Bengaluru techie uses fitness band data to find out which colleague stresses him most

A Bengaluru software engineer has gone viral after linking his Whoop data with his work calendar to see which meetings trigger stress. The light-hearted project prompted jokes, scepticism and a wider debate on how wearable data is being used beyond fitness.

In Short

• Pankaj reverse-engineered his wearable to access minute-by-minute heart-rate readings directly
• He matched physiological spikes with calendar events and listed meeting attendees
• The output was a joking leaderboard ranking colleagues by apparent stress levels

A software engineer from Bengaluru has gone viral after revealing that he built a tool that tracks which coworkers cause him the most stress during meetings by matching spikes in his heart rate with entries on his work calendar.

Pankaj, a Bengaluru-based software engineer, shared the project on X, explaining how he connected data from his Whoop fitness tracker to his work schedule to identify the meetings that triggered the strongest physiological reactions.

"I hooked my whoop to my work calendar to find which coworker gives me the most stress," he wrote.

According to Pankaj, the project began after he reverse-engineered the wearable device's data stream to access minute-by-minute heart-rate readings. He then matched those readings against calendar events and meeting attendees.

"Thanks to fable, I reverse engineered whoop to pull per minute heart rate, and matched spikes with cal events and attendees," he added.

The result was what he jokingly described as a "leader board" ranking coworkers based on the stress levels their meetings appeared to generate.

"I now have a leader board and I think about it daily," he said.

The post included a photograph of the Whoop fitness tracker on his wrist, along with another image showing snippets of code and what appeared to be a blurred ranking list of colleagues linked to heart-rate spikes.

Take a look at the post here:

The unusual side project quickly caught the attention of social media users, many of whom responded with a mix of amusement and scepticism.

One user jokingly suggested that Pankaj should market the system as a workplace analytics tool, saying enterprises could use it to identify employees who create the most stress before making layoff decisions.

Others questioned whether heart-rate data alone could accurately identify stressful coworkers. One commenter pointed out that many external factors could influence heart rate, including climbing stairs before a meeting, consuming sugary food, physical activity, or even the time elapsed since the last meal.

Another user joked that traditional HR reviews could never compete with such data-driven insights, quipping that somewhere a product manager was probably already adding "coworker stress forensics" to a future feature list.

While the project was clearly shared in a lighthearted manner, it also sparked discussion around the growing popularity of wearable devices and the creative ways people are using personal health data beyond fitness tracking.

For now, however, Pankaj's stress leaderboard appears to be more of a humorous side project than a serious workplace evaluation tool, though judging by the reaction online, many office workers seem curious about what their own rankings might reveal.

- Ends