Many of the fitness trackers I have tested impressed me at first glance. After the review was done, few people claimed a spot on my wrist. I forgot to charge them and they eventually ended up on the nightstand. I don't use most of the features on the watches and fitness trackers.
The Withings ScanWatch is different. The hybrid watch has a set of skills that make it very special: It passes easily for an analog watch, it tracks my activity, workouts, and sleep, and it offers basic notifications from my phone. It can go a long time between charges.
Understated elegance.
The timepiece is made of both glass and steel. The Withings ScanWatch has chrome-covered hour and minute hands. There are two smaller dials inside the circular face. The dial on the bottom has a single red hand that shows your progress toward your fitness goals for the day, which is measured as a percentage between zero and 100. The top dial is not a dial at all. Press the rotating crown on the side of the ScanWatch and you will see a tiny passive matrix display that shows the digital time and date. The crown can show you different bits of data on the tiny screen: your heart rate, step count, distance covered, and floors climbed.
I found the Withings ScanWatch heavy when I switched from an Apple watch. It is a comfortable timepiece to wear, with a generous black fluoroelastomer wristband that has proven durable and less apt to pick up lint than the silicone bands I have worn before, and it has a much daintier design. The ScanWatch feels precise. I don't feel the need to take it off when I dress up or down because the classic design blends in.
Distilled and accessible.
Withings
The Withings ScanWatch focuses on fitness and health. There is no support for music, no microphone or speaker for calls, and no support for mobile payments. The display on your phone is too small for other notifications, so I recommend setting them to calls only. By the time a text message is displayed, you could have easily put the phone away and read the notification.
The Withings ScanWatch was delayed in the US because the manufacturer wanted clearance from the FDA to use the built-in electrocardiogram sensor. The Withings ScanWatch has FDA clearance for blood oxygen monitoring, which is similar to the Apple Watch 7 and the SAMSUNG GALAXY WATCH 4.
