The Amazfit Helio HYROX Strap is Amazfit’s first real shot at a subscription-free alternative to the Whoop band. It’s a minimalist fitness tracker designed to focus on recovery, training readiness, and performance—without locking features behind a paywall.
Co-developed with HYROX, the global fitness racing brand, this edition is currently limited to athletes at the HYROX World Championships. But it gives us a strong preview of what Amazfit may offer the public soon.
At first glance, the strap looks like a simple nylon band. But hidden inside is a powerful suite of sensors for heart rate, HRV, SpO2, sleep, and skin temperature tracking.
What sets the Helio apart is its biocharge and exertion feedback, updated throughout the day. It gives practical insights into how hard you should train—similar to Garmin’s Body Battery, but tailored by Amazfit’s Zepp app.
With no screen, no buttons, and all-day comfort, it’s clearly designed for discreet, 24/7 wear. So how well does it work in real-life testing? Let’s break it all down.
Read also:
Overview & Positioning:
The Amazfit Helio HYROX Strap is designed for athletes who want advanced recovery metrics without paying a monthly fee. It’s Amazfit’s answer to Whoop, aiming to offer similar insights at a more accessible price point.
Unlike traditional fitness trackers, the Helio isn’t about step counts or flashy screens. It’s purpose-built for recovery, sleep tracking, exertion management, and heart rate monitoring—24/7.
This HYROX edition is being used in elite athletic events, showing that Amazfit is serious about performance-grade accuracy. Though not available to the public yet, it’s clearly a testbed for a broader consumer release.
It’s positioned as a modular device that works alongside other Amazfit gear like smartwatches or the Helio Ring. That flexibility is part of the appeal—it complements rather than replaces your primary wearable.
There’s no companion screen or watch face, which helps the Helio stay low-profile. It’s meant to fade into the background while quietly collecting your physiological data and feeding it into the Zepp app.
The strap also targets a gap in the market—those who want Garmin-style data or Whoop-style recovery feedback, but without a hefty upfront price or long-term commitment.
In short, the Helio HYROX Strap is not your everyday fitness tracker. It’s for users who train hard, want to recover smarter, and prefer flexibility over subscriptions.
Hardware & Design:
At first glance, the Amazfit Helio HYROX Strap looks like a basic fabric wristband, but there’s more going on beneath its unassuming exterior. The strap features a minimal design that prioritizes comfort and function over flash, keeping it discreet enough for both daily wear and sleep tracking.
The band itself is made from a soft, breathable nylon material with strong Velcro to ensure a secure fit. It’s lightweight, flexible, and stays in place during high-movement workouts without irritating the skin. This is especially important for long-duration wear.
The tracking module—or pod—is the real tech heart of the device. It’s compact, buttonless, and snaps securely into a holster embedded in the strap. Its matte black finish keeps reflections down and complements the overall low-profile aesthetic.
Hidden inside the pod are multiple sensors: an optical heart rate monitor, SpO2 sensor, skin temperature sensor, and accelerometers. Despite all of this, the module remains small enough to be barely noticeable on the wrist.
Amazfit opted for a watch-style quick-release pin system to attach the strap to the pod housing. This choice opens up future customization potential for different strap styles, colors, or even bicep placement—though those options haven’t launched yet.
The HYROX edition carries the HYROX logo embossed subtly on the band, giving it a sporty, event-specific branding. It’s exclusive for now but provides a glimpse into what the standard consumer version could look like with more neutral styling.
The underside of the pod contains contact points for magnetic charging. It uses a circular charging puck that snaps into place cleanly. No display or lights are present, keeping the form factor as clean as possible.
Overall, the design emphasizes wear-and-forget simplicity. It’s not meant to be seen—it’s meant to work in the background, quietly gathering vital stats and syncing them with your phone when needed.
What stands out most about the hardware is its dedication to subtlety. Unlike typical smartwatches or trackers with glowing screens, the Helio HYROX Strap blends in—ideal for athletes who want to focus on performance, not tech aesthetics.
It’s also easy to imagine this hardware platform being adapted into different versions later. A premium strap, a sweat-resistant sport band, or even a bicep version could be released to suit various training needs.
In short, the hardware shows a lot of forethought. It’s durable, adaptable, and invisible when it needs to be—all traits that make it ideal for a new breed of fitness-first wearables.
Comfort & Wearability:
The Helio HYROX Strap excels when it comes to long-term comfort. Its lightweight nylon material feels soft against the skin and remains breathable, even during sweaty workouts or overnight use.
The Velcro closure system is easy to adjust and holds firmly in place. It doesn’t loosen mid-workout, and the band never digs into the wrist, even with tight fitment for heart rate accuracy.
Unlike a bulky smartwatch, the strap’s slim profile makes it ideal for sleeping. It stays unobtrusive throughout the night and doesn’t press into your wrist like larger wearables might.
During workouts, it never gets in the way. Whether you’re doing weightlifting, HIIT, rowing, or cycling, the strap stays put without causing friction or discomfort.
Even after multiple days of non-stop wear, there’s no itching, pinching, or need to adjust. It’s clearly built for all-day, everyday usage—without calling attention to itself.
Ecosystem Compatibility:
The Helio HYROX Strap integrates seamlessly into Amazfit’s broader fitness ecosystem, syncing all data through the Zepp app. This makes it an excellent companion device rather than a standalone tracker.
It works alongside other Amazfit products like the Helio Ring and their full range of smartwatches. You can wear the strap for sleep tracking, then switch to a watch for outdoor workouts without losing any data continuity.
All metrics—from heart rate to recovery—are merged into a unified dashboard within the app, giving users a holistic view of their health. This cross-device sync is fluid and automatic.
Because there’s no screen on the strap, the Zepp app becomes the central control hub. It’s clean, intuitive, and well-organized, making it easy to understand your daily recovery and exertion status.
While current integrations are limited to Amazfit’s own products, the groundwork is clearly in place for a versatile multi-device ecosystem that could rival more established platforms in the near future.
Charging & Battery:
The Helio HYROX Strap offers up to 10 days of battery life, making it ideal for extended wear without frequent charging. That’s impressive given the constant tracking of heart rate, HRV, temperature, and sleep.
Charging is done via a magnetic puck that snaps securely onto the back of the pod. It’s simple and reliable, though Amazfit doesn’t include a USB-C cable in the box—a growing trend among wearables lately.
A full charge takes about 90 minutes, and there’s no on-device indicator—battery level is only viewable through the Zepp app. Thankfully, the drain rate is very efficient and predictable.
Even with continuous use, including daily workouts and sleep tracking, the battery rarely drops more than 10–12% per day. This means most users can charge once per week with ease.
Overall, it strikes a great balance between power efficiency and 24/7 tracking capabilities—just one more way the Helio aims to be a true “wear it and forget it” fitness companion.
Daily Metrics & Interface:
The Helio HYROX Strap delivers a clean and focused daily experience through the Zepp app, which serves as your central dashboard. Since the strap has no screen, the app is where all your metrics and insights are displayed.
Each morning, the interface greets you with three key stats: your sleep score, biocharge level, and exertion level. These offer an at-a-glance view of how recovered you are and how hard you should train that day.
Below that, the app presents a calorie burn estimate, food log entries (if manually input), and a breakdown of your current activity for the day. These sections update dynamically as your day progresses.
The next scroll reveals your resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and any noticeable skin temperature changes—metrics commonly used to assess stress and recovery.
There’s also a summary of your total steps, activity duration, and time spent in various heart rate zones. While it’s not a step-focused tracker, this data is still there for those who want it.
One standout feature is the dynamic nature of biocharge. It changes throughout the day depending on your movement, workouts, and rest, offering a live snapshot of your energy balance.
The visual layout in Zepp is simple but effective. Stats are displayed in easy-to-read blocks, and tapping on each one brings up detailed graphs and historical comparisons.
While it lacks the granular detail of Garmin Connect or the deep insights of Whoop’s mobile app, Zepp strikes a user-friendly balance that works well for most users.
You won’t find excessive notifications or clutter—just clean data and thoughtful recommendations tied to your recovery and performance status.
For those who own other Amazfit devices like the Helio Ring or smartwatches, the daily dashboard pulls in all your metrics and combines them in one seamless timeline.
In short, the interface doesn’t try to do too much—it focuses on recovery, readiness, and clear guidance, which suits the Helio’s mission perfectly.
Sleep Tracking:
Sleep tracking is one of the Helio HYROX Strap’s core strengths, delivering detailed insights into your nightly recovery without the bulk of a smartwatch. The strap’s slim profile makes it easy to wear all night without discomfort.
Each morning, you’re greeted with a sleep score that summarizes your rest quality. This is followed by a breakdown of total sleep duration, time spent in different stages (light, deep, and REM), and wake periods.
Compared to other wearables like the Oura Ring, Garmin watches, and Whoop, the Helio’s sleep tracking is quite consistent. Its detection of actual sleep time feels more accurate than older Amazfit devices, which sometimes overestimated rest.
One of the most interesting details is its integration of skin temperature variations overnight. This adds context to your recovery, especially if you’re battling illness or overtraining.
The resting heart rate and HRV values recorded during sleep are reliable and align closely with readings from higher-end devices.
However, the sleep score algorithm can be overly generous. It’s rare to see a score dip below 70, even after a restless night. That said, the raw data is useful—even if the scoring feels optimistic.
For users who care more about actual metrics than daily grades, the Helio still delivers meaningful insights to guide next-day exertion.
Biocharge Metric:
The biocharge metric is one of the standout features of the Helio HYROX Strap, designed to give users a real-time sense of energy and recovery. Unlike static morning scores, this value updates throughout the day, making it more reflective of your current state.
The score is calculated using a mix of sleep quality, HRV, resting heart rate, previous exertion, and recovery periods. It’s similar in concept to Garmin’s Body Battery, but with its own unique algorithm tied to Amazfit’s Zepp ecosystem.
After a night of solid rest, you’ll see your biocharge number spike—often gaining 60–90 points depending on how well you recovered. This becomes your starting point for the day.
As the day progresses, the metric slowly decreases based on physical activity, stress, or even long periods of inactivity, giving you live feedback on how much energy you’re burning through.
The app visualizes this drop with a clean graph, helping you track patterns over time. For example, if your biocharge tanks by noon, it’s a cue that your recovery may have been incomplete.
What makes this system smart is how it reacts to context. If you had a hard workout the previous day, even a full night’s sleep might not restore your biocharge to 100%. This helps prevent overtraining.
Conversely, rest days and naps can nudge the number back up in real time. That dynamic nature encourages users to adjust effort on the fly, instead of relying solely on morning scores.
It also plays nicely with the exertion metric, giving you a recommended effort target based on how charged your body currently is. This guidance helps you train smarter, not just harder.
Compared to Whoop’s Recovery Score, the Helio’s biocharge feels more transparent and less affected by black-box algorithms. It’s clear when and why the score changes, and the trends are easy to follow.
Overall, this metric is a major selling point of the Helio HYROX Strap. It turns passive recovery tracking into active daily decision-making—and that’s a huge win for fitness-focused users.
Exertion Level & Training Feedback:
The exertion level metric complements the biocharge score by showing how much physical stress you’ve accumulated throughout the day. It’s Amazfit’s way of helping users avoid burnout and overtraining.
Each day begins with a recommended exertion target, calculated based on your sleep, recovery, and recent workout history. This dynamic target adjusts if you’ve had particularly hard or light days beforehand.
As you go about your day, the Helio HYROX Strap tracks your activity and compares it to this target. It’s a great way to pace yourself—especially for athletes following a structured training program.
While it doesn’t yet offer real-time notifications when you hit your exertion limit, the daily feedback in the app is clear and easy to interpret. You can check in anytime to see if you’re under or over the suggested load.
This type of feedback helps reinforce better training habits, nudging users to rest when needed and push harder when fully recovered. It’s not overly prescriptive, but it’s definitely useful for day-to-day planning.
Workout Tracking:
Workout Modes and Setup
The Helio HYROX Strap supports 27 workout types through the Zepp app, ranging from running and cycling to strength training and rowing. Starting a workout is simple: just tap the activity icon in the app and hit “start.”
There’s no on-device control or display, so all interactions happen via the phone. While basic, this keeps the strap minimal and lightweight.
Indoor Workout Experience
During indoor workouts like weightlifting or treadmill runs, the strap records duration, heart rate, and calorie burn. However, the on-screen UI is very limited—there are no graphs or heart rate zones in real time.
The display mostly shows single metrics and has a lot of unused space. Adding graphs or effort zone feedback would make a big difference for serious athletes.
Outdoor Workout Experience
For outdoor sessions, the app interface becomes much more informative. When paired with GPS from a phone or Amazfit watch, you get route maps, pace, distance, split times, and live metrics.
You can swipe between pages to view more data during the activity. It’s more robust than indoor mode but still basic compared to Garmin or Polar.
Heart Rate Broadcasting
A nice bonus: the strap can broadcast heart rate via Bluetooth to third-party apps, tablets, and even Apple TV. This is ideal for indoor cycling, Zwift sessions, or TV-guided workouts.
Workout Completion Summary
After each session, you get a detailed summary that includes exertion impact, biocharge depletion, and heart rate graphs. This is where the Helio shines—tying workouts directly into recovery and readiness tracking.
Suggestions for Improvement
There’s room for growth here. Features like interval timers, effort zone tracking, or in-workout exertion alerts would help elevate the workout experience, especially for indoor training.
Heart Rate Accuracy (By Activity):
Indoor Cycling (Steady-State)
The Helio HYROX Strap performs exceptionally well during steady-state indoor cycling. After a brief adjustment period at the start, heart rate readings settled in and tracked closely with chest strap data. It maintained consistent accuracy throughout the workout, with only a 1–2 bpm variance at most.
HIIT & Interval Workouts
High-intensity intervals are always a challenge for optical sensors. The Helio showed minor lag during the first few seconds of each interval spike but generally caught up quickly. Peak values and recovery drops were mostly aligned with reference devices, with small stutters only during rapid transitions.
Outdoor Road & Gravel Cycling
This was a surprise standout. Outdoor cycling introduces motion artifacts from bumps and vibration, which can throw off many wrist-based sensors. The Helio maintained reliable heart rate tracking, matching data from both chest straps and other wearables with minimal disruptions—even during sharp elevation changes and rough surfaces.
Weight Training & Strength Workouts
As expected, wrist-based tracking struggled a bit here. During exercises like deadlifts and dumbbell curls, the Helio produced some noisy spikes and brief dropouts. However, average heart rate still landed in the right ballpark. The variability is understandable given muscle tension and wrist flexion during these activities.
Rowing Machine Workouts
Rowing showed solid performance overall. The strap tracked well through most of the stroke cycle, with clean peaks and recovery phases. However, when switching quickly between rowing and other machines (like skierg), accuracy dropped momentarily, likely due to sudden motion changes.
Mixed Modal or Combo Workouts
In sessions involving multiple disciplines (e.g., circuit training or Hyrox-style combo workouts), the strap showed minor inconsistencies when transitioning between stations. These were typically short-lived and corrected quickly once rhythm was re-established.
Comparative Reliability
Across all activities, the Helio’s heart rate tracking is on par with premium optical sensors. It outperformed most wrist-worn fitness trackers in outdoor conditions and matched up surprisingly well with chest straps during steady efforts.
Room for Improvement
Weightlifting and combo workouts remain challenging, and a bicep strap option would likely improve readings significantly. Amazfit could also consider implementing sensor calibration or motion filtering updates for better tracking in high-impact or grip-intensive activities.
Overall, the Helio HYROX Strap delivers impressive heart rate accuracy across a range of training scenarios—especially for a device this light and minimal. It holds its own against industry leaders and lays the groundwork for even better performance with future updates or accessory options.
Areas for Improvement:
While the Helio HYROX Strap gets a lot right, there are still areas where it could improve. The most obvious is the lack of a bicep strap option. Since wrist-based HR sensors can struggle with weightlifting and certain dynamic movements, offering a higher placement band would enhance accuracy.
The indoor workout interface in the Zepp app is also too minimal. It lacks real-time graphs, heart rate zones, and interval tools that more advanced users would expect.
There’s no in-session exertion alert or notification when you reach your exertion target, which would be useful for pacing. Adding haptics or app-based reminders could enhance that feedback loop.
Sleep scoring tends to be overly generous. More balanced calibration would provide better insights, especially for users comparing with other platforms like Garmin or Oura.
Lastly, it would be great to see third-party integration (e.g., Apple Health or Strava) in future updates for those using multiple fitness platforms.
Availability & Pricing:
As of now, the Amazfit Helio HYROX Strap is not available to the general public. It was released as a special edition exclusively for HYROX athletes at the World Championships in Chicago.
Amazfit has not yet confirmed a commercial release or timeline for a general version, nor any official pricing details. However, there are strong hints that broader availability may follow depending on interest and feedback from the HYROX deployment.
The big appeal lies in Amazfit’s promise of no subscription fee, which undercuts competitors like Whoop that charge monthly just to access key data.
If the strap launches at a consumer-friendly price—say between $79 to $129—it could instantly become one of the most compelling recovery wearables in the market.
For now, potential buyers will have to wait and watch. Given Amazfit’s track record with budget-friendly pricing and wide distribution, a broader rollout seems likely in the near future.
Conclusion:
The Amazfit Helio HYROX Strap brings a refreshing approach to recovery-focused wearables. It offers high-level fitness and health insights—similar to Whoop—but without locking those features behind a subscription.
Its core strengths lie in its biocharge and exertion metrics, which provide dynamic, real-time feedback to help users train smarter. The comfortable design and accurate heart rate tracking during most activities make it ideal for 24/7 wear.
Integration with Amazfit’s broader ecosystem adds flexibility, and battery life is solid at up to 10 days. While the software experience still needs refinement—especially for indoor workouts—the core concept works well.
The current limitation is availability, as it’s only accessible to HYROX athletes for now. But if a consumer version is released at a competitive price, this could become one of the best value fitness bands for performance-driven users.
For athletes, fitness enthusiasts, and data nerds who are tired of monthly fees, the Helio HYROX Strap is an exciting sign of what’s coming next.
Pros
- No subscription required
- Dynamic biocharge and exertion tracking
- Excellent comfort for sleep and workouts
- Works with other Amazfit devices
- Surprisingly accurate heart rate during most activities
- Long battery life (up to 10 days)
Cons
- Not yet available to the public
- Basic indoor workout interface
- Lacks bicep strap option for higher HR accuracy
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the Amazfit Helio HYROX Strap?
- It’s a no-screen fitness band designed for recovery and performance tracking, similar to Whoop but without a subscription fee.
Does the Helio Strap require a monthly subscription?
- No, Amazfit has confirmed that the Helio HYROX Strap does not require a subscription to access any features.
Can I buy the Helio HYROX Strap right now?
- Not yet. It’s currently only available to HYROX athletes, with no official public release date announced.
How accurate is the Helio Strap for heart rate tracking?
- In steady-state and outdoor workouts, it’s very accurate—often matching chest strap readings. Some drop-off can occur during weight training or rapid motion workouts.
Does it sync with Apple Health or Strava?
- Currently, the Helio Strap syncs with Amazfit’s Zepp app only. Third-party integrations have not been announced but may be added in the future.
🔁 Alternatives to Consider
1. Whoop 4.0
Best for: Athletes who want deep recovery insights and don’t mind a subscription
- The Whoop 4.0 is the direct competitor to the Helio Strap. It offers advanced metrics like strain, recovery, sleep staging, and a health monitor with skin temperature, HRV, and SpO2.
- The mobile app delivers daily training recommendations and long-term trend analysis.
- It requires a monthly or annual subscription to access data, which can be a dealbreaker for some.
- The band is comfortable and designed for 24/7 wear, with options for bicep placement and additional sensor accuracy.
Why choose it?
If you want the most polished recovery analytics ecosystem with proven coaching tools—and don’t mind paying a monthly fee—Whoop still leads in platform maturity. Buy it on Amazon now!
2. Garmin Vivosmart 5
Best for: Fitness users wanting recovery and health tracking without a subscription
- Garmin’s Vivosmart 5 is an affordable band-style tracker that includes Body Battery, HRV Status, resting heart rate, and advanced sleep tracking.
- It also offers basic activity tracking, blood oxygen monitoring, and stress scores.
- While not as data-rich as Whoop or Helio, it’s a one-time purchase with no extra fees and syncs with Garmin Connect and third-party platforms like Apple Health or Strava.
Why choose it?
Ideal for users who want meaningful recovery data in a low-profile design, plus Garmin’s proven health tracking—without recurring costs. Buy it on Amazon now!
