WHOOP Movement Score could turn sitting time into another daily metric

WHOOP may be about to give you another number to worry about, this time for simply sitting around too long. A newly published patent lays out a Movement Score that rewards regular movement, keeps an eye on long sedentary stretches and could even buzz your wrist when it is time to get up.

Yes, another score. But this one is pretty easy to understand, and unlike some vague wearable patents, WHOOP has gone as far as showing what the feature could look like inside the app.

WHOOP Movement Score appears in a new patent

The patent application is simply called “Movement Score.” Published on September 3 as US 2026/0256381 A1, it lists WHOOP as the applicant and describes a system for calculating a daily score from periods of activity and inactivity.

The basic idea is pretty straightforward. WHOOP would look at how much time you spend moving, but also pay attention to your longest sedentary stretches. Sitting around for a long uninterrupted period could pull the score down, while spreading movement across the day could push it higher.

The filing even shows an example WHOOP app screen with a Movement Score of 72 and a “Good” rating. Underneath are figures for maximum sedentary time and total active time, followed by a timeline showing periods of activity and inactivity across the day. 

It could warn you before you sit for too long

Of course, WHOOP does not want Movement Score to be something you discover at 10pm when it is too late to change anything. The patent describes notifications during the day based on how the score is developing.

In one example, the system identifies a longest inactive stretch of around 1 hour and 50 minutes when the target is 60 minutes. It could then recommend getting up for a short walk. WHOOP also describes alerts delivered through the wearable itself, potentially including a vibration as the wearer approaches a recommended maximum inactive period.

The system could go further and estimate where your Movement Score is heading before the day has finished. If the projected result looks poor, WHOOP could suggest an activity or change in behaviour that would improve it.

This fits WHOOP pretty well

WHOOP already puts much more emphasis on interpreting data than simply collecting it. Recovery, Strain and Sleep boil a large amount of sensor information down into numbers people can understand quickly, and that remains one of the biggest differences between WHOOP and many of the devices in our screenless fitness tracker comparison.

Movement Score would push that approach into everyday activity. It is less about whether you smashed a workout and more about what you did during the other 15 or 16 waking hours of the day, which is an area fitness wearables have traditionally handled with fairly basic step goals and inactivity alerts.

WHOOP has also been widening its health platform beyond workouts and recovery. The company recently opened Advanced Labs to people without a WHOOP membership, while other filings show it exploring considerably more ambitious measurements.

One recent patent describes non-invasive glucose monitoring, using optical sensing to estimate glucose without puncturing the skin. Another part of WHOOP’s research points toward wearable muscle oxygen measurements and ways of improving sensor contact with the body.

Compared with those ideas, Movement Score looks considerably easier to bring to existing hardware. Nothing described here obviously requires a new sensor, and WHOOP already collects the movement, heart rate, sleep and recovery data needed to build much of the feature.