The best smartwatches tend to share some common traits, such as a large display, software customization, fitness tracking, and various apps. To carve out a niche, Withings has chosen to go in an entirely different direction with the ScanWatch. Withings designed a striking and classically designed timepiece offering a wide range of health-tracking features.

By designing a timepiece with smart features, the Withings ScanWatch sits in an interesting corner of the wearables market. The culmination of Withings’ efforts is more than enough to sway those who aren’t sold on modern smartwatches, but likely won’t be able to attract the Wear OS lovers of the world.

Price & availability

The Withings ScanWatch retails for $300. At the time of writing, purchase options are a bit limited. It can be found on the Withings website and at Best Buy.

Design

The ScanWatch features a stainless steel body with a single brass lacquered dial on the right side. The ScanWatch is a hybrid watch, like the Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness Edition, which means it features analog watch hands prominently shown front and center. The ScanWatch uses sapphire glass to protect the display and hands.

You get a small PMOLED round display at the top and a pointer at the bottom. The pointer is another analog dial equipped with another hand that shows your daily progress toward your step goal. It doesn’t give your total steps but shows as a percentage of your daily step goal. The ScanWatch straps are made from fluoroelastomer, which is a synthetic rubber, and are secured to your wrist with a traditional watch clasp.

For the most part, the Scanwatch was comfortable to wear, and the clasp was easy to secure. There were a few instances where the straps began to irritate my skin, and I was forced to take off the watch to let my wrist breathe a bit. This typically happened upon waking up with the watch on my wrist and only after three or four days of continuous use. Your mileage may vary here, but wearing a watch to bed is something I normally do, and I haven't run into this issue before with other brands.

The watch comes in two different models. The 38mm model has a diameter of 38.4mm, is 13.2mm thick, and weighs only 58g. It comes in four different color configurations. There are two different white variations, one with a silver body and one with a rose gold colored body. You can also get it in black with a silver body or blue with a rose gold body.

The 42mm model has a diameter of 42mm and a thickness of 13.7mm. The ScanWatch is a bit hefty at 83g but wasn't something I noticed unless I compared it to a watch like the Google Pixel Watch, which weighs only 36g. It comes in white or black, and both models have silver bodies. Withings also sells bands individually in a variety of different colors.

I felt the 42mm ScanWatch was a tad too small for my wrists, and I wish Withings could bump the size up to 44mm. My significant other has much smaller wrists than I do, and she found that the 42mm model was slightly too big and heavy for her. If you have smaller wrists or are concerned about weight, the 38mm model may be the one for you.

Withings designed this watch to be water-resistant up to 165 feet. It is equipped with Bluetooth 4.0 to connect the ScanWatch to your phone. Unfortunately, it lacks features like NFC and built-in GPS, so you’ll still need to bring your phone along for location tracking and mobile payments.

Software

Clicking the ScanWatch’s crown brings up a digital clock. From there, turning the crown scrolls through your current heart rate, daily step count, daily distance traveled, workout selection, floors climbed, ECG test, SpO2 test, stress test, a clock setting (which is where you can set an alarm clock, a timer, or use the stopwatch), and the settings menu. The settings menu on the watch is basic, giving you only a few options like setting do not disturb mode or activating the raise to wake feature.

While the watch itself shows basic information, the Health Mate app is where you will go if you want to drill further into your health data or change some of the more advanced settings on the ScanWatch. Upon opening the app, you are presented with your home screen. This is where you will find your latest measurements, including total steps, sleep score, average heart rate, and overall fitness level. The dashboard tab gives you all your activity, heart, and sleep information. If you have Withings Body+ Smart Scale, you will also see a breakdown of your body weight and accompanying data.

The devices tab is where you can pair your watch and alter some important settings. You can enable notifications, set an alarm, customize what workouts you can select (you can enable eight in total at a time), and alter the menus you see when pressing the dial. I loved that you could rearrange the menus and select or deselect the ones you didn’t want to suit your needs.

Speaking of notifications, the small display on the watch works against the usefulness of the notifications. When you get a notification, it will show on your watch and scroll horizontally like a stock ticker. Turning the dial while a notification is scrolling allows you to rewind or fast-forward for easier reading. A larger screen would make it easier to interact with notifications but would sacrifice the classic timepiece look. As it stands, it gets the job done, but barely.

Health & fitness

Withings is well established in the health and fitness world, and that prowess is on full display with the ScanWatch. The watch and its included sensors are capable of a wide array of different health-tracking features. You get continuous heart rate tracking (every 10 minutes), ECG tracking, and a clinically validated SpO2 sensor. Your first ECG test is sent to Heartbeat Health and reviewed by the doctors there.

Once reviewed, the doctors will prescribe continued use, and the feature will be enabled moving forward on the ScanWatch. Depending on your state, you may receive a call from a doctor directly. This is all free of charge and left me confident in the results. As a note, you must be 22 years or older to be approved for the ECG function.

The built-in SpO2 sensor monitors your oxygen saturation levels and will alert you of breathing disturbances while sleeping. These breathing disturbances can be a sign of sleep apnea and cause poor sleep. The ScanWatch can track your sleep stages, the total time asleep, and if you woke up at any point.

The ScanWatch is capable of tracking over 40 different types of workouts. You have your standard ones like walking, running, swimming, cycling, and things like yoga, horseback riding, and ice hockey.

Exercise tracking was good, but not great. The ScanWatch doesn’t include a built-in GPS, so it has to rely on your phone's GPS. You also don’t get much information on display during your workout due to the small screen. This may be a deal breaker if you love your statistics while exercising. After a workout, you will get a full breakdown of your workout in the Health Mate app. The watch can also give you a fitness score based on its estimated VO2Max. The ScanWatch can automatically detect cycling, walking, running, and swimming workouts.

Battery life

Withings says the ScanWatch can last up to 30 days. I could only get about 10 days out of the battery, but I had automatic heart rate detection and raise to wake enabled. Considering I also used it for automatic sleep tracking, I was pretty happy with the battery life that I got. Charging is also just alright, as it takes about an hour to hit 80% and up to two hours to fully charge. If battery life gets too low, Withings says you can put it in a low-power mode that will give you up to 20 additional days while still giving you the time and tracking your steps.

Competition

At $300, the Withings ScanWatch faces some stiff competition. There is the $280 Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, the $300 Fitbit Sense 2, and the $229 Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness edition. The ScanWatch will have better battery life than the Galaxy Watch 5. Still, the Samsung smartwatch is going to be much more customizable and powerful with its app selection while offering features like NFC and built-in GPS.

In addition to the myriad of Fitbits available that can handle many of the same tasks as the ScanWatch, the Sense 2 offers a much larger display and decent battery life. Its square design isn’t for everyone, but it provides the same features as the ScanWatch while giving you more data on the watch. If you want something that looks like a more traditional watch, then the Fossil Gen 6 Hybrid Wellness Edition should get a hard look. It is cheaper than the ScanWatch and offers the same great battery life. It is heavier and a bit anemic in terms of wellness tracking compared to the ScanWatch.

Should you buy it?

The ScanWatch is a great watch and is very good at tracking your health and fitness. In a vacuum, Withings provided a superb watch that does a lot well. The issue is that we don’t live in a vacuum, and at $300, the lack of a large display may be off-putting for many people. If you want something with a display that rivals the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5, then this isn’t it. If you are looking for a watch with excellent battery life that happens to give you notifications and tracks your health data, then you can’t do any better than the Withings ScanWatch.