The Temp Drop Thermometer - Is it worth it?

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The Temp Drop thermometer - Is it worth it? Does it really work?

These are two questions I get asked nearly every week, so let’s talk about it!

For those who don’t know, the Temp Drop thermometer is an armband thermometer that is worn when going to sleep at night and takes our temperature automatically for cycle tracking and fertility purposes.

Temp Drop has some obvious pros and some frustrating cons. Here’s a look at what those are…

Pros of the Temp Drop Thermometer

Pro #1 - You don’t have to wake up at the same time every day or adjust temperatures for waking up late or early.

With traditional temperature tracking using an oral fertility thermometer, we need to either take our temperature at the same time every morning (which means waking up at the same time every day) or use a simple formula for adjusting temps when we wake up earlier or later than usual. This is because our basal body temperature will be higher the later into the morning that we take it and lower the earlier in the morning that we take it. Therefore, to get an accurate temperature comparison from day to day we need to take our temperature within 30 minutes of the same time each day.

For the days that we sleep in late or wake up early (hello weekends & vacations!), we need to use a simple addition or subtraction formula to bump up early temps and bump down late temps into the range they would’ve been at had we taken our temp at the usual morning wake up time.

It sounds cumbersome, but it’s actually quite simple.

The biggest pro for most folks when it comes to using Temp Drop is that you don’t have to do any of this. You don’t have to wake up at the same time every day or use the adjustment formula. This is because the Temp Drop thermometer has sensors that monitor our core temperature throughout the night while we’re sleeping and outputs a single reading in the morning when we take it off and sync it with our smartphones. Temp Drop avoids needing to adjust temperatures despite varying wake up times because its “patented algorithm learns your unique nightly and monthly temperature patterns, filtering out disturbances for accurate results” - as it claims on its website.

Pro #2 - You don’t have to remember to take your temperature.

Another major pro for most folks is that with Temp Drop you don’t have to remember to take your temperature when you wake up. You do, however, have to remember to put Temp Drop on your arm before going to bed each night.

Pro #3 - Some people who struggle with getting accurate temperature recordings with oral thermometers find that Temp Drop gives them more reliable temperature readings.

This one is interesting. As a fertility awareness educator, I’ve seen a small handful of women just not be able to find an oral thermometer that works for them and their bodies. They try 3 or more oral basal body thermometers, fertility thermometers, and even fever thermometers and they can’t seem to find one that gives reliable recordings.

For babes who have tried two or three oral thermometers, I usually recommend giving Temp Drop a try. Oftentimes, they will respond better to their temperature being taken via their inner arm (Temp Drop style) rather than orally.

(Pro Tip - If you’re curious about the reliability of your oral thermometer recordings, here’s an easy way to test it. Take your temperature at your normal wake up time. Take note of the reading. Wait 3 minutes or so to let the thermometer come back to room temperature and immediately take your temperature again. Perhaps repeat a third time. If all of the temperature recordings vary by more than 2 tenths of a degree, then it’s probably not that reliable. For example, if your first reading is 97.2, your second reading is 97.5, and your third reading is 97.1… it’s likely not very reliable. If, however, your first reading is 97.2, your second is 97.3, and your third reading is 97.2… then it’s probably a reliable reading.)

Pro #4 - Temp Drop makes using cycle tracking as birth control possible for shift workers, new moms, & poor sleepers.

Prior to the invention of Temp Drop, these population of babes didn’t have a good option for reliable temperature tracking for birth control. Shift workers, new moms, and poor sleepers have erratic sleep patterns and rarely wake up at the same time or get quality sleep each night. This means that their morning temperature readings would also be erractic and, therefore, unreliable.

Temp Drop’s algorithm claims to filter out sleep disturbances like varying wake up times, getting up in the middle of the night to breastfeed or change diapers, frequent tossing & turning, and more. This allows babes who fall into these categories to finally have a way to track their core temperature in a more accurate and reliable way. Game changer!

Cons of the Temp Drop Thermometer

Con #1 - Temp Drop goes through a “learning curve” when you first start using it and will adjust many temperature readings in the days that follow.

This is the #1 frustration that I hear from clients who choose to use Temp Drop. They decide to use Temp Drop because they don’t want to worry about adjusting temps when they wake up early or late, but then they have to go through a 30 to 60 day period of nearly daily temperature adjustments when they first start using Temp Drop.

Essentially what happens is that when you first start using Temp Drop its algorithm needs to “learn your nightly and monthly temperature patterns” and this takes time. It doesn’t give accurate and reliable temperature recordings from first use. This learning period tends to be one to two months long, though I’ve seen it go on for longer with some babes. This can be frustrating because you’ll write down your temperature recording for the day and then a day or two later Temp Drop will update that recording to a different temperature and you’ll have to update it on your chart too.

The major downside to all of this early temperature adjusting is that you can’t accurately close your fertile window in real-time until the Temp Drop learning curve wraps up and temperature readings stop getting retroactively adjusted so often. With oral thermometer tracking we adjust disturbed temperatures in real-time which means we can also rely on those temperatures in real-time and use them to close our fertile window in real-time, too. In the first few months of using Temp Drop, we have to work with our fertility awareness educators to retroactively close our fertile windows.

(Pro Tip - When first starting out with Temp Drop, just expect to have two temperature lines on your cycle tracking chart - one for the day-of recording and another for adjusted temperatures. OR, you use a pencil and go back and update any temperatures that are adjusted after the fact. OR, also track with an oral thermometer for the first 30 to 60 days.)

Con #2 - Temp Drop is expensive.

Temp Drop costs $199, plus an optional $40 extra for refund and warranty and another optional $45 for one year insurance. This means Temp Drop can cost anywhere between $199 and $284.

Most oral basal body and fertility thermometers cost $15 to $30. Therefore you could try up to 18 different oral thermometers for the price of Temp Drop plus warranty and insurance.

Con #3 - Sometimes the temperature sensor falls out of the armband holder while sleeping.

I’ve only heard this complaint from one client, but it seemed to be happening quite frequently for her. The issue here is that if the sensor falls out while sleeping we have no reliable way to take our temperature reading for that day because Temp Drop and sporadic oral thermometer use are not all that interchangeable, so we just have to skip that day and hope the sensor stays put going forward.

Con #4 - The Temp Drop app attempts to predict your fertile window with the premium package.

I talk about this all the time, but any app or device that tells you when your fertile window is using temperature only is not effectively identifying your fertile window. That’s because temperature tracking can only confirm ovulation and tell us when our fertile window has closed. It does not tell us when our fertile window needs to be open. And, we need to know when to open our fertile window accurately to both avoid pregnancy and achieve pregnancy because we are able to get pregnant for days BEFORE ovulation occurs. Opening the fertile window is why cervical fluid tracking is so important.

Apps and devices that output a fertile window using temperature tracking and algorithms are simply predicting when the opening of the fertile window is based on when it was in past cycles. This isn’t the most effective way to do things because we are not robots and the timing of ovulation and our fertile days can vary from cycle to cycle.

All things considered, what is my personal & professional opinion of the Temp Drop armband thermometer for pregnancy and birth control tracking?

I have no problem with my clients using Temp Drop as their chosen thermometer for pregnancy and/or birth control tracking purposes. In fact, I often recommend it to new moms, poor sleepers, people with widely varying wake up times, and anyone who has tried 3+ oral thermometers and can’t find a reliable option.

I have clients who LOVE Temp Drop. I also have clients who bought it, used it, didn’t love it, and switched back to oral thermometers.

I, personally, have never used Temp Drop. I have a lot of personal success using oral thermometers. I’m also not a fan of sleeping with a tech-device on my body. Despite running an online business, I live a pretty low-tech lifestyle. I don’t sleep with electronic devices in my bedroom other than a small television for snuggling and watching shows with my hubby. I refuse to get one of those smart house devices like Alexa. I have a rotary landline telephone. The only “smart” device that I own is my cell phone and if I didn’t have a business to run I would 100% switch back to a simple flip phone without internet access. And, I don’t have a single cycle tracking app on my phone even though I’m a menstrual cycle educator.

I like the simple, straightforward vibes of using a basic oral thermometer and recording the readings manually on my paper chart.

Therefore, personally, I have no intentions of switching to Temp Drop, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think it could be a really powerful and effective option for you!

What I really love about fertility awareness methods is that we are in control of our bodies and our choices. What works best for me, doesn’t have to be what works best for you. YOU get to decide. YOU are the leader. I am simply here to walk alongside you and guide the way.

Comment or reply back and let me know…

Have you ever used the Temp Drop thermometer? What did you think?

What other fertility or cycle tracking thermometers do you like?

Curious about getting started with using the sympto-thermal method as natural birth control or to help you get pregnant naturally? Let’s chat! You can schedule a free Cycle Wisdom Consult Call with me here!

You can also learn all about working with me here.

Disclaimer:Brandy Oswald, Sauvage Wellness LLC, and her employees are not doctors, nurses, physicians, psychotherapists, or in anyway licensed medical practitioners and information presented here is to serve as an educational resource and not to be interpreted as: (1) medical advice; (2) a 100% effective birth control or pregnancy achievement options or (3) nutrition or health guidelines. By reading this you acknowledge that you understand that as a specialized form of consulting, fertility awareness education is not the same as professional or licensed therapy or medical advice and intervention; and recognize that it is your responsibility to seek such services from a licensed professional. Brandy Oswald is not a medical provider and cannot give medical advice. All information provided by Sauvage Wellness LLC and Brandy Oswald is of a general nature and is intended only for educational purposes to help with your personal health improvement goals and should not be relied on as medical advice. Always consult a physician with any health concerns and prior to changing your diet, lifestyle, supplements, birth control, fitness, or prescription medicine routine. Should you choose to use the information provided by Brandy Oswald it is of your own volition and you recognize that neither Brandy nor Sauvage Wellness LLC is not held liable for any intended or unintended outcomes.