Recovery score: how Whoop, Oura, Garmin, Apple Watch and Ecleptic calculate it

Ecleptic is our app; this comparison sticks to each brand's public information, linked in the sources below, checked on September 30, 2026.

The shared principle: you versus you

A recovery score answers one question: is your body ready to take on effort this morning? The five tools compared here start from the same idea: place your overnight signals, starting with your heart rate variability (HRV) and your resting heart rate, against your own normal rather than a population average.

The comparison table

Whoop: Recovery, from 0 to 100%

Calculated every night and delivered when you wake up, Recovery is green from 67% and red at 33% or below. It combines eight signals: HRV, resting heart rate, respiratory rate, hours of sleep versus estimated need, light sleep and awake time, skin temperature, SpO₂ and, where applicable, cycle phase. Whoop states that HRV and resting heart rate weigh the most, and that your HRV is compared with your 30-day baseline. The score does not change during the day unless you edit your sleep.

Oura: the Readiness Score

Rated from 0 to 100 (optimal from 85), it rests on nine contributors: resting heart rate, HRV balance, body temperature, recovery index, sleep, sleep balance, sleep regularity, previous day activity and activity balance. The "balance" contributors compare your last 14 days with your long-term average (two months, three for HRV balance), and Oura allows up to two weeks to learn your values. Without an active membership, the app still shows your three daily scores; the membership unlocks the details.

Garmin: Training Readiness

On compatible watches, such as the Venu X1 or the Forerunner 965, this 1-to-100 score is recalculated continuously from six factors: last night's sleep score, recovery time, HRV status, acute load, sleep over the last three nights and stress over the last three days. The comparison with your normal comes through HRV status: your seven-day average against your baseline range, shown after three weeks of consistent sleep data.

Apple Watch: the readiness score, from 0 to 10

With watchOS 27, the Readiness app on Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 scores you from 0 to 10, from "Recover" (0-1) to "Go For It" (8-10). It combines your recent activity (active calories, effort ratings, training load), your overnight vitals (heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, HRV, blood oxygen) and daytime heart rate, and your sleep score. Vitals are compared with your recent baseline, which requires at least 7 nights with the watch out of the past 49. The score changes during the day.

Ecleptic: a score out of 100 that includes your nutrition

Our Readiness Score starts from your night when you wake up, then updates with your meals and workouts. Its four pillars and their weights are published: overnight vitals (42 points), sleep (21), nutrition (21) and rhythm with training load (16). Each vital is compared with your normal over the last 42 days: 7 days for a baseline to exist, 28 for it to be fully reliable. The details: the Readiness Score method.

What actually differs from one score to the next

• The scale: a 70 on one app is not a 70 on another. Compare each score with its own history, never across brands.
• The window: 30 days for HRV on Whoop, 14 days against two or three months on Oura, 49 nights on Apple Watch, 42 days on Ecleptic. A short window reacts fast; a long one smooths.
• The timing: Whoop locks Recovery for the day; Garmin, Apple and Ecleptic let their score move.
• The ingredients: all of them read your heart and your sleep; Garmin, Oura and Apple add activity or load. According to the official pages we checked, food feeds directly into Ecleptic's calculation only; Whoop links it to Recovery through the correlations in its Journal.

How to read your score

Whoop, Apple and Ecleptic all say it: these scores are wellness guides, not diagnoses. One low day is not an alarm; the trend is what counts. To go further: how a readiness score works.