UPDATE (8/7/17): As of now, the watch have developed condensation under the glass twice! one time I've exchanged it for a new one.. the second time was after I didn't get it wet at all! And yet - condensation. Although customer service of the company is great, and they did promise that at fall of 2017 the updated model won't have this issue... I'm going to return mine and buy something else entirely - I can only say that this product is a serious bust for the company. DON'T BUY
The wearable market is growing rapidly these past few years, and one of those wearables is the smartwatch.
The thing is, personally I’m not a fan of all that full smartwatch experience – looking at my watch every time I’m getting an email, Whatsapp message or phone call isn’t something I want to be doing while talking to someone.
Lucky for me, there is a middle ground!
A French company, which recently was bought by Nokia, named Withings is doing a lot of cool stuff with health related products; one of them is the watch line.
I started up using the Withings Activite a while back, and now I’ve moved to the Withings Steel Hr – And that’s the one I’m going to talk about.
The model I’ll be reviewing is the black 40mm. There is also a 36mm model which comes in black and white.
The watch has a round 40mm diameter face, using an analog watch mechanism, a small analog step percentage counter and a small screen which will discuss later on. There is a button on the side of the watch which handles the screen part of the watch.
The back of the watch houses the heart rate sensor, which uses light and skin proximity on your wrist in order to sense the pulse.
The watch band is 20mm wide and you can change it for any 20mm band you can put your hands on,
Fair warning: if the replacement band is not straight at the pin area (inappropriate joke?) as the silicon band, it might not fit the watch circular body.
The watch is connected to the smartphone via Bluetooth and works on Android and iOS – Fair warning: you got to have a smartphone in order for the watch to work at all.
The watch comes with a silicon strap and a USB connected charger, and that’s it!
The esthetics of the watch makes is the first thing you see (obviously) and it is the main incentive to buy a watch! The thing is, it doesn’t seem like a smart watch – and that’s a good thing!
And now for the added features:
The watch can track steps (no elevation like the iPhone), sleep, swim and heart rate every 15 minutes. While on a workout you can activate non-stop heart rate monitoring.
The app allows you to register different types of workout sessions from climbing to tennis, you can have it all!
The watch can be set as an alarm clock – it uses 12 successive vibrations in order to wake you, without waking up your significant other. A word of caution: From my experience, I was able to get used to the “Alarm clock” vibrations and eventually wouldn’t wake up.
Screen – the screen is one of the main new features Withings put into the watch. The screen can display at the push of a button: Date and day of the week, Steps taken, distance traveled, current heart rate calories burned, next alarm and battery life. These categories can be customized – what’s on and in what order
If your smartphone has its Bluetooth always on you can have alerts such as: Incoming phone calls, incoming text messages and upcoming calendar events.
I found myself using the heart rate display more and more (OCD much?) it’s pretty addictive.
The other unspoken feature the watch has is an insane 25 days’ battery life, while it doesn’t seem much for a watch, for a smart watch it’s an eternity! After 25 days the heart rate feature drops and you have 20 additional days of all the other features until the watch goes belly-up. I was sold on this feature alone!
Currently, my only issue with the watch is when moving from hot environment to a cold one – the watch has a condensation point that appears out of nowhere. I’ve contacted Withings and they said that it is natural and the watch is still completely water proof up to 50m. I found that applying direct heat to the watch face by rubbing it a couple of times, makes the condensation go away in seconds.
How much is it? Well, the Withings Steel Hr is currently going for 189$ on the official Withings website (Although price may vary).
This price is on par with the cheapest smart watches on the market.
So the watch isn’t perfect, but the price is reasonable, it isn’t fully featured smart watch – but for the person who isn’t looking for that, the watch is awesome! I completely recommend it.
P.S – I got used to responding to the question “How did you sleep?” by looking at the app for the quality of sleep…