Best watch / tracker to pair with the Forge?

Community MemberMember

1mo ago · 3 replies · 0 views

Quick practical question for anyone who's been around longer than me.

I'm currently using my phone for step count and manually logging sleep and sessions in the Forge. It's fine but I can feel myself getting lazy with it — especially the sleep log, which I'm clearly rounding up most mornings.

What are people actually using? I've looked at the Garmin range, the Whoop band, and the basic Apple Watch. Don't want to spend Whoop money if a £200 Garmin does the same job for the pillars the Forge actually reads from.

Not looking for the best tracker objectively. Looking for the one that plays nicest with the Forge's pillar inputs and doesn't drown me in metrics I'll ignore.

🤍 03 replies

Replies (3)

JackCoach Verified

1mo ago

Honest answer: the Forge doesn't care which one you wear, and you should pick based on what you'll actually keep on your wrist.

That said — for the pillars the Forge reads (sleep duration, resting HR, HRV trend, daily movement) the mid-range Garmins do the job for a fraction of Whoop's subscription cost. The Forerunner 55 or 165 covers everything the Body pillar pulls from. Apple Watch is fine if you're already in that ecosystem but the sleep tracking is notably worse than Garmin's.

Whoop is genuinely excellent at HRV and recovery scoring. It's also £180 a year forever. Worth it if you're chasing performance margins; overkill if you're trying to stop rounding up your sleep log.

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Unknown

1mo ago

Forerunner 165 it is then. Appreciate the steer — the pick what you'll actually wear line is the bit I needed to hear. I tried a Whoop on a free trial last year and took it off after a week because the strap annoyed me, which tells you everything.

One last thing — when it auto-syncs sleep into the Forge, does it overwrite my manual log or do I need to turn the manual prompt off?

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JackCoach Verified

1mo ago

Auto-sync takes priority once it's connected, but the manual prompt stays on by default because some members like to add a subjective sleep quality note even when the duration is auto-pulled. You can turn the prompt off in Settings → Pillars → Body → Sleep input.

My advice: leave the prompt on for the first fortnight. The subjective rating versus what the watch actually recorded is genuinely useful information — it tells you how accurate your own read on your sleep is. After two weeks you'll know whether to keep it or kill it.