The promise of a wise watch is fantastic, however there are specific limitations to those units which have made them lower than excellent: their tiny display screen makes them difficult to make use of and their battery life is proscribed.
So, why not personal a watch that tells time, displays your well being utilizing sensors that must be subsequent to your pores and skin, acts as a health tracker, has nice battery life, and leaves the remaining to the good cellphone that you’re going to carry anyway? With this in thoughts I attempted out the Withings ScanWatch, a hybrid good watch that comes with superior well being monitoring, health monitoring, and as much as 30 days of battery life.
Withings is a French expertise firm specializing within the growth and manufacture of well being expertise merchandise. It was based in 2008 and has places of work in France, United States, and Hong Kong. Its product line contains good watches with well being sensors, good scales, blood stress displays, a sleep monitor, and even a non-contact thermometer. However, Withings does far more than simply design and promote these merchandise to customers. It additionally works to combine the info collected by their merchandise with medical professionals so physicians can higher handle their affected person’s well being.
Withings ScanWatch Health Monitoring
The ScanWatch is Withings most superior wearable well being gadget. First, it’s a clinically validated coronary heart well being monitor. It can carry out an on-demand electrocardiogram (ECG), tracks the wearer’s coronary heart fee each second throughout a exercise to optimize coaching, measures blood oxygen saturation and displays every day and nighttime coronary heart charges.
The ScanWatch contains electrodes on the again of the watch in addition to an electrode within the metallic ring across the watch face. When the wearer locations a finger on the metallic ring, electrodes measure {the electrical} exercise of the guts within the type of an ECG.
Whereas, an ECG in a physician’s workplace is measured utilizing 12 wires (leads) related to totally different components of an individual’s physique, the ScanWatch is known as a “single lead” ECG because it simply measures {the electrical} exercise of the guts between the wrist the place the watch is being worn and the wearer’s different hand that’s rested on the watch in touch with the ScanWatch’s outer ring. Obviously, the info collected by the ScanWatch is far more restricted than what may be collected by a 12 lead ECG in a physician’s workplace. For instance, the ScanWatch can’t detect a coronary heart assault.
The ScanWatch’s ECG can detect indicators of atrial fibrillation (A-fib), which is an irregular and sometimes very fast coronary heart rhythm (arrhythmia) that may result in blood clots within the coronary heart. A-fib will increase the danger of stroke, coronary heart failure, and different heart-related issues.”
A-Fib is commonly not identified in folks as a result of it could come and go. So, the power to seize an ECG every time the wearer feels any signal of their coronary heart beating irregularly may also help diagnose this subject in a short time.
The ScanWatch additionally features a multi-wavelength PPG sensor to measure blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) from the wearer’s wrist in solely 30 seconds. A standard blood oxygen saturation degree is between 95% and 100%. However, it may be considerably impacted by lung illness or COVID-19.
At night time the ScanWatch can carry out a respiratory wellness scan that features measurements of coronary heart fee, coronary heart rhythm, respiratory fee, respiratory effort, and oxygen saturation all through the night time to supply a whole mapping of the wearer’s sleep sample. The ScanWatch additionally measures the cycles of a wearer’s sleep utilizing information from an accelerometer constructed into the ScanWatch. Combining this information, the ScanWatch can detect respiratory disturbances that may impair your skill to sleep correctly in your physique to get better through the night time.
In addition, the ScanWatch will monitor your sleep cycles and supply a cumulative sleep rating primarily based on these cycles, length, regularity, and disruptions. The sleep rating offers the wearer with a straightforward to know metric of their sleep high quality every night time.
All of the above has been validated in a number of scientific research. In truth, the ScanWatch has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its oximetry and ECG options.
Withings ScanWatch Activity Tracking
The ScanWatch additionally offers the options folks want to trace their exercise, monitor their train classes, and to attain their health targets. First, the ScanWatch can robotically detect whether or not you might be strolling, operating, or taking part in as much as 30 totally different actions. 
The ScanWatch will use GPS information from the wearer’s good cellphone to map the train session, together with the length, distance, tempo, elevation, and energy burned. All of this information is out there within the Withings Health Mate app or may be built-in with companion apps, together with Apple Health, Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, and RunKeeper.
Finally, the ScanWatch will assess your health degree primarily based on an estimate of your maximal oxygen consumption (VO2 Max). Wikipedia defines VO2 Max as “(maximal oxygen consumption, maximal oxygen uptake or maximal cardio capability) is the utmost fee of oxygen consumption measured throughout incremental train; that’s, train of accelerating depth.”
Hands on with the Withings ScanWatch
The Withings ScanWatch is packaged in a easy cardboard field and comes with a smooth cloth journey case, magnetic charging cable, elastomer sport wrist band, fast set up information, and ScanWatch info information.
After charging the ScanWatch, I went by means of the method of including the ScanWatch to the free Withings Health Mate App that I had already put in on my cellphone from prior reviews I’ve achieved of different Withings merchandise. The app instantly detected the watch and stepped me by means of the method of:
- Pairing the gadget with my cellphone
- Selecting which member of the family configured within the app who can be utilizing the ScanWatch
- Performing a firmware replace on the ScanWatch
- Automatically setting the time on the ScanWatch by transferring the palms to the proper time
Finally, the watch walked me by means of a sequence of tutorials on the operation of the watch, together with taking my first ECG and measuring my blood oxygen saturation.
The face of the ScanWatch resembles a regular analog watch, however there are some vital variations. First, you by no means need to set the watch by turning the watch’s crown. Instead the palms are absolutely motorized and can robotically transfer to the proper time.
Second, on many normal watches there may be small round face with a single hand that counts down the seconds. The ScanWatch contains this identical small round face with a single hand on the decrease half of the watch’s face. However, as a substitute of counting off the seconds, it measures your progress towards your every day train objective.
Finally, there’s a small, round, digital show within the higher half of the watch face. This face is activated by urgent the crown of the watch. When the crown is first pressed, the show reveals the present time, day, and date. Then, whenever you flip the crown, it steps by means of the totally different features accessible together with:
- Displaying your final measured coronary heart fee
- Displaying the variety of steps that you’ve got taken that day
- Displaying the variety of miles traveled
- Displaying the altitude gained because the variety of flooring you could have climbed
- Performs an ECG
- Measures your blood oxygen saturation (SPO2)
- Triggers the beginning of a exercise and the number of the kind of exercise that you can be performing. Optionally, a exercise may be triggered by a protracted press of the crown.
- Guides your respiratory from one to 5 minutes permitting you to refocus and loosen up
- Turns the alarm on/off or prompts the stopwatch
- Switches to Settings, the place you’ll be able to view the battery life, flip do-not-disturb on/off, “Quicklook” on/off (means that you can robotically flip the show of the watch on whenever you increase your wrist), Hands on/off (robotically strikes the watch palms to the ten:10 clock place when the show is activated in order that they don’t block the consumer’s view of the show)
- Calories burned
The above listing of features may be custom-made utilizing the Withings Health Mate app. You can re-order the gadgets within the listing or take away gadgets you don’t need displayed.
ECG Measurement
As described above, an ECG is the measurement of {the electrical} exercise of the guts. Taking your ECG with the ScanWatch may be very easy.
- Select the ECG perform by urgent the crown
- Turn the crown till ECG is displayed on the ScanWatch show
- Press the crown to start the ECG measurement
- Relax
- Place your hand throughout the face of the watch so it’s in touch with the outer metallic ring of the ScanWatch however leaving sufficient room so you’ll be able to nonetheless see the show
- The show will depend down 30 seconds because it collects information on {the electrical} exercise of your coronary heart
- When accomplished, the show will let you know in case your ECG is regular, reveals A-Fib, or if the ScanWatch was unable to precisely accumulate information; probably since you have been transferring an excessive amount of through the information assortment course of
Using the Withings Health Mate app, you’ll be able to then replay all the ECG, share the ECG as a PDF with a medical skilled, or share a whole well being report primarily based on all the info collected by the ScanWatch as a PDF with a medical skilled.
Blood Oxygen Saturation Measurement
Measuring your blood oxygen saturation with the ScanWatch is, once more, quite simple.
- Select the SPO2 perform by urgent the crown
- Turn the crown till SPO2 is displayed on the ScanWatch show
- Press the crown to start the SPO2 measurement
- Relax
- Place your hand throughout the face of the watch so it’s in touch with the outer metallic ring of the ScanWatch however leaving sufficient room so you’ll be able to nonetheless see the show
- The show will depend down 30 seconds because it collects information
- When full the show will show your blood saturation, let you know whether it is regular, and show your coronary heart fee.
Blood oxygen saturation measurements are built-in into the sleep monitoring and health monitoring features of the ScanWatch.
Sleep Tracking
The Withings ScanWatch robotically tracks your sleep at night time. The info collected may be seen within the Withings Health Mate app.
First, and foremost, a sleep rating is calculated primarily based on the opposite information collected by the ScanWatch. The sleep rating offers an intuitive means for a consumer to shortly perceive the standard of their sleep. The sleep rating relies on 4 metrics
- The whole time spent sleeping
- The consistency within the instances you go to mattress and rise up
- The period of time you spent in deep, restorative sleep
- The time you spent awake through the night time
In addition, the Health Mate app offers info on:
- Breathing disturbances, together with loud night breathing
- A graph of your coronary heart fee all through the night time
Breathing disturbances are detected by means of the ScanWatch’s movement sensor, measurements of blood oxygen degree, and pulse fee measurements through the night time.
The Withings app means that you can monitor your sleep coronary heart fee over time as it’s an indicator of your general cardiovascular health and well being. In the Health Mate app, you’ll be able to view graphs of your coronary heart fee on a nightly, quarterly, or yearly foundation. The app may even show whether or not your sleep coronary heart fee is trending upwards or downwards.
Fitness Tracking
Another essential characteristic of the ScanWatch is health monitoring. The ScanWatch contains presets for monitoring 41 totally different types of train together with, operating, swimming (the ScanWatch is waterproof at depths as much as 50 meters), biking, strolling, mountaineering, weightlifting, yoga, pilates, tennis, soccer, and golf.
Testing the health monitoring capabilities of the ScanWatch proved to be a problem. A 30,000-plus acre wildfire lower than an hour drive from my house turned our usually pristine air right into a haze of smoke. With air high quality readings within the hazardous vary, my regular exercise of mountain biking turned out of the query. While the indoor air high quality was higher, it nonetheless wasn’t ok that I needed to work out. Finally, the wind shifted, and the air high quality improved sufficient, for a couple of hours, to go on a mountain bike experience.
First, I attempted the ScanWatch’s automated exercise detection characteristic. This didn’t work in addition to I’d have favored. The ScanWatch is marketed as with the ability to detect 13 totally different actions together with strolling, biking, tennis, and dance. What I discovered was that the ScanWatch would ultimately detect that I used to be biking. But it took fairly a while for it to do that and a good portion of the info from my exercise wasn’t captured.
After giving it some thought, I spotted that there was little distinction between my biking down the road on a motorcycle with my palms on the handlebars and driving down the identical avenue with my palms on the steering wheel of my automobile. The solely actual distinction can be that my coronary heart fee can be elevated on the bike. With this in thoughts, I understood the problem of robotically detecting that I used to be biking. I used to be far more profitable after I merely triggered the beginning of the exercise utilizing the crown on the ScanWatch with the ScanWatch show.
During the experience I may optimize the standard of knowledge collected by pausing the exercise every time I finished driving and restarting after I continued. This is well completed by merely urgent the crown and deciding on the displayed pause image adopted by deciding on the play image to proceed with the experience. Similarly, you press the crown and choose the cease image if you end up completed.
With the ScanWatch related to my good cellphone’s GPS by means of Bluetooth, the ScanWatch captured the route of my experience and a map of it was displayed within the Withings Health Mate app. In addition, within the app I may view:
- Duration of my experience
- Miles traveled
- Average velocity
- Maximum velocity
- Calories burned
- Average coronary heart fee
- A graph of my velocity and elevation adjustments over the course of the experience
- A graph of my coronary heart fee all through the length of the experience
- A graph displaying the period of time my coronary heart fee was in several zones (peak, intense, reasonable, and lightweight)
The app additionally permits the consumer to connect pictures to the exercise session and sort in notes. Finally, there may be the power to set a weekly objective for my biking exercise.
For operating and strolling exercises when the ScanWatch is related to a wise cellphone for GPS monitoring, a calculation of VO2 max is carried out and accessible within the Health Mate app. In the app, the VO2 max worth is labeled as the person’s “Fitness Level.”
VO2 Max is the utmost fee that your physique can use oxygen throughout train. The worth is a mixture of health and genetics. Individuals can enhance their skill to soak up oxygen by means of train and coaching. However, skilled athletes, such because the cyclists that compete within the Tour de France, have VO2 max ranges which might be past the capabilities of the typical particular person.
The solely different problem I encountered utilizing the ScanWatch through the bike experience is that, with out my studying glasses, I discovered it tough to function the exercise features on the watch given the dimensions of the show. It isn’t a matter of in case you are ultimately going to crash when mountain biking, it’s only a matter of when. Because of this, and the very fact I solely want glasses for studying, I select to not put on costly prescription glasses when driving. Instead, I simply put on cheaper, over-the-counter sun shades.
The ScanWatch may be configured so a press-and-hold of the crown robotically switches the watch to the exercise selector. With this configured, and a while to memorize the sequence of steps turning and urgent the crown to start out a biking exercise, I count on it gained’t be exhausting to beat this drawback. The pause, play, and cease symbols are large enough that I can see these with out my glasses.
Overall, the ScanWatch offers the consumer with quite a lot of well being information associated to a exercise.
Integration
The Withings Health Mate app presents a variety of options and in addition integrates with different Withings merchandise, together with their line of good scales and their blood stress gauge. However, for individuals who wish to use different well being and health apps, Withings presents integration with a variety of different well-liked apps together with, however not restricted to, Apple Health, Google Fit, IFTTT, Strava, MyFitness Pal, Nest, RunKeeper, Fitbit, and WebMD.
In addition, Withings has an open API (software programming interface) to permit anybody with software program growth expertise to write down their very own software program that leverages their well being information.
Other Features
The ScanWatch may be configured to vibrate in response to notifications from a variety of apps. For instance, I configured the ScanWatch to vibrate in response to textual content messages, cellphone calls, and notifications from Pushover, which I take advantage of to obtain notifications from my good house. The ScanWatch would even show textual content messages and the brief textual content from Pushover notifications telling me, for instance, that my garments dryer had completed drying my garments.
The ScanWatch can wake you up on the optimum time, primarily based in your schedule and sleep cycle. After deciding on the time that your alarm clock would usually go off, the ScanWatch will select the perfect time to wake you up — utilizing a light-weight vibration — inside 20 minutes of your regular wakeup time, primarily based on the stage of sleep that you’re in.
The ScanWatch can optionally be configured to vibrate when it detects lengthy durations of inactivity to assist the wearer preserve, and enhance, their health.
Style
The Withings ScanWatch appears like a traditional analog watch; not a wise watch. It is out there in a width of both 38mm or 42mm. The 38mm ScanWatch is out there with a white or black face and a cultured silver case. The 38mm ScanWatch can also be accessible with a white or blue face and a cultured gold case. The 42mm ScanWatch is out there with a black or white face and a brushed silver case. While the black round digital show stands out on the white face of the ScanWatch, it blends in with the black face and an off-the-cuff observer would do not know you have been sporting a wise watch. 
All kinds of non-compulsory bands may also be bought for a ScanWatch together with a wide range of totally different silicone bands, leather-based bands, recycled woven P.E.T cloth bands, mesh metallic bands, and linked metallic bands.
Finally, the ScanWatch has a sapphire glass crystal. This is identical type of glass that’s used on high-end watches, together with these from Rolex.
Withings additionally presents the ScanWatch Horizon. The Horizon is a premium model of the ScanWatch with a rotating bezel, heavy responsibility, machined chrome steel case, linked metallic watch band, and is waterproof to 100 meters. It additionally comes with a five-year guarantee.
Conclusions
The Withings ScanWatch is a really well-designed software for monitoring your well being and health. The blood oximetry and ECG measurement capabilities are FDA authorised, and the watch has gone by means of intensive scientific trials. Leveraging these capabilities for health monitoring, sleep monitoring, and A-Fib detection provides actual worth to a consumer. In addition, the 30-day battery life units it aside in comfort in comparison with a wise watch.
Even with these superior options, the ScanWatch is straightforward to make use of and the Heath Mate app offers intensive assist capabilities that permit an individual and not using a medical background to make use of the product.
From a usability standpoint, I solely have one minor grievance. I do want that the palms on the ScanWatch glowed at midnight to can help you simply learn the time at night time. You can press the crown to show the date and time on the ScanWatch’s small show. But, with out my studying glasses, that actually doesn’t assist. If the palms and hour markers glowed, it will tackle this subject and make a superb product even higher.
https://restechtoday.com/health-and-fitness-tracking-with-the-withings-scanwatch/
