Withings ScanWatch 2
MSRP $350.00
“The fascinating Withings ScanWatch 2 places the corporate’s complete and correct well being tech inside an aesthetic watch case.”
Execs
- Lovely design
- Complete well being monitoring
- FDA authorized for atrial fibrillation
- 38mm or 42mm case sizes
- Lengthy battery life
Cons
- Unreliable notifications
- Subscription wanted to unlock options
- App design can frustrate
If you’d like a smartwatch that tracks your well being, however doesn’t appear like a chunk of tech in your wrist, selecting from the standard suspects is kind of difficult. What you must do as an alternative is take a look at the Withings ScanWatch 2. On the floor, it seems to be an aesthetic conventional watch, nevertheless it hides some spectacular and extremely correct health-monitoring tech inside.
Sounds superb, proper? I’ve been carrying it for some time to see if it lives as much as expectations.
Withings ScanWatch 2: design
Hybrid smartwatches bridge the hole between regular watches and smartwatches, combining a level of linked performance with conventional appears to be like, which makes them very enticing to those that don’t need a full touchscreen watch on their wrist. The Withings ScanWatch 2 is likely one of the finest-looking hybrids you will get, identical to its predecessor.
There’s no query the ScanWatch 2 appears to be like, feels, and wears like a non-smart watch. It has two bodily arms and a complication displaying progress to your step objective at 6 o’clock. The case is created from chrome steel, the dial is roofed in sapphire crystal, it has a 5ATM water resistance ranking, and there’s a crown on the right-hand aspect, however no different buttons or technique of management. It does have a display screen, which is positioned within the high half of the dial, nevertheless it’s not all the time lively.
The display screen comes on whenever you increase your wrist or press the crown and in addition reveals the time. And whenever you rotate the crown, it shows your coronary heart fee, steps, exercise modes, blood oxygen stage, pores and skin temperature, and different features. It’s vivid and clear however by no means intrusive. It’s not fairly as hidden because the Garmin Vivomove Pattern’s display screen, however from a distance, you wouldn’t actually realize it was there. This helps additional advance the ScanWatch 2’s conventional watch look.
It did take just a few days to get used to the burden of the ScanWatch 2, which isn’t particularly heavy at 74 grams, however I’d come from the 58-gram Google Pixel Watch 2, which may be very gentle certainly. Acclimatization was largely required once I wore it at evening, and I did discover it the primary few occasions. It acquired higher, however there’s some heft behind the ScanWatch 2, and it nonetheless feels a bit arduous to put on it each evening, no less than in comparison with the Pixel Watch 2 and the Apple Watch Sequence 9.
The ScanWatch 2 comes with a really comfortable silicone strap. It’s gentle, very versatile, and tremendous gentle. I admire the buckle and keeper mixture, which helps maintain the strap below management as it’s fairly lengthy. On my 6.5-inch wrist, I both used the fourth or the fifth gap, leaving 11 holes spare, so it’s unlikely many individuals may have an issue getting it to suit comfortably. It’s a regular quick-release pin fitment, so you may simply change it for any 20mm strap when you choose.
Stylish, understated, comfy, and well-made, the ScanWatch 2 is a pleasure to put on daily. It goes with all the pieces, by no means appears to be like misplaced, and definitely doesn’t appear like a chunk of expertise. It’s not overtly sporty, and the raised indices on the dial look costly and catch the sunshine attractively, whereas the baton arms have a coating of lume so you may see them at nighttime.
The domed sapphire crystal has a phenomenal sheen, the bezel is slim, and the crown is completely sized to simply flip along with your fingertip. The ScanWatch 2 is a thoughtfully designed and extremely trendy watch I’m comfortable to put on on a regular basis, whatever the sensible tech hidden inside.
Withings ScanWatch 2: what concerning the expertise?
The tiny grayscale OLED display screen is simply 0.63 inches and represents the one actually seen tech facet of the ScanWatch 2. On the again of the watch — which can also be made from chrome steel — is Withings’ redesigned multi-wavelength PPG coronary heart fee sensor and its TempTech 24/7 module for physique temperature readings. The watch additionally has an accelerometer and an altimeter, which have been upgraded over the unique ScanWatch.
It’s the best way these sensors work collectively that makes the ScanWatch 2 particular. By measuring pores and skin and ambient temperature, together with coronary heart fee and motion, it might probably present 24/7 physique temperature knowledge. That is helpful for understanding your well being, efficiency and restoration, and for extra correct and helpful interval monitoring, too.
The ScanWatch 2 can take an electrocardiogram studying, and it has been authorized by the Meals and Drug Administration (FDA) for atrial fibrillation detection. Plus, you may take on-demand blood oxygen readings. It can warn you a few low or excessive resting coronary heart fee and, sooner or later (after a software program replace), about an irregular coronary heart fee.
There are a number of exercise modes, all accessed on the watch, to trace. Throughout strenuous train, the ScanWatch 2 makes use of the TempTech 24/7 module to trace your physique temperature and splits it into three completely different zones: Heat up, Efficiency, and Overheating. That is completely different from the extra frequent methodology of utilizing your coronary heart fee, and Withings claims it’s simpler to grasp your peak efficiency state and never overtrain. The temperature knowledge informs a restoration time graph.
The Withings ScanWatch 2 connects to each Android and iOS smartphones utilizing the Withings Well being app, and it may be linked to Apple Well being, Google Match/Well being Join, Samsung Well being, Strava, RunKeeper, Nest, IFTTT, and MyFitnessPal. I’ve been utilizing the ScanWatch 2 linked to a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and encountered no issues associated to the setup.
Withings ScanWatch 2: health monitoring
Beginning a exercise on the ScanWatch 2 can take a little bit of effort, as you must scroll by the menu after which scroll by exercise modes earlier than beginning. Nevertheless, it’s doable to set a protracted press of the crown to open the exercise mode and to customise the listing of accessible exercises, which saves a while. I like how pausing and ending a exercise requires a protracted press of the crown, too, so that you’re unlikely to do it accidentally. You may set the display screen to remain lively when understanding or have it flip off to avoid wasting battery.
It does have an computerized workout-tracking function, nevertheless it’s not superb. It doesn’t present a notification like on the Apple Watch or Pixel Watch; it simply tracks no matter it thinks you’re doing, leaving you to find it within the app afterward. A number of occasions, it has “tracked” me biking, regardless of me not having peddled an inch in years, but it has missed my day by day walks, which the Oura Ring fortunately picked up. That is annoying as a result of it throws off your stats and forces you to go in and edit the exercise, however provided that you discover it when wanting by the app. It’s even worse when you didn’t spot it and also you don’t bear in mind what you have been really doing on the time.
Monitor a exercise manually, and the app reveals GPS-related location knowledge, elevation adjustments, coronary heart fee knowledge, and train zones, plus temperature-driven Temperature Zones. It additionally offers you a Health Stage rating and tracks enhancements over time. What the ScanWatch 2 doesn’t do is endlessly push you to do extra and even remind you to rise up and transfer round. It’s very “hands-off” until you toggle a number of the settings, and even the app doesn’t ship notifications about your progress a lot.
That is the place the ScanWatch 2 differs from a full touchscreen smartwatch. It’s much less intrusive and leaves lots of the invention and motivation all the way down to you. It’s much less goal-focused and as an alternative depends on suggesting missions within the app quite than pushing you to do one thing like take extra steps. I discovered I seemed on the watch much less throughout a exercise and easily checked stats after I’d completed, which is a distinct method than once I train with a smartwatch. I typically felt much less tied to, or beholden to, the ScanWatch 2.
What the ScanWatch 2 doesn’t do is endlessly push you to do extra.
It’s additionally essential to know the Withings ScanWatch 2 just isn’t a health tracker on the extent of a Garmin Epix Professional (Gen 2), and it gained’t fulfill hardcore exercisers. The performance is extra on the extent of a health tracker just like the Fitbit Cost 6, simply in a much more enticing package deal and with out the identical emphasis on doing extra. It’s extra about bettering well being by metrics and fewer about driving health ahead.
Withings ScanWatch 2: sleep monitoring
Put on the ScanWatch 2 to mattress, and it routinely prompts sleep monitoring. This has labored completely each time for me, and the info it supplies is in depth and informative. Sleep monitoring is certainly considered one of its robust factors, offered you will get previous the burden of carrying the watch in a single day. I’ve worn the ScanWatch 2 alongside a third-generation Oura Ring in order that I can evaluate sleep-tracking outcomes. Each these merchandise emphasize how essential sleep is to our total well being, each take temperature under consideration, and each merchandise value the identical.
Total, they supply outcomes which can be extraordinarily shut to one another. Throughout my assessments, the Sleep Scores have typically been the identical or inside just a few factors of one another. The length is normally solely break up by a couple of minutes, and each caught the identical nighttime interruptions on the similar occasions, too. Beneath are two units of screenshots that present how the Oura Ring and ScanWatch 2’s knowledge evaluate and the way they typically match up fairly intently. The place the 2 differ is within the quantity of knowledge gathered and proven that’s associated to physique temperature.
The Oura Ring supplies a single quantity for the day, providing you with a fundamental perception into adjustments to your temperature, whereas the ScanWatch 2 tracks adjustments repeatedly and plots outcomes on a graph, so you may see the way it adjustments all through the day, and might even see the way it correlates to your exercise too. Nearly all of the info is proven within the app, however you may as well see adjustments on the watch’s display screen, the place it highlights in case your physique temperature strikes out of its anticipated baseline area.
With extra knowledge out there, overlaying a larger period of time, the ScanWatch 2 does show you how to higher perceive your physique temperature. Nevertheless, what you are able to do with this data is kind of restricted. You may see the fluctuations, however the app doesn’t inform you a lot about what it means, leaving it all the way down to you to make assumptions. Whereas the granular knowledge could point out adjustments to your well being extra quickly than the Oura Ring’s single common quantity — and in addition assist decide restoration occasions — many peoplemay discover the additional data superfluous. Anybody wanting to trace durations could discover it extra useful, however Oura’s wonderful partnership with Pure Cycles supplies extra actionable knowledge.
The ScanWatch 2’s in a single day temperature monitoring is spectacular, nevertheless it does appear barely underutilized, which stops it from pulling forward of the Oura Ring in terms of sleep monitoring. Fitbit and Samsung Well being’s sleep monitoring is suitable as nicely.
Withings ScanWatch 2: app and connectivity
The ScanWatch 2 has the best design and is filled with spectacular sensor expertise. It’s not too hardcore in its method to exercise, the sleep monitoring is great, and — for essentially the most half — the health monitoring is strong. Nevertheless, the package deal is let down by the app and its connectivity.
Open the app, and also you’re not greeted by your newest stats, however as an alternative by panels displaying notifications and day by day missions, forcing you to scroll down to search out your day by day measurements. The missions aren’t all the time very useful, as they embrace studying articles along with precise actions to finish, whereas Notifications present badges and different articles or duties associated to optimizing the watch. When you get to the info collected, it’s clearly introduced, and a faucet of every panel reveals extra data. On the backside of the web page is a few historic knowledge.
There are two different tabs: Measure, which reveals all of your present and historic well being knowledge, and Obtain, which incorporates challenges and long-term objectives, together with ads to purchase different Withings merchandise. The Well being app is kind of easy, and whereas it does present all the pieces you’d usually need to know, it might probably present much more, however provided that you pay.
That’s proper, it has a subscription package deal, and that’s the place the juicier components are hidden. You should spend $10 monthly to get a Well being Enchancment Rating, further well being knowledge, Every day Missions to assist construct new habits, and Superior Insights to see how all of your knowledge works collectively.
It’s very like Fitbit’s method, as you’re left questioning why you paid a lot cash for the {hardware}, solely to be shortchanged in terms of the insights into the info you provide. The app doesn’t actually encourage you to pay for it, both. It’s not essentially the most intuitive design, and fundamental features like altering your weight are pointlessly arduous to search out. Plus, there are function points, too, such because the Health Stage defaulting to the oldest document first, making you swipe away till you finally discover the newest one.
Notifications are very unreliable. After they do arrive, formatting on the small display screen is commonly poor. For instance, Outlook notifications scroll by your personal e-mail handle earlier than attending to the meat of the message. And it reveals the sender’s identify instantly after the notification arrives, nevertheless it’s normally gone earlier than you’ve woken up the display screen. Quick messages are clearly extra useful, however nothing may be recalled on the display screen or interacted with both. It’s greatest to deal with notifications as a fundamental alert greater than anything.
Lastly, the app lacks customization, so it’s arduous to repair the design points. The Withings app expertise is much less user-friendly than Fitbit’s, and also you’ll get extra from Garmin and Samsung Well being with out paying something further. It lets down the ScanWatch 2.
Withings ScanWatch 2: battery and charging
I’ve been carrying the Withings ScanWatch 2 for 11 days on the time of writing, utilizing largely customary settings, together with blood oxygen measurements on demand quite than fixed. I’ve tracked one exercise on half this quantity of days and tracked sleep for eight of the 11 nights. Beginning with a full battery, it’s now all the way down to 40% remaining.
This means it should miss Withings’ declare of 30 days battery life, because it appears unlikely the battery will final for an additional 19 days primarily based on its present efficiency and my (pretty reasonable) use. There’s an opportunity the watch’s sensors could also be working a bit tougher through the preliminary part, when it establishes baselines, and battery life could enhance after just a few weeks of use.
It comes with a proprietary charging block, which has a intelligent spring-loaded part that securely grips the watch’s case when it’s on cost, guaranteeing it gained’t cease charging when you bump it. The battery takes about two hours to cost.
At the moment, the ScanWatch 2’s battery life falls wanting expectations, and even when it does enhance as soon as it has completed accumulating all of the related knowledge it wants (and that’s solely hypothesis on my half), I’m nonetheless undecided it’ll attain 30 days when you monitor a exercise and sleep daily. Nevertheless, even when it lasts 20 days, that is nonetheless far longer than you’d get from most different smartwatches, making battery life a powerful purpose to purchase.
Withings ScanWatch 2: value and availability
The Withings ScanWatch 2 is available in two completely different case sizes: 42mm (which I’m carrying within the pictures) or 38mm. The 42mm model is available in black or Pearl White with a chrome steel case, whereas the 38mm provides a Sand or a blue model with a Rose Gold case to the listing. There’s additionally the chance to buy completely different straps whenever you purchase the ScanWatch 2 by Withings’ web site. The ScanWatch 2 prices $350, or 320 British kilos, no matter which case dimension or end you select.
That is across the similar value because the $400 Apple Watch Sequence 9, the $350 Google Pixel Watch 2, and the $400 Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Traditional, all of that are full smartwatches and due to this fact provide extra performance. Solely the Pixel Watch 2’s health platform has a subscription hooked up. None have any type of FDA approval, and none share the ScanWatch’s similar in-depth physique temperature monitoring function.
Nevertheless, I don’t suppose the choice about which one to purchase will come all the way down to options. The ScanWatch 2 differs massively in design and in intention. That is as a lot of a watch as it’s a well being and health tracker, and it places an emphasis on the accuracy of knowledge and the well being advantages of understanding it quite than pushing a protracted listing of options you might by no means use. Whereas the costs could also be comparable, the ScanWatch 2 will possible enchantment to a distinct set of individuals — and may sway these disillusioned by high-tech designs that haven’t modified a lot year-over-year.
As an alternative, it’s the $270 Garmin Vivomove Pattern that these eager on the ScanWatch 2 ought to take a look at in its place, because it has a watch-like design, bodily arms, and a small hidden display screen. The Garmin platform is nice, and there’s no subscription, both. Alternatively, the $350 Oura Ring needs to be thought of. It’s an excellent sleep tracker, the app is excellent, the design is enticing, and it’s easy to put on.
Withings ScanWatch 2: verdict
Hybrid smartwatches are briefly provide today, so it’s fantastic to see Withings go all-in on making a improbable instance of 1. It has the successful design all of us need and loads of related expertise inside that’s so correct that the FDA has given its approval to a selected function. This offers you confidence within the knowledge total, and having that stage of belief in a tool monitoring your well being is a really huge deal.
Nevertheless, the app and its subscription mannequin sours the package deal a bit, because the app by itself feels fairly fundamental, and it’s clear there are extra fascinating and useful options hidden behind the paywall. The app and its connection to the watch don’t make me need to pay both, as a consequence of questionable design selections and poor notification assist. It’s definitely not terrible; it simply must be a lot slicker than this to encourage a $10-per-month spend. The app and notification reliability might be improved with software program updates.
I believe it’s additionally essential to grasp the ScanWatch 2’s limitations, as regardless of its appears to be like and the distinctive temperature module, it’s a comparatively customary well being and exercise tracker. Don’t purchase it pondering it’s something greater than that. All that apart, the ScanWatch 2 wears nearly as good because it appears to be like, and when you’ve been always perturbed by health trackers of every type taking a tech-first method, then the ScanWatch 2 is the watch you’ve been ready for.
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