The Withings ScanWatch is a hybrid smartwatch with advanced health monitoring capabilities. The watch has a 30-day battery life, can mirror your phone's notifications, and track your exercises. It is water-resistant up to 50m to use in the rain and the pool. The most attractive elements of this stylish smartwatch are the health-monitoring features. Alongside standard fitness-tracking, the ScanWatch can perform ECG monitoring, assess your blood oxygen levels, and perform respiratory scans while you sleep.

Key Features
  • Integration with Apple Health, Google Fit, and over 100 other services
  • Fitness tracking, including steps, sleep, and workouts
  • Works well with other Withings products
  • Health monitoring capabilities, including ECG, SpO2, and atrial fibrillation
Specifications
  • Brand: Withings
  • Heart Rate Monitor: Yes
  • Color Screen: No
  • Notification Support: Yes
  • Battery Life: 30 days
  • Operating System: Not applicable
  • Onboard GPS: No
  • Offline Media Storage: No
  • Customizable Strap: Yes
  • SIM Support: No
Pros
  • Excellent value given the range of features
  • Smart and neutral design
  • Look can be customized with alternative bands
  • 30-day battery life
Cons
  • Currently only available in Europe, awaiting US regulatory approval
  • Syncing data to third-party platforms can be slow or inconsistent
Buy This Product
Withings ScanWatch

There are two common types of wrist-worn gadgets; smartwatches and fitness trackers. Fitness trackers focus primarily on helping you keep tabs on your daily exercise. Smartwatches, on the other hand, are more like an extension on your smartphone with a comprehensive range of apps, services, and sensors.

There is a third style of device; a hybrid smartwatch. These wearables sit somewhere between a fitness tracker and a smartwatch, capable of tracking your exercise, overall health while offering some level of integration with your smartphone.

The Withings ScanWatch is a hybrid smartwatch with fitness tracking capabilities, a long-lasting battery, and an analog clock. This would be interesting in its own right, but the wristwatch also gives the Apple Watch's health monitoring features some much-needed competition.

Withings ScanWatch Design

Withings ScanWatch on a wrist

The Withings ScanWatch is a wrist-based gadget that you might actually mistake for a traditional watch. At first glance, it's hard to see any obvious signs of the technology within. The watch face has two hands (one for hours, one for minutes), and there's an adjustment crown on the right-hand side, which is ever so slightly larger than on a standard watch. This is good, though, as you use the crown to interact with the device's various smart features. The most obvious sign that this isn't a traditional watch is on the underside of the ScanWatch.

There are three visible sensors found on the back of the watch. Two of these form part of the ScanWatch's ECG feature, while the third is an optical heart rate and SpO2 monitor. Other visual clues include the smaller circular analog subdial on the lower front of the watch. This shows your percentage of progress towards your daily movement and exercise goals. Just above that, there is another, initially blank, subdial.

At a glance, this is the only clear indication that this is not a regular wristwatch. A PMOLED screen displays critical data and allows you to start and control ScanWatch's tracking elements. There's no touchscreen, so you interact with the on-screen prompts using the crown. Turning the crown scrolls through the menu, while a short push selects the highlighted option. In the case of workouts, a long press of the crown starts and stops your chosen activity.

The watch is available in either black or white, although this only changes the watch face background color. You can select between the 38mm and 42mm edition of the wristwatch. The main features don't differ, but the 42mm version adds numeric hour markers and uses red to accent the daily progress subdial. As standard, the ScanWatch ships with a silicone strap with a stainless steel buckle. You can switch this for any other Withings strap or choose your own.

Features

Withings ScanWatch closeup in a bush

The Withings ScanWatch makes a compelling case as an Apple Watch alternative. Not only does it achieve an extraordinary 30-day battery, but it comes with medical-standard monitoring capability typically only found on Apple's wearable. This is all at a fraction of an Apple Watch cost, and with cross-platform support, so the ScanWatch is suitable for iPhone and Android users.

Although the company has always had a more medical-style focus on its products, in the past, Withings watches have been more closely aligned to fitness trackers than fully-fledged smartwatches. So, as you'd expect, core fitness tracking elements can be found on the ScanWatch, too. Onboard sensors monitor your steps, measure your heart rate, and track your workouts.

Selected exercises include running, cycling, walking, and swimming. Importantly, the watch is water-resistant up to 50m, so you can wear it while working out, going for a swim, or even in the shower. If your workout isn't listed, you can select Other from the menu. There's no onboard GPS, so if you want to track your training location, you'll need to keep your phone with you and connected via Bluetooth.

The ScanWatch attempts to register these activities automatically, so you shouldn't often activate workout-tracking manually. Some important everyday features are often overlooked, so it's useful to note that the ScanWatch also comes with a brief mindfulness exercise, listed as Breathe on screen. Evidently, you can use the watch to tell the time, but there's also the option to set alarms and timers and activate a stopwatch.

As this is a cross-platform wearable, the company has worked hard to ensure feature parity on both operating systems. It is often the case that smartwatches may access certain features on Android devices, but fewer on Apple's iPhones. However, both types of smartphones receive the same features, including notification mirroring. When setting up the ScanWatch, you can opt into this, although you can adjust the apps which can send notifications to your wrist.

Health Monitoring Features

Withings ScanWatch watch face

The Apple Watch is widely considered one of the best wearables available due to its ECG monitor and other medical-style features. However, the Apple Watch only works with iOS devices, is quite expensive, and has several other features that many people might not need or want. So far, no cross-platform wearable has filled that gap, offering a high-quality connected experience alongside clinically-validated health monitoring.

That is, until the Withings ScanWatch. Given the regulatory hurdles required to release a medical device, it is currently only available in Europe. However, the company is working on regulatory approval in the US and hopes that the watch will be available to purchase sometime in 2021. This short delay is worth it for the number of features offered. These include; ECG measurements, sleep tracking, SpO2 monitoring, and proactive atrial fibrillation notifications.

The most prominent of these is the electrocardiogram (ECG), which measures your heart's rhythm and electrical activity. There are two ECG electrodes on the underside of the ScanWatch, and the watch's case doubles as the third ECG electrode. To enable on-device ECG tracking, you need to make a complete electrical circuit. The two sensors on the electrodes on the underside touch your skin, acting as one side of an electrical circuit.

To close this circuit, you only need to activate the ECG function on the watch, then place your palm over your watch face for 30 seconds. This completes the circuit and allows the sensors to monitor your heart's activity. A summary result is displayed on the subdial, while you can find a more detailed analysis within the Health Mate app.

The process is similar when you want to utilize the watch's SpO2 sensor to monitor your blood oxygen levels. Use the crown to select SpO2, then place your palm on top of the watch face for 30 seconds. The device will vibrate once the scan is complete and offer up a summary result on-screen and further detail within the Health Mate app.

Like other fitness-tracking devices, the ScanWatch offers sleep tracking. However, alongside the standard elements of nighttime analysis, the watch comes with a Respiratory Scan, which measures your heart rate, rhythm, respiratory rate, and oxygen saturation throughout the night. In conjunction with other recorded data, this is used to inform a Sleep Score, accessible within the app.

Software

The Withings ScanWatch syncs its data to the companion Health Mate app, which is available for Android and iOS. Similarly, notification mirroring works on both platforms. When you first set up your ScanWatch using the Health Mate app, you'll be asked to enable access to your phone's notifications. If you choose not to opt-in, you can always do so at a later time. Health Mate is also compatible with over 100 other services, including Apple Health, Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, IFTTT, and even Fitbit.

In most cases, this is a two-way sync, so your data stays consistent between platforms. As native apps, Google Fit and Apple Health are the most common integrations. Both services act as data consolidation tools, enabling you to see all information at a glance. Having previously used Health Mate with an Android device and now with an iPhone, both integrations work seamlessly, as expected.

One incredibly minor bug encountered during the review period was a persistent notification within the Health Mate app reminding me to "Continue discovering ScanWatch" despite having completed this task during the initial setup and several times subsequently. Sometimes the sync between Health Mate and Apple Health would get stuck or would inconsistently update data. Patience tended to be key here, but, notably, I didn't have this issue before attaching the ScanWatch to my account.

Those small issues aside, you can view all of your ScanWatch's data within the app. The most recent recordings are shown on the initial screen, and tapping the category allows you to analyze the data over time. If you aren't sure where to start with all of this information, the Health Mate app also has an assistant chatbot that will offer personalized insights and recommendations.

Sustainability and Longevity

Withings ScanWatch in hand

Before you invest in the ScanWatch or any technology-based product, it's worth considering whether the device is easily repairable and what would happen should the various cloud-based services become unavailable. Like many smart products, the ScanWatch is not user-repairable. While disappointing, and certainly a far cry from traditional watches, this is understandable.

Given the number of features on offer here, the ScanWatch is only marginally larger than a standard watch. Withings have packed a tremendous number of electronic components into an exceedingly small package. This design means that the watch is practical, but unfortunately, not repairable. Even if you could open up the device, the health-monitoring sensors need to be carefully calibrated to ensure optimum sensitivity.

For similar reasons, the watch needs a proprietary charger rather than a standard micro-USB or USB-C lead. You can purchase replacement charging cables from Withings. However, the most likely part of the watch to break or get damaged is the strap. Fortunately, you can easily replace these with any from Withings range of bands. If you prefer not to go that route, you can attach any compatible quick-release strap. The ScanWatch comes with a felted case as well for protection while not in use.

Another factor to take into account is the longevity of the platform. Smartwatch and fitness band users have felt the repercussions of this in the past. For instance, the Pebble smartwatch, generally credited with making the wearable a mainstream device, was rendered almost useless after Fitbit acquired the company. Similarly, Google has just officially completed its purchase of Fitbit. It remains unclear what the future holds for that fitness-tracking company.

Withings has also been subject to similar pressures. The French company was founded in 2008 and launched its first product in 2009. Challenging market conditions meant that, despite critically well-received products, the company was sold to Nokia in 2016. By 2018, the founder of Withings purchased the business back from Nokia and rebranded all products under the Withings name again.

This, in itself, should be taken as a positive sign. It is very unusual for a company to be purchased by the original owner so soon after an acquisition, suggesting a more solid financial position. Likewise, throughout this period, all the business' products remained functional. We can never be sure about the future, but, for now, there are no signs of trouble ahead for Withings or the owners of its products.

Should You Buy The Withings ScanWatch?

The Withings ScanWatch doesn't compete directly with the Apple Watch but continues down a similar path. This isn't surprising, though; since its inception in 2008, Withings has stood apart from other manufacturers by offering a health-focused selection of products, including smart body scales and connected blood pressure monitors. This hybrid smartwatch offers notification mirroring, which is often the most desirable smartwatch feature.

However, where the ScanWatch excels is in its design. The physical device looks nice, both smart and casual at the same time. You can customize the look of your watch with alternative bands. Aside from telling the time, the watch unobtrusively keeps tabs on your overall health, fitness, and wellbeing. The Health Mate app makes it simple to understand the data and, crucially, how to use it to inform your lifestyle.

The Withings ScanWatch is easily the best hybrid smartwatch available today, and it even makes a good case for one of the best wrist-based wearables out there. If you've been considering investing in a connected health-monitoring gadget, then your list should only contain a single item; the ScanWatch.