It wasn’t necessarily the outcome he was expecting when Rob ter Horst, a data scientist at the University of Vienna, pitted top consumer wearables from Apple, Garmin, Samsung, and Whoop against a high-end, chest-mounted heart rate monitor to compare the accuracy of each.
More specifically, ter Horst tested the Apple Watch Ultra 2 (running watchOS 26 beta) against the Garmin Forerunner 570, Garmin Fenix 7, Samsung Galaxy Watch 7, and Whoop MG fitness band. For a control, he turned to the Polar H10 chest monitor, which he refers to as his ‘gold standard’ for accuracy.
Despite the Whoop MG being listed as a medical-grade wellness device, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 bested it, along with the rest of the competition, by a notable margin. Ter Horst reports that heart rate data from the Ultra 2 is