Thanks to the iPhone, we get a lot of information about our health. Are you exercising enough? Is your heart rate okay? And aren’t you overweight or underweight? This new special scale from Withings tells you only what you want to hear or see regarding the latter. OMT editor Dennis Mons is intrigued.
Facts about your condition can be confronting. It may very well be that your weight, for example, is a headache. But this new scale from Withings helps you if, in part, you’d rather be an ostrich about those issues.
The iPhone scale that supports and doesn’t judge
Struggling with weight is quite a challenge for many. Sometimes we are overweight for our age and height, while others (like me) are walking pins. Or as my mother says, “Are you eating enough?”
Well, anecdote aside, the Body Smart is a scale that doesn’t immediately start your day depressed about weight. The unique feature this digital “iPhone” weighing scale has is called the “eyes closed mode. I’ll come back to that in a moment.
But what else makes this scale so unique? According to Withings, the scale uses Withings Precision Technology that combines multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis, precision weight transistor sensors and advanced algorithms. You know.
But thanks to this tech, you get weight and body composition analysis. So it’s a bunch of nifty tricks (with difficult terms) in a little board, and all the data is sent to your iPhone.
(Pictured: Withings)
Denial is nice sometimes, too
Should you prefer to stay in denial a bit, so the “eyes closed mode” is particularly nice. This hides your weight from yourself, or possibly others. If you activate it, the scale will instead give encouraging, motivating messages.
It also provides daily information such as step count, air quality and weather. In this mode, the weight is still added to the Withings app so you can check it later.
The Body Smart goes a few steps further, by the way. For example, it allows eight people to use the scale and there are special settings for pregnancy and babies, so even small children can be tracked in terms of growth and weight.
Although the Body Smart costs only a hundred dollars, you do have to cough up a little more for all the features on your iPhone. This is because the scale can be purchased in conjunction with Body Comp (two hundred dollars) and Body Scan (three hundred dollars). The Body Comp can calculate vascular age, while the Body Scan has vascular age as well as an ECG.
But then what is an ECG?
An ECG (electrocardiogram) is a medical examination that measures and records the electrical activity of the heart. This is normally done by placing electrodes on the skin of the chest, arms and legs to detect the heartbeat and any abnormalities or arrhythmias. It is a common tool for diagnosing heart problems and monitoring heart function. New tech is making those measurements less cumbersome.
In other words, for about four hundred dollars, you get a detailed update of your health every day on your iPhone. Unless, of course, you’d rather not see that info right away.
