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On your iPhone, iPad or Mac, Withings smart scale makes tracking your weight easy.
I love it when hardware integrates with iOS devices, endowing them with new powers they never hoped to possess. The Withings WS-50 smart scale, paired with their very good iOS app, does just that.
WS-50 Smart Body Analyzer Scale by Withings
Category: iOS Accessories
Works With: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Price: $150
By connecting to your Wi-Fi and sending your health stats to the cloud, the Withings WS-50 smart scale allows you to effortlessly track your weight, body mass index, indoor air quality, and even your heart rate. All you have to do to make it work, is step on the scale from time to time, then boot up their app to see just how fat or cut you’re getting.
What It Does
Unlike a fridge with an LCD screen, Withings’ Wi-Fi enabled smart scale actually makes sense.
Withings’ app gathers and displays data collected by the scale.
Each time you step on the scale, the WS-50 takes measurements, then sends those health stats to the cloud so, the next time you connect via their iOS app, you can view all your weight and heart rate numbers all organized by date. You can even view your weight and BMI graphed over time if you’re brave enough.
Unlike a fridge with an LCD screen, Withings’ Wi-Fi enabled smart scale actually makes sense
Built for use in a household, the WS-50 can also track multiple people. Once you set up a user account, you’ll be recognized (by weight) each time you step on the scale, and your corresponding data will be saved to your own individual Withings account for you to view later. It’s a neat feature.
Air quality is measured throughout the day as well, even when you’re not using the scale.
In Use
The WS-50 is a fantastic example of Steve Job’s vision for iOS devices; paired with the smart scale, your iPhone or iPad become transformed into entirely different devices. It’s kind of amazing that a phone, with a good app and wirelessly connected to a scale through the magic of the cloud, can an become a health monitoring device.
Step on and the WS-50 knows who you are.
Here’s how it works. When you step on the scale, your weight is taken, as is your heart rate and BMI, and then that information is beamed to the cloud. Used regularly, and you can get a good insight day-to-day weight, heart rate, and air quality variation. Now you can see how much holiday weight you gain.
A big part of the magic, and a crucial element to how all this works, is the Withings app itself. The app, which is free, isn’t just easy to use, but provides multiple ways to view your weight, BMI, air quality, and heart rate information, all laid out ever time, in both graph and data form.
The Withings app can also connect to their blood pressure and sleep devices, which, like the scale, upload data to the cloud so it can be tracked in the app.
WS-50 tracks your weight but also your indoor air quality.
That’s kind of the Macro view of the Withings devices and app. Used together and with their data accessible on your iOS device, Withings is able to provide you with some baseline health statistics that are easy to monitor. You can even give another person, like a doctor or spouse, access to your health information via their website, where you or those you allow can view your the stats.
So I’m impressed, as you can probably tell, with the sheer utility of the WS-50, but also with the Withings ecosystem. Here’s a scale that makes tracking your weight and BMI effortless and thought-free, even for multiple people, all via a very good-looking easy-to-use iOS app.
A couple of small gripes though.
I also noticed that if I weighed myself right after a shower my BMI would actually increase.
My first: though my weight seemed accurate enough, I wonder how well the WS-50 was calculating my BMI. I say this because, on some days, I’d be around 19{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b}, but others, up to 25{813a954d5e225a1509f22204ece89c855080ce25555f20805f61bed63cbfde3b}. That seems like a wide variance, and I also noticed that, if I weighed myself right after a shower (while my feet were damp), my BMI would actually increase. Curious.
The cloud connectivity also means the WS-50 drinks power. In a mere two months, I had to replace all four AAA batteries included with the scale. That’s quick. My “dumb” scale has gone 4 years on the same batteries. Hope you have some rechargeable’s laying around.
Product Name: : Withings WS-50 Smart Body Analyzer
The Good: Great iOS integration makes tracking your weight easy.
The Bad: Get rechargeable AAAs because this thing drinks power.
The Verdict Withings WS-50, paired with the cloud, is a weight tracking combo that’s hard to beat.
Buy from: Withings’ store
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