Withings Body Cardio- Wi-Fi Smart Scale with Body Composition & Heart Rate, White

It was time to get a new scale in our household. First of all we had to start looking after these WFH wight gains and secondly our former scale was just too old, inaccurate. We decided to try one of these new digital scales with wifi connectivity. And even though Withings wasn’t a familiar brand to us this seemed to be one of the more upscale brand to go to, after all it was one of the products suggested on the Apple site. This also implied a steep 600% premium in price compared to the average bathroom scale - we could have spent £20 on an average digital scale rather than the $130 we paid for this premium model in the Withings range. Was it worth such a mark up?Well the scale is stylish, and it feels quite durable and of high quality. Also its presentation, given the packaging is good. This simply makes it a nice, proper gift as well.Then in terms of ease of use and connectivity I would also rank it high. It works straight out of the box. And if you are willing to download the app and spend a few extra minutes to fill out a few basic data you are set up in just a few minutes. I should say that we found it a little hard to set up family profiles. The scale detects different family members bases on their body measurements, which is great. However only one person can keep these extra data on their digital device and as far as we understand you can’t share it in a family group. So we had duplicate profiles for our children initially before we erased the extra one, which was confusing to and the and the scale. For the rest the app is great and straightforward, its can share data with other health apps, and historic data can be manually added. If you wish to be confronted with the truth you can get weekly reports by email. The scale automatically sends new data to your mobile device within a few minutes. The battery lasts for months, we use the scale daily a couple fo times and we haven’t had to recharge for the past 3 months.Is it accurate? I guess so but I found there is a 300 - 400 gram bounce when you step on it before it pins down your weight and therefore daily variation depending on your posture, and time of measurement - I usually take my weight and body measurement once a day straigth out of bed.Now, this premium version of the scale is also capable to do a full body measurement. In fact is does the whole sequence whenever you step on it, including a weather report. I lost interest after using those functions once. Mostly because I’m in a rush in the morning and it takes about a minutes to go through everything. But there is a BMI, heart rate, body fat measuring ect. I still find that the BMI is off, or based on a different calculation that I would otherwise get to (its too high). On the other hand, one of our children has a heart condition, so the heart rate measure feature is a helpful addition. So looking back we probably shouldn’t have paid for these extra features, but its nice to have. And overall this is a good product that we like and would recommend.

There’s quite a few older reviews on here that complain about Nokia versions of the device or the lack of pulse velocity technology. I think they must relate to older batches. My unit is from Withings and contains all the advertised features out of the box, including pulse velocity.Build quality is excellent and all of the readings taken seem to be very repeatable. That’s not necessarily an indication of accuracy, but the weight shown by my unit matches that on one other device which I know compares well to calibrated professional scales. To me, it seems to be doing what is claimed, and accurately enough. If you’re concerned about accuracy look around the ‘net. You’ll find various studies that have looked at the accuracy of this device and in particular the pulse velocity and fat mass measurements. They put my doubts to rest.The app is great once you get going. It’s a little fiddly to pair and setup with the device. But persevere. Once it’s working the amount of information produced is great. I run on an iPhone so the app can sync data from Apple Health. The flow is two way with weight and body composition readings pushed into Apple Health and a variety of data pulled back from Health into the Withings app.The app gives lots of useful tailored health advice. The information in heart health is a must for everyone.I recommend this piece of kit. Get one, and get your health in order.

I can only give these scales one star. They are not value for money, in fact they are a total waste of time and money.I am seventy two years old, a bowel cancer survivor and one of the early symptoms was a sudden unexplained weight loss. Fortunately it was caught just in time but as a consequence I’m obsessive about recording my weight. I had an old set of Salter MiBody early smart scales but being an Apple convert for some years they had limited functionality and used old technology. They were, I believe, consistently accurate, and everyday for the past five years, I have recorded my weight using old fashioned pen and paper. I also wear a Fitbit Charge 2.After extensive research I decided that these scales were the best for Apple and although expensive I was particularly interested in the heart monitor function. Both my wife and I have Apple 10 phones and after a couple of teething problems the scales synced satisfactorily. I could not, however get them to sync on my wife’s iPad. And yes, I did try to resolve it with the ’solution’ offered on the forums.We then come to actually using them. There are clear and simple instructions concerning where to stand to get a pulse and pwv reading. I am lucky if I get a pwv reading once a month, as for the pulse this only appears a couple of times a week and is completely random. I have a resting heart rate of 63bpm, when I get up and walk to the bathroom it’s in a range of around 70-80 bpm. The scales have given me a reading in the range 43 - 194. I can only recall one occasion when it was even approximate to the Fitbit reading. As you are paying a premium for these features beyond weight measurement it’s not worth the additional expense, a total waste of money.Turning to the weight measure, I kept my old scales and these always show a different reading, usually a small difference but the Withings read a couple of pounds lighter. The other functions used to work but lately even they have been a bit hit and miss. On the plus side they do give you a weather forecast of sorts, but do you need scales to do that? Oh and they wish you happy birthday which at least made me smile through the frustration.Avoid, if you don’t want to be disappointed. In addition if you register the product you are bombarded with emails advertising Withings products.