Withings has released a new smart scale, the Withings Body Smart, a mid-range smart scale sporting a new Eyes Closed mode that hides pounds and kilograms on the scale in favor of motivational messages.
Withings has been making some of the best smart scales for a while, but the Withings Body Smart is on the cheaper end: it’s currently on sale on the Withings website at $99.95 in the US, with UK and Australia pricing yet to be revealed. Like Withing's other scales (and some of the best smartwatches such as the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro) it uses biometric impedance analysis to calculate your body composition, as well as your weight.
Biometric impedance analysis, or BIA, sends an electrical current from the soles of your feet up through your body, moving through fat, muscle, and bone. The current moves through these materials at different rates, so it can tell you how much of each you have in your body. The scale also includes options for measuring muscle and fat mass independently, provides a metabolic age (a number based on your actual age compared to your body health), your heart rate, and lots of other information.
None of this is new to the Withings line, but the addition of the Eyes Closed mode is. The scale tracks your weight as normal, so your overall weight contributes to other health metrics like your Body Mass Index. However, it doesn’t show you your weight on the scale, instead offering motivational tips and other information such as the weather, in case you were planning to exercise outdoors.
We’ve not handled the scale yet, so we don’t know exactly what the messages contain, but the Eyes Closed mode arrives alongside other modes designed for multiple users, including Athlete and Pregnancy modes. The scale comes in two colors – Black and White – and requires a Withings account to use, unlocking additional features with a Withings+ subscription.
Analysis: A new wave of kindness-focused tech
Smart tech such as watches, scales, rings, and more means we have access to more information about our bodies than ever. If we’re not careful, however, overreliance on numbers can contribute to obsessive and disordered behavior. Health tech makers are beginning to understand this at last, and 2023 seems to be the year for tech that's focused on self-care.
Following Withings’ example as one of the early adopters of a hybrid smartwatch with the Withings ScanWatch, this year’s CES conference was full of screenless wearables to ensure you’re not being constantly notified about your heart rate or movement, and you don’t have yet another black mirror in your life making demands of your mental energy and time. Other hybrid watches, such as Garmin Instinct Crossover, are following suit.
Weight is a challenging subject to navigate for anyone who suffers from body image issues, and it’s common for people to obsess over whether they’ve lost or gained weight in any given week, leading to disordered behavior. The option of an Eyes Closed mode could be a way for smart scales to tackle this and is a sign this self-care-led approach to health tech is gathering steam.
Will it work? Time will tell. But in the ever-evolving health tech space, conversations around a kinder approach to activity tracking is never a bad thing.
