to pick up on the fact that my body was fighting a virus.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of attention to the importance of monitoring our health, and some popular devices include the Apple Watch Ultra, the Whoop Strap 4.0 and the Oura Ring 3. But how would any of these devices be able to infer that you might have an infection? Well, I would say that the main way they do this is by keeping track of your normal values, or in other words your baseline, and checking if any of the newest measurements deviate from this in a specific way. Changes in the measurement of for instance skin temperature, resting heart rate, breathing rate and heart rate variability are some of the indicators that could be used to predict a potential infection like COVID-19. An infection could lead to an increase in body temperature, and in extreme cases a fever. It might also result in a higher resting heart rate whilst your body is fighting the infection, and at the same time your heart rate variability would then likely go down. With that in mind, I decided to put these three devices to the test to see if they were able to pick up on my infection and provide valuable data and insights.

[mattgawn]

I'm a General Practitioner and it was my old amazfit t rex pro that made me test after a 15% bump in my heart rate during a turbo training session. That said since watching your channel Rob I have since changed to something with a better R value. Really love the videos and greatly appreciate your efforts. 👍

[Kev_Smith]

The jolliest COVID infected person ever. lol.

[vanik]

I participated for two years in the Stanford COVID-19 Wearable study. Their app would pull my Apple Watch data from the health app. I noticed that they were quite accurate on those days I was not feeling well (in general any disease). The app would highlight the days that my vitals were off.

[leoott]

Cant wait for your review of the new Oura Ring sleep staging algorithm. Your testing is always just top notch on youtube!
🙂

[drx_ander]

I've been already spared from c, but not from flu this year. This infection turned in way harder than your c-infection: oura-data showing Bodytemperature +3, 6; HRmin 70 (normally 45); HRavg 77; HRVavg 13 (normally 45-55); BR 13, 4/min (normally 14, 8-16).

[Bubbleb]

My Garmin Epix 2 detected mine before I started to feel sick. RHR increased 20bpm. Body battery dropped to 5. Stress went from low to high and stayed there for days. My Garmin also told me when I was over the worst because all my values began normalizing.

[TheOisannNetwork]

I got an "increased resting heart rate" notification from my apple watch a day into my infection.

[olbtube]

Hi Rob, Good vid as usual! Maybe something to dig in about your comment on the resting heart rate measurement from 5:55, looking at the vertical scale, oura and whoop give you a drop from 55 to 47, while AWU gives you a bigger drop from 57(ish?) to 47... the data point just before the symptom onset is the real outlier between AWU and the other two...

[StefanoRifici]

Great video! I actually noticed COVID-19 infection also thanks to my Huawei GT 3 Pro (that I bought thanks to you!) when I got it!
I noticed a pretty good correlation between temperature between the wearable and the thermometer (so this was the first metric ). Temperature was high then on the very first day I had also some sudden SPO2 drops (not normal for me )...and of course resting heart rate was high. So then the test came positive.
I have to say that Huawei Health didn't give me any warning and everything was done by myself studying the data...but the wearable definitely helped!

[phreload]

I have an Ultra and it was tracking me through a covid infection. Now that I can look back the first indicator that flagged the infection was 5 days prior to my first physical symptoms and 3 days prior to a noticeable drop in physical performance. I was doing a fitness challenge so I was biking 20k and running 5K every day and on the third day I suddenly couldn’t complete the 5K. I had to stop running halfway and looking back I can see how the covid was depleting my ability to breathe. I know this because my VO2 stats dropped off mysteriously several days earlier. Now I can see the virus hit before I could feel it. It took a month for my VO2 to get back to normal.

[derkalker]

Brillant Review, thanks a lot. I hope you recovered good from your Covid infection.

[KarmasApprentice-]

I currently have Covid but my Oura ring measurements are much more drastic. Body temp was +2c the night before the symptoms started so I knew I was in for a storm. It was then +3c two nights in a row with a nasty fever. HRV plummeted to under 10 when I’m usually about 100 and resting heart rate has been 90 when it’s usually 50. I’ve personally found Oura ring infallible at predicting and knowing when I’m ill and when I’ve recovered.

[monkeymerv]

Great analysis.. My Whoop strap did good job to highlight my recent covid. Elevated HR, elevated temperature and decrease HRV. Most interesting was the higher than usual HRV 3 days into the infection, while my body was fighting the infection.

[zuizpgs]

Have you tried using Athlytic or some similar software for Apple Watch? I think Apple has a problem with preinstalled software, but it's hardware is the best. For me using the Apple Watch with the right app is the best option out of this three

[ikarosalpha]

Hi I'm also having covid right now, today is the sixth day since first symptom appeared, still getting positive for the antigen test. I was able to collect data both from my apple watch ultra and Garmin. Found out that the wrists skin temp from the apple is very useful to refer core temp in my case. And the Stress from Garmin also shows insight. They both failed to predict any of infections. When they are able to detected the changes of the body, I myself can do so.

[LnWlfBlck]

Multiple times since I’ve owned an Apple Watch I have gotten high heart rate notifications and then cold or flu symptoms showed up the next day.

[FrancescoCampilongo]

First get well soon!
I have an apple watch series 5, and I had covid about 18 days ago, I saw the hearth rate while resting and I noticed (now, with this video) that there was an actual increase while my body was fighting the infection, similar to yours data. Nice to see that also a 3 years old apple watch (old heart sensors) could find this kind of variation.

[travismattern]

Hey Rob another great video. Just curious with the Apple watch you used a bigger scale in the resting heart rate (55, 50, 45), but the other devices you use a scale of 2 beats per minute.
What was the raw data of the actual change in resting HR across the devices because it looked pretty similar when you adjust for the scale used.

Love your stuff as always!

[healthtechfries]

Hi Rob! I just did a kind of similar video on my german youtube channel. I did not use the native app from IOS but AI STress, Athlytic and Training Today as apps on my Apple Watch. These Apps checks the HRV and can detect the Covid infection. You did not need a Whoop or an Oura Ring in my opinion. I mentioned your channel in my video when it comes to tests on health devices as a reference channel…hope this is ok. Have a nice day!

[timgerber]

On the HRV: Knowing that Rob typically works out both with weights and on the bike a couple of times per week, I would suspect that his HRV is also lowered after intensive workouts which kind of lowers it systematically in the time before an infection. Obviously, when you feel sick, you don’t workout so this normal stress that the heart typically experiences isn’t present anymore, but an increase in stress and higher resting heart rate is likely due to the infection. So maybe this explains why he didn’t see much of a lowered HRV when the infection hit.