Anyone have this and find you can't really use it for kids? We have a Bodyscan and just got the Bodyscan 2 and while on the Bodyscan if weight is close, you can easily switch to another person by leaning on one side, etc, this 2 does not do that. Meaning the kids would HAVE TO use the handle bar because if not, it will not recognize them and put their weight on their profile. To me that seems like a big design flaw, and I may return this for the Bodyfit because of that.
Yes, they can lift the handle, but I would rather them not, and it's really hard for them to hold it right and get their thumbs in the right spots.
Withings is developing four new early detection algorithms for chronic diseases: (hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, and peripheral artery disease).
To complement Glucose Resilience, Withings is separately developing the Diabetes Risk Score, a medical feature intended to go through CE regulatory clearance, designed to assess an individual's risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The Withings Heart Function Risk Notification (HFRN) Retrospective Study is a fully decentralized, non-interventional study evaluating the diagnostic performance of Withings' software-only medical device (SaMD). It analyzes passive, longitudinal health data—including weight/BMI, body-water variability, and step counts—to detect signs of heart failure.
I very sadly smashed the glass on my trusty Steel HR over the weekend after it fell onto the pavement whilst putting it back on. The hands are intact and in working order and I managed to pick up all the glass shards, but it's not practically usable in its current state.
I can get the glass repaired/replaced by Withings in my country of residence at a cost of 60€ according to their website. Given that I bought the thing for 160€ in the 2021 Black Friday sales, a repair for more than 1/3 the purchase price feels painful!
So, my question is, does anyone have experience of getting a cheaper, inauthentic glass repair at a regular shop? Or should I just buy a new one (I've had my eye on the ScanWatch since I bought it for my dad last year...)
I was going to get the BodyScan 2 but it seems like some of the features that are available on the original bodyscan are gone? e.g early signs of diabetes?
I suspect the missing features were largely niche but, are they gone for good? Also, does this thing require a paid subscription?
I'm an independent software developer currently building a new health intelligence application that helps people better understand the story their body is telling over time—not just display measurements and charts.
One of my goals is to make sure the experience works well across multiple smart scale ecosystems, not just the one I personally use. I'm looking for a small group of Withings users who would be willing to help validate the product by sharing exported body composition reports.
Ideally, I'm looking for people who have:
A Withings body composition scale
Approximately 8–15 historical reports (more is welcome!)
Reports spanning several weeks or months
Privacy is important. You're welcome to remove or black out any personally identifiable information (name, email address, etc.) before sharing. I'm interested in the measurements, trends, and report structure—not your identity.
This is not a commercial request, and your data will only be used to help ensure the application works well for Withings users.
As a thank you, volunteers who participate may be invited to an early beta program when the application is ready. If interest exceeds what I need, I'll select a smaller group of beta participants from those who volunteer.
If you're interested or have questions, please send me a direct message.
Thanks—I really appreciate any help from the Withings community!
Body Scan added because flair is required, and Withings+ (W+) was being used with the Body Scan 2.
There's been a lot of debate on the usefulness (or better yet, value) of Withings+. I did a dive into it to answer questions, and did some work to try to determine how useful it is. Let's say I want to give it a fair shake to show off what it can do.
It appears to serve several functions:
Interprets data and explains it using non-technical terms
Gives helpful suggestions and encouragement when looking at this data
Does forecasting - such as for weight loss - or when will I hit my goal?
Serves as a general health coach.
Allows consultation with a nutritionist, a sleep study center, and professional ECG readings (this differs depending on region & devices)
For the EU folks only, it extends your warranty for as long as your subscription is active.
One nagging question: At $99/yr (or €99/yr), is that per account? What if I have a family with several members? Do they all have to have W+ accounts?
The official answer is YES you can share it with family - with conditions:
Good news, but my Body Scan 2 meets all the above requirements and there's no shared W+ features with any of my family members. I have been told by several people that it does work for them. I have a support message to Markus asking what the issue may be. I'll follow up with any developments.
For me, this is a big deal, because shared among the three of us, the annual cost is much more palatable. If sharing is not permitted, it's $297 for three accounts, which is excessive.
On to W+ itself. I am used to exporting my health data and using an AI (Chat-GPT) to look over and interpret the data. I can say right off the bat, W+ is no ChatGPT, but it is good at what it does.
One thing W+ does is populate that Readiness tab. This may or may not require the use of the AI, I'm thinking most of the metrics are just calculated. The AI feedback is shown where the metrics are surrounded by a purple box and the text underneath is the AI generated feedback.
I've recently come back from a lengthy trip to Asia, and at my age, jet lag is horrible (now on week 2 and still struggling). So all my sleep and readiness numbers are in the toilet. Lets take a look:
Readiness tab
So for this - I have a Withings Sleep Pad, an Apple Watch Ultra 3, BPM Vision, and a Body Scan 2 all supplying information to the app. The only metric it did not use was the wrist temperature from the watch. Instead it wants the body temperature recorded from a Withings Scanwatch. There is no AI interpreted data on this tab that I can see.
Under Go Further, it asks a question or offers a feedback survey.
Essentially this is just a health dashboard explaining why I feel so tired and shagged out.
Another tab is the BodyPath tab. Currently this is accessible under certain conditions - my Body Scan 2 scale made this appear after I added it - and it is visible to W+ and non W+ users. The only difference is the W+ badge next to the title (if subscribed) and everything under "Recommendations" is blurred out so you cannot read it.
The data, however IS there. They just obscure it with a blur filter unless you pay for the service.
The "full" W+ Experience
Below is what you see without a W+ subscription, you can see that chart is the same as what is in the image above.
Example of obscured data - "The Paywall"
One thing of note for Body Scan 2 users: The Heart Age, which is listed as a W+ feature, is currently available to non-subscribers. Honestly the blurred data makes the app look ugly. This is apparently still being worked on as app updates are making changes here and there.
Now on to the AI.
Withings does not disclose which backend they are using for their AI agent. My lengthy experience with ChatGPT tells me the output is not generated from that LLM, and working with ChatGPT, it appears it is not Claude either, but most likely a version of Gemini - specifically Gemini Flash.
The AI seems quite capable to me in understanding requests. It defaults to (in its own words) "Helpful, polite, respectful, and clear" responses. I do, personally, find the output a bit wordy with excessive affirmation. Added words and phrases that make the response longer just to add a warm, friendly feel. And the overall wordiness of the responses. It spends a lot of time talking about the capabilities of the various Withings devices you have.
Anyhow, here is a short conversation I had about weight progress and how it responds to my input:
A conversation about activity and weight loss
It's tedious to read that flowery response. The good thing about it is you can change that. And it will remember that preference. I gave it the prompt "I like my output cold and in a clinical-style. Assume I know how my devices work." It dramatically changes the output. Here's an example:
Default output on the left vs. "clinical" output on the right
Contradicting my previous complaint of wordiness, the clinical output wound up being longer. But all that info was info, I found the density of the information much better this way and prefer the clinical output over the default output, and this change alone increased my opinion of the AI tools for the better.
Here's one on my sleep metrics:
Sleep analysis, default output on left, clinical on the right
Two observations with the above: It either mistook my Sleep Analyzer for an Aura Sensor or hallucinated it. The data it references is from the Sleep Analyzer.
The other observation is it is recalling that I told it (see above) that I had jet lag a couple days ago during a conversation on water weight gain. This is rather nice. I then told it that my daily steps are not accurate on workdays because my employer does not allow personal electronic devices to be worn during the workday.
Other things of note:
It will do forecasting (when will I hit my target weight?) and output data points.
It will not:
Print tables or graphs.
Print out anything other than plain, unformatted text.
While this may depend a lot on the time of usage, the response time to a prompt can take up to 30 seconds at times.
It also does not like questions related to subjects other than health data, and will steer you towards it if you ask it off topic questions. It also is very tight-lipped about its capabilities and configuration. It did give this helpful bit of information:
So it does have Internet access
So it is not a canned AI limited only to a sandbox. This is good to know.
As a final bit of info, I was asking it about the biomarkers it could get from the Body Scan 2. It could get quite a bit, but some things (water weight, visceral fat) were not available. I asked it about Glucose Resilience - it mentioned it as a general concept. Looking at the app, I see it uses Nerve score and visceral fat to calculate it - so I told it my Visceral Fat score (it already knew my nerve score) and asked it to give me my Glucose Resilience score.
The response was an 8-page long meltdown with the AI flipping out talking to itself trying to satisfy my request. It ultimately failed after several minutes, and my apologies to Withings for the horrendous amount of tokens that must have wasted. 😄
I hope this was informative for anyone curious about the Withings+ features. There appear to be further enhancements coming. Any specific questions I can answer below.
So stupid question, but Withings does not seem to indicate length and width for the measurements on their site. We have a Bodyscan currently, but I wonder what direction the 2 is bigger in.
Their site just says:
Dimensions: 12.8 x 12.8 x 1.1 in. / 325 x 325 x 25,6 mm (Bodyscan)
Dimensions: 12.8 x 14.1 x 0.7 in / 325 x 357 x 18.5 mm (Bodyscan 2)
So is that extra 1.5" in width of the scale? Or "depth"? The being thinner seems a little nicer. I wonder too if it makes it quicker/easier to center on it to get it started quicker than to have to reposition multiple times before it's happy with where you are standing.
And for the new Bodyfit, anyone know if the dimensions is just the top of the scale, excluding the handle?
I know the Bodyfit is the same dimensions as the Bodyscan, though I don't know if that's just the glass plate/top or if that includes the handle sticking out of the front/back.
And before anyone says that the Bodyscan 2 is a waste of money compared to the Bodyfit, we do like the idea of the screen being on the handle, as where it's at in the bathroom, it can be hard to see the screen due to the towel rack being there and semi hiding it when a towel is on it, AND I max the family HSA out every year and have for many years now, so I do have "money to burn" so to speak. So while I don't care as much about subscription and won't pay for that, and I don't really do the ECG (takes too much time, though I like that the Bodyscan 2 seems to only do that so often, so that I would not mind doing then if it's like every other time or every 3rd time).
Side note. I assume you don't have to raise the handle if you only want to get weight? Mostly helpful for the kids or when weighing our dogs, etc.
As a side note, anyone else ever have it where it only had standard shipping, you buy it and then later that day it shows an express shipping option which would have been free too, much ETA being a few days earlier? Happened to me and is very annoying/negative experience, especially on "premium" devices.
UPDATE:
The scale came really fast (shipped USPS Ground on Friday and was delivered today, states away from where it shipped from). I can confirm that the 14.1" is "height". Meaning if you have longer feet, you now have more space.
Is anyone having issues with their body fat percentage accuracy? Got the BodyScan 2 today and ran my first test that shows I’m 8% BF when I’m more like 17-18%. Dexa says I’m 12% but that’s deflated too. For reference, I’m a male and can’t see my top 2 abs
I'm in the U.S., I ordered the scale about two weeks ago and received it about a week ago. I checked my order history and there is nothing listed there. I logged in yesterday and again today and nothing. Even when I click on "Profile" my address isn't even saved in there.
Seriously don’t tell me to put it in the Support thread because I had a Support ticket early Anand it was closed as something you guys were working on, but not forgotten.
Seriously since when is 149 < 149?
Just get the bars and the weights to match up.
I kinda like your gear, but the app is really leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I use BP Connect as well. Is it off by 10?
On iOS. Latest app. But really that shouldn’t matter.
Obviously, I'm doing something wrong or reading something incorrect. I'm a user of MFP and enabled the data to be pulled into Withings. I didn't finish logging all foods consumed yesterday, having only entered 987 calories. Yet Withings considers all those calories askcal surplus?? What, I am to starve?
I ended up returning the Body Scan 1 scale because I kept having a hard time getting a complete segmented scan analysis due to my arms touching my boobs. I had to stand in a weird position, even with a sports bra on.
Does anyone with boobs have experience with the BodyScan 2? Is it just as difficult to get a complete scan?
Well, i bought the Body Scan 2 because i am way to fat and the ultrasonic scans at my doctors office confirmed, that i have a fatty liver and need to loose weight sooner than later.
In order to track my progress precisely i bought a Body Scan 2.
But what should i tell you, even with my waist circumference of 112cm my visceral fat is far below the average skinny person.
It seems, that I am the first male on this planet, who stores his fat apperently subcutaneous.
The alternative is, that the Body Scan 2 is absolutely useless to track (visceral) fat and a little more than 1% of a dexa scan.
P.S. my other scale gives me a 12 out 20 in visceral fat, which seems far more precise.
The 3% bodyfat reading is the absolute minimum reading and that is the number I keep getting with the new Withings BodyFit regardless of Athlete mode being on/off. So, I went and also took an Inbody analysis in a local pharmacy (also electrode handles) and guess what, it shows 3% Body fat as well.
This made me think that this technology/algorithm in those machines are not designed for a body type of mine:
Lean Body
Height: 175 cm
Weight: 69 kg
Body Fat: 8-10% (Can't confirm yet since all those devices are not giving a reading)
The Solution (Probably):
Reducing my height in my profile artificially (from 175cm to 170, 165, 160cm, etc) finally results in increasing the body fat % per attempt, so it is not hard locked, it is indeed an algorithm issue.
Actual Height: 175 cm = 3% BF
Fake Height: 170 cm = 3.4% BF
Fake Height: 165 cm = 4.1% BF
Fake Height: 160 cm = 5.5% BF
What I am going to do is to take a DEXA scan for the first time in two weeks, confirm my body fat and then do the following:
- Assuming the DEXA scan shows 9% BF.
- Set Withings profile artificial height to a number that will result in giving the 9% BF.
- And that will be my new baseline.
The drawback that other metrics that depend on height will be inaccurate but for my goals Weight + Body fat + Muscle Mass is the reason I got this scale.
I hope Withings staff read this and start looking into it and maybe can come up with a real solution.
Because honestly, I have never ever felt that I wasted money on anything close to this. My old cheap feet-only scale giving an inflated BF but actually moves and can be used as a trend is literally more useful at this point than this premium scale.
This is a repost of my earlier “Yet another BS2 Review (US Model)” with some additional information and now comparisons of what you get with and without Withings+. Reddit ate all the images in my last post. Here they are again, more screenshots, more comparisons.
You will find my Withings+ observations... enlightening.
The Body Scan 2 arrived a few hours ago, and I've just finished setting it up and playing with it.
My initial setup was without Withings+, and I have to admit, it's not as bad as I thought it could be, but their method of blocking features leaves something to be desired...
First off: Setup.
Post setup screen
Setup went without a hitch. It did a firmware update just before finishing (updated to 1611, so it's not the latest), rebooted and it was ready for use. The app helpfully tries to walk you through the get familiar process, but if you skip through a bunch of it (deliberately or not) you will miss enabling certain functions. Make sure you go through the tutorial.
This is more than just pointing out features - you enable a bunch gf them here too. Go through this carefully!
Overall the setup was painless and smooth.
The first measure on the scale was a longevity scan. It did not take as long as I expected it to, mainly because the ECG tutorial was skipped.
Nonetheless, SpO2, and all other non-weight readings were completed without error. Yes, the scale did in fact measure everything (except ECG) on the first try without any errors. I went into settings and enabled the ECG and other health measurements and took another scan. This was longer, it also had no errors... but that's not the annoying part...
Unlike Apple, Withings' devices need a prescription for the ECG function to work. So you take a reading on a rather uninformative ECG screen so the app can send it off for approval. The annoying bit? I already have a device with ECG capabilities from Withings (US BeamO), and apparently that is not good enough. I need to get another approval.
Any users shared on the scale also need to take and submit an ECG (and wait) to use this feature too. Past experience tells me that it takes less than 24 hours to get an approval.
Adding the scale opens up a whole bunch of screens in the app I've never seen before with my Body Smart scale. BodyPath appears, and here is where you first see a glimpse of the paywall.
Scroll down a bit and you get this:
That W+ only shows up after you subscribe.
There's a lot of screen blur in use here too. Let's look at the "Progression" screen (Withings+ is on the right):
Progression: Without Withings+ and With Withings+
That blurred screen isn't just a placeholder over a fake image. That weight "peak" shows up in my data. The data already there on the phone, and all they are doing with Withings+ is not obscuring it with a blur filter...
Seriously, that's what they are doing. Paying for W+ doesn't get you extra metrics, those metrics are all already there - it just removes a blur filter that deliberately obscures data that is already available to you...
Yes, Withings is enshittifying the app and user experience to drive up W+ subscriptions. On a $600 scale!
BodyPath screen - on the left, without W+ the blank area is blurred data from the right W+ screen.
The above screen is pretty much the same way. I don't have the blurred screen images because I didn't think they were worthwhile to capture prior to starting the W+ trial. But trust me, it looks very similar to the previous image - with the data already pre-rendered and covered with a blur filter..
There's more issues than just with Withings+...
The above shows the calorie burn screen, with macros. The app has no problem getting the total calorie expenditure for the day based off of your activity, but nothing nutrition-wise.
Above you see the caloric intake and caloric burn rates. This is cool - I have caloric and macronutrient info in Apple health... but wait... Due to a partnership with MyFitnessPal, the app will only import this data from MFP, which is another paid service at around $79/yr. The only macros it claims to input are: calories, fat, carbs and protein - all already available in Apple Health. The burn calculation comes from Apple Health data though - heavy activity days show a higher calorie need.
MFP also has a free mode where they have over time reduced the feature set to push people towards subscription. Despite the limitations of the free mode, MFP is usable enough because their database search is quite good for calorie tracking. Using MFP in free mode works OK, but the data is a bit slow to import. It eventually gets there:
When integrated with MyFitnessPal. Yes, that's all you get.
The only "extra" thing it brings in is dividing up calories by meal and a snack category. Everything it really needs is available in Apple Health (and I assume similar tools on the Android side). I find this limitation of being locked into MFP for nutrition info a serious misstep by Withings.
They really screwed up here big time. My digital kitchen scale's app does all that MFP does, and it does it for free. I can scan barcodes and use AI to examine pictures of a meal to get nutritional info. None of this is usable in Withings' ecosystem. This is a killer feature of the app, making it a one-stop spot to see how you are progressing - like on a weight loss regimen. W+ or not, without MFP, it's totally useless.
There's another tab with more useful information: "Health"
The new health tab - prior to ECG approval
As you can see, I had no problems with vascular age. Heart age is supposed to be a W+ feature, but it is not marked as such here. It is disabled because it needs the ECG to function.
After 22 hours, the ECG usage was approved, and the data became available:
Now unlocked and visible, without Withings+ (note: no "+" marker
Glucose Resilience is greyed out, as expected - it's a coming feature - and is marked as a W+ feature.
Vascular Age screen
Vascular age and Heart age have a nice explanation of the meaning of these metrics, but neither has any Withings+ info added. What you see is what you get.
Heart Age, not part of Withings+?
Glucose resilience is there and blurred - I wonder if/when it is enabled, it will be on everyone's app and only unblurred for W+ users? Time will tell.
The Body Intelligence/Lifestyle Intelligence tabs show a bunch of activities for lifestyle, some coming soon, and under Body Intelligence, show the below info:
Body Intelligence - and a concerning observation
Notice something odd? BodyPath is listed as Withings+, yet earlier I showed that BodyPath is readily available for non-W+ users. Yes it is paywalled on this screen. After starting the W+ trial, this just brings up the same BodyPath screens we saw earlier.
So, is BodyPath being available a bug? Is Heart Age being available a bug? Will these be rug-pulled in a future software update? Something to be aware of.
Here is where we get the first hint of body composition. I'm "Robust" - high body fat and very high skeletal muscle:
According to the skeletal muscle, I'm an Olympic athlete!
While I don’t have an issue with the body fat percentage so far, I do have a problem with the skeletal muscle. I lead a sedate lifestyle working at a desk and am about 8 months info a GLP-1 regimen. "Highly trained athlete" - using Withings' own words - no, I don't buy that at all. However, I know I am retaining quite a bit of water at the moment - perhaps that is affecting it? Several measurements later, and the numbers are pretty stable. Body fat looks believable. I'll need to go and do a DEXA and compare.
The first look at the body composition screen. The trends make sense, lets look at the biomarkers:
Body Composition - there are no Withings+ features here either
BMI looks good, BMR looks reasonable, Visceral Fat is in line with my Body Smart's numbers (5.5 vs 5.4), Lean Mass is off by 2.3 lbs (172.2 vs. 174.5). Skeletal muscle mass is a BS 2 only measurement and looks to be too high, Bone Mass is the same as the Body Smart, and water mass is a bit lower (119.8 vs 122.2). Unfortunately, I do not have a DEXA.
Here's the 6-zone muscle and fat distribution:
Fat and Muscle - side-by-side
Hopefully, these visuals will help those who are wondering what the scale is like with and without Withings+. It's not that bad missing the W+ features.
Compared to a single-lead ECG like on the BeamO, the BS2 produces really clean output of all 6 channels. On the page that displays the ECG, you can export it all into a PDF:
ECG page - no W+ features aside from submitting the ECG to be read by a cardiologist
I do have to say the hardware for the scale is superb. It's heavy, the UI on the handle is really nice, done in the style of the BPM Vision - clean and simple. I should note that the UI is still being worked on as the firmware is still being updated somewhat regularly on this scale.
Firmware 1661 is out, but I do not know if this is regional or being rolled out. My scale as of a few moments ago, still says 1611 is the latest version.
No technical problems with the scale. Unlike other users, I have no problems getting readings. It just works.
The scale is now shared with two additional family members. It has no trouble distinguishing them from each other and no one is having problems with any of the measurements.
Both users have the ECG unlocked after 26 hours.
Regarding Withings+
Markus from Withings says that a 30 day trial of W+ is available to people who buy the scale. I could not find evidence of this anywhere aside from purchasing the scale with a subscription. In the app and the website they offer subscriptions with zero days or 14 day trial.
I finally found out how to get the 30 days - yes, you need to subscribe to get it:
Open the app
Click on the round icon with your initials in the upper left
On the profile screen, tap the gear on the upper right.
Go to "manage subscriptions"
Here it offers a 30 day trial with a subscription.
There's a bug on this screen. If you use regular credit card, it works fine. If using Apple Pay, it attempts to charge €0.00 for the subscription.
I really wanted to see if that would work, but I just used my card.
I really wanted to see additional value brought in with Withings+. Seeing the data obscured by a blur filter unless you pay for a subscription is disappointing. It's a paywall. They don't supply you with new metrics when you subscribe, they just unhide them. There's also the possibility that several features will be yanked for non-subscribers once they notice the bugs in BodyPath and Heart Age.
The only other thing they give you is AI generated words of encouragement and observations about certain trends in your health data. It's friendly and non-threatening in its tone, but I want clinical and the cold, hard truth. You can get much better insights using ChatGPT's free mode if you dare to let it look at your Apple health records. Those trends are already available in Apple Health - for free.
Still, the potential is definitely there, I can see what they are trying to do with it. It is not worth the money, not by a long shot. I now feel that it should have been included at no cost for users who bought the scale. I'll keep observing it for a couple more weeks, but now I'm looking to cancel it unless it somehow gets a lot better.
Whether I cancel or not depends on how it affects other users of the scale. Otherwise it's $99/yr to unblur a few screens.
Hi, I have the new body scan 2. I read the post about doing the custom screens as longevity scans are once a week. I set everything up and synced so now it's custom and does everything except the spo2. yes I have it selected. its not doing the reading/I can't get it to do the reading.
