Withings Body+ Body Composition Smart Scale REVIEW | MacSources

A scale that provides a full picture of personal health.

In the past few years, I’ve had some struggles with weight loss/gain/maintenance. When I was younger, I was active and didn’t have the health issues I have now that make exercising a struggle. I’ve always just checked my weight using a standard scale that you can get at any drug store. Since technology has caught up to health and wellness gadgets, I now have the ability to monitor not only my weight, but also my bone mass, muscle mass, and the water content that make up my body composition. All of these features are part of the Body+ Body Composition Smart Scale by Withings.

DETAILS

The Body+ Body Composition Smart Scale is designed to provide an accurate picture of your health beyond just measuring your weight. The scale promises to provide high accuracy with weight measurements within 0.2lbs. The scale uses Position Control to ensure that accuracy is met. It’s a technology that helps you center your weight on the scale with on-screen visual cues. Finally, Withings incorporated gravity compensation into the scale to adjust measurements based on where you are geographically located on the globe. In addition to weight, the Body+ scale provides insights on Bone Mass, personal trends, Fat Mass, Muscle Mass, and water content. All of these measurements allow users to get a full, accurate picture of their health physical health.

The scale is easy to use for the whole family. Up to 8 users can be recognized automatically and have their data independently synced to their Health Mate profile. The scale also helps you prepare for your day as it displays the weather forecast and the previous day’s step activity. The scale uses 4-AAA batteries (included) and will operate up to 18 months on those. The Body+ also has a unique feature to help new moms with its Pregnancy Tracker feature and new parents with the Baby Mode option. Baby Mode allows users to track a child’s growth by holding them when they step on the scale. The scale and its app also provide a daily calorie budget to help track a person’s nutrition.

The scale uses WiFi or Bluetooth to sync your data automatically. The scale connects to an app on your mobile phone where all the measurements are recorded and available 24/7 for users to see what works and what needs more focus. The Withings Health Mate app is available for both Android and iOS. It is a fitness, activity, and health tracker app. Over time and with the proper data, users will see trends, progress, and receive coaching to help improve. Some of the features included in the app include:

• Vitals
• Weight & Body Composition Monitoring
• Activity & Sport Monitoring
• Sleep Analysis/Breathing Disturbances Detection
• Hypertension Management

The app is easy to understand and provides users with the data they need to track their health. Users get tailored health insights based on their goals and the app even provides shareable reports for doctors. The app recently received a major update to version 5.0 (currently on version 5.0.2 for iOS). This update included features like Trends, Tips & Articles, Health Insights, and Notifications. Health Mate is designed to work with Apple Health and is compatible with more than 100 other health and fitness apps.

Wireless Sync
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, compatible with WEP/WPA/WPA2-personal networks
Bluetooth connectivity (Bluetooth Smart Ready)

Requirements
Body+ can be installed on a smartphone or a tablet, via the Health Mate app available on iOS (iOS 10 and higher) and Android (6.0 and higher).
Cannot be set up from a computer

Patented body position detector
Highly-accurate weighing via Position Control TMtechnology

Scale
Large, high-strength tempered glass platform
Paint-free satin white casing
Ultra slim design
Dimensions: 12.8 x 12.8 x 0.9 in. / 327x327x23mm

Display
Large, easy-on-the-eye graphical display (2.4"x1.6"), 128×64 pixels
High-contrast lighting

Storage and memory
Free and unlimited online storage of weight readings
Stores up to 16 readings if scale cannot sync wirelessly

Power supply
4x 1.5V Alkaline cells (AAA)
Average battery lifetime of 18 months

Automatic user recognition
Up to 8 different users

USER EXPERIENCE

To be 100% honest, the scale and the app do most of the work when it comes to testing this product. There is no assembly required and batteries are pre-installed into the scale prior to packaging. So, when you remove the scale from the box, it’s ready to go. I do wish the scale was rechargeable instead of using AAA batteries, but given that the battery-operated nature of it keeps the scale wire-free, I can handle changing out batteries from time-to-time. The scale is easy to operate. Once you pull the tab out of the batteries to activate the power on the scale, you simply connect to the scale using the smartphone app (Android or iOS). The app takes you through the set-up process and in a few minutes, you are ready to start taking measurements.

Now, you do need to be aware that since this scale is taking a variety of body measurements you need to A) be patient. This scale takes longer than just the simple step on/step off action of an old-school scale. And B), you need to have bare feet for an accurate reading. The scale tells you what you need to know. It will show you when it’s starting a reading and when it’s done taking measurements. At that point, you can step off the scale. The display will scroll through the readings and then upload it to the app. This is one of the really nice things about this product — you don’t have to sync while you’re taking a measurement. The app will connect to the scale automatically (as long as the scale is connected to WiFi) and then you can analyze your results.

Scales are typically more accurate when you use them on a hard, even, flat surface, but the Withings Body+ actually comes with carpet feet that you can attach to the standard feet if you want to use it on carpet. I did attempt this, but the readings were about 50 pounds less than they should be. So, I’ve been using it on a linoleum floor (kitchen) and a tile floor (bathroom) to get my measurements. To test out the unit, I stepped on it once per day — always in the morning — and then tracked the measurements in the app. Since I was testing the scale for use-ability and ease of set-up, I wasn’t doing anything else to attempt to lose weight during the testing period. Because of that, the app let me know that I was successfully maintaining my weight. This feature is actually a really nice option because sometimes you don’t want to lose or gain. With my 87-year old grandmother, we want to see her gain weight, but definitely don’t want to see a loss. So, this maintenance encouragement is a good thing for her case, too.

CONCLUSION

I really couldn’t be happier with the Withings Body+ scale. It’s exactly what I need to not only help me track my weight and body composition but to also meet (and hopefully, exceed) my goals. I love being able to track progress and the ability to share the information with my doctors is also a great help. Even though this might cost more than the standard drugstore scale, it’s worth the price. I would like to see the app evolve to show trends to compare a user’s measurements to the ‘average’ measurements for body composition (right now it only shows you personal trends). But because that can easily be remedied with a software update, I hesitate to even include that as a negative.

For more information, visit Withings.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Originally published at https://macsources.com on August 27, 2020.