Withings Body+ Smart Scale review (now in Target)
The Wi-Fi connected smart health monitor is something I’m a bit new to with a Withings blood pressure monitor being my first introduction into the genre, and the Withings Body+ Smart Scale being my second. You might not particularly see the advantages over simply Bluetooth, but we’ll get into that in a bit.
The Body+ scale is now on shelves at Target for $99.99, or you can order online on Target, Amazon, or pick one up at Withings. It’s been out for a couple of years at this point so little to no danger of being the guinea pig or running into a company that will never push an update or support their product.
I like the Withings Body+ Smart Scale because I don’t have to think about it
I have had Bluetooth connected scales in the past. They’re cool, but when you forget to open the app for a while you find suddenly you’re dealing with a lack of data on weight trends, re-integrating it with Google Fit or some such, and a bit of a hassle. If you regularly weigh yourself away from your phone you’ll find that you’re missing data, or standing around waiting for a Bluetooth connection.
I mean, that’s not a lot of work, but it’s something I routinely stopped paying attention to and noticed again and again that an app would go to sleep, never to be seen again until I remembered to open it. My weight would be the same in Google Fit, or the app that wasn’t syncing, and I wouldn’t think about it until I noticed that line never moved.
Wi-Fi connectivity means I hop on the scale whether my phone’s around or not and when I’m feeling like being depressed with my pandemic body I can look at my phone, or a web page, and all that data is there.
Do I really need a connected scale?
Maybe. My motivations in the past with losing weight and exercise were based quite a bit on metrics. Calories in, approx. calories burned, yadda yadda. Take 1/60th of my average weight + 4 pounds and completely ignore/don’t be depressed by fluctuations in that range and stay on a weight loss trench run.
Keeping up with that was a lot of work, made a lot worse when I had a smartwatch *cough* fitbit *cough* that was way overestimating my burned calories, and a food tracking site *cough* fitbit’s, *cough* that was littered with multiple problems with calories in foods. Oh, I blame Fitbit for some of this, but most of it was indeed just having nothing much to do, kids, and everyone I know becoming a master chef over Covid lockdowns
I found quite a bit I was getting the wrong information, not seeing updates, and then when I did with the scale it was big… like that can’t be right… what the hell, Batman?
Maybe if I’d been a little more hands on and manually tracking this would have been caught, so yeah… maybe it worked against me. I’m hoping it won’t again.
The connected health journey
The Withings Body+ Smart Scale appears to be within a quarter pound of what my other scales claim. For purposes of this let’s say there’s not a lot new in weighing technology and I highly suspect the only difference is how I stand. All tell me the same lies… lies I tell you. You get a reading of weight, BMI, fat mass, lean mass, water mass, bone mass, and muscle mass.
You can read it out as it displays, or just walk away and find it on your phone or in the Withings Healthmate dashboard a couple of minutes later. I’m not sure how fast it gets there, but it’s there.
I suspect you can probably determine if you’re actually dehydrated, hung over, or flu-ridden from the water mass, but that’s not something I’ve run across in testing so far.
For me, it’s metrics, numbers I can touch in a graph that hopefully keeps trending toward where I want it to be that I don’t have to fight to get data into it.
I also like being able to share info with my doc… I’m on a blood pressure and weight fight at the moment. Oddly only a little connected as I’ve had high BP since I was 13 or so and not in the range to be lied to by scales.
I’ve now got a dashboard heads up of my heart rate, steps, SpO2, ECG (Withings Scanwatch,) my blood pressure (Withings BPM Connect,) and now weight, BMI, fat/lean/water/bone/muscle mass with the Withings Body+.
I got two of these for review, I’ll point that out. Put my own money into one of them. Basically I liked the Scanwatch so much I dumped my Fitbit, drank the Kool-Ade, and purchased the blood pressure monitor because, well, dang, you get yourself a Scanwatch and then tell me you don’t suspect the company will churn out some fine products. I mean seriously, they’re freaking great.
Or don’t… do what motivates you
Had I not been a technophile with a review blog I highly suspect I’d have paid a little more attention to my metrics… but yeah. If this is something that would fit well for you, I’ve really not had any complaints about the software I’ve been using, its integration with Google Fit which I’ve stopped using as much because Healthmate does what I want, or anything I’ve run across with any of their products or documentation.
The only thing the Withings Body+ Smart Scale brings is a better way, in my opinion, to collect and get your data in a meaningful way to you. It won’t make you healthier, for that it’s up to you. It will probably show you when you’re making yourself unhealthier however. At least as long as you use it.
Features galore
Wi-Fi, multi-user and it just knows (you’ll see in the app,) and yeah. It’s got enough to make it work without much thought. An 86 pound kid weighing themselves doesn’t screw up your weight chart. It knows.
So yeah, I hadn’t thought I was going to sit down and write 1000+ words on why I liked a scale, but dang man, Withings products are fitting into a niche I need right now. Getting my butt back to health.
Withings Body+ Smart Scale
Withings Body+ Smart Scale: Wi-Fi connected, quickly measures weight, bone/fat/water/muscle mass, and delivers seamlessly to your dashboard
Product Brand: Withings
Product Currency: USD
Product Price: 99.99
Product In-Stock: InStock
4.9
Pros
- Weigh and forget
- Easy setup
- Health dashboard
- Google Fit Integration
Cons
- Tells truth
