The Withings ScanWatch Vitals is my favourite fitness tracker

It’s been a while since I’ve rocked a Withings fitness tracker.  I first got into Withings trackers way back when the company was owned by Nokia, likely around 2017 — though I don’t remember exactly when. I was first hooked by the simple designs of the old Nokia Activité and I loved that it was basically a standard analog watch with fitness tracking features.

Sometime after Withings co-founder Éric Carreel bought it back from Nokia in 2018, I ended up with the Steel HR Sport on my wrist, though it seems I never wrote about it for MobileSyrup (much to my surprise, as the Steel HR Sport brought many welcome improvements for me). And though I haven’t worn the Steel HR Sport in years — I’ve spent the last three rocking Pixel Watches — I still remember it fondly.

So when Withings reached out to me about its new ScanWatch Vitals fitness tracker, I was more than happy to take it for a spin. Launched in 2024, the ScanWatch Vitals offers almost all of the fitness tracking features you’d expect from trackers and watches from Fitbit, Google and Apple, but in a svelte analog package that looks like any other nice, high-end wristwatch.

Health features include your typical exercise tracking along with 24/7 body temperature monitoring, on-demand SpO2 monitoring, sleep tracking, menstrual tracking and more. Plus, because the ScanWatch isn’t your typical smartwatch with apps and a fancy display, it absolutely sips power and can get up to 30-day battery life. That said, in my time using it, I found I got closer to 15 or 20 days — certain features on the watch can really hit the battery life hard. Still, I’m more than happy to use a watch I only have to charge once every two or three weeks rather than once every other day (or even daily) like the Pixel Watch.

Fantastic design

One of my favourite things about the ScanWatch Vitals — and most of Withing’s fitness trackers — is that they look and act like a typical watch. They’re very stylish, and the stainless steel ScanWatch Vitals looks great whether I’m dressing up or dressing down. At a glance, it just looks like a nice wristwatch. I also love the unique little dial for measuring daily activities like steps without needing to activate the display. My only real complaint about the design is the strap, which feels cheap. The watch also only comes with one strap size, which is far too large for me, resulting in a lot of overhang. Thankfully, you can swap out the strap for something nicer — Withings has lots of options — but it’s an extra cost.

And while the ScanWatch Vitals doesn’t sport a typical smartwatch display, it does still have a small screen. Most of the time, it’s off, but a press on the crown brings it to life — a simple black-and-white OLED that can show health metrics and activity details, as well as display incoming notifications and phone calls. The ScanWatch Vitals sports a glow-in-the-dark coating on the clock arms but I found they weren’t particularly bright, making it tricky to read in the dark. Ultimately it wasn’t a big deal since I could use the OLED display to check the time instead. I also appreciate how if the clock arms are covering the display, they move out of the way when you press the button and swing back into place when the screen turns off.

You can also set up ‘QuickLook,’ which activates the display when you lift your wrist. I tried this for a while but ultimately found it too problematic to keep on. For one, there’s no option to temporarily disable QuickLook at night and I found it to be very sensitive to movement, so the watch was constantly lighting up and disrupting my sleep. For such a tiny little screen, that OLED can be surprisingly bright.

But even with QuickLook off, I noticed the screen would still frequently come on at night if I bumped the crown, so it’d be great to get some kind of night mode that really dims the display or makes it less easy to activate so it’s less distracting.

Notification settings are basic

Speaking of distracting, notifications are a mixed bag on the ScanWatch Vitals. I’m very particular about what notifications I get on my smartwatch — with the Pixel Watch 3, for example, I can sync it with my phone’s do not disturb mode, which is almost always turned on to ensure the only notifications that vibrate my phone are messages and calls from important contacts. The ScanWatch Vitals has lots of options to customize notifications, which is great, but unfortunately, it’s not as automatic as the Pixel Watch.

The ScanWatch lets you set whether you get notifications for incoming calls and messages, but the options are simply on or off. For the most part, that would be fine for me, but I’d love to have some options to control things like the strength of vibration for notifications — the “gentle” vibration that Withings’ app says I’ll get actually feels quite harsh. Moreover, with phone calls, the watch doesn’t stop vibrating if you dismiss or answer the call on your phone — you need to press the crown to do that. It’s quite annoying when I dismiss that spam call, and my watch continues buzzing away. Beyond that, users can also toggle on notifications at the app level — for example, if you want emails on your watch, turn on the Gmail notifications in the Withings app.

But, these features are a foray into smartwatch territory and largely, I think the ScanWatch doesn’t quite count as a smartwatch. Sure, it has some smartwatch features, but only the basics — seeing notifications, for example. I can’t activate a digital assistant like Gemini on my wrist to issue voice commands, I can’t reply to incoming messages or answer phone calls, I can’t use apps like Google Maps to navigate without my phone. And frankly, that’s fine by me — I don’t need any of those features and I think the ScanWatch Vitals is better off without them. But it’s worth noting their absence since anyone who wants those capabilities won’t be satisfied with the ScanWatch.

Worth the money?

Ultimately, that’s both the core benefit and problem with the ScanWatch. The Withings website lists the watch as $289.95 USD (about $403 CAD), while Canadian retailers like Amazon have it at $399.99 CAD. (At the time of writing, Best Buy only had an older ScanWatch model that was also priced at $399.99.)

As much as I like the ScanWatch Vitals, at that price, it’s a tough recommendation. That puts the ScanWatch Vitals at the same price point as full-fledged smartwatches like the Pixel Watch 2 ($349.99) and 3 ($479.99) and the Apple Watch SE ($329). Unfortunately in any head-to-head comparison, the ScanWatch Vitals loses out on functionality because it’s just a fitness tracker, whereas the smartwatches are fitness trackers and more.

I think the ScanWatch Vitals could be a great fit for anyone looking for a fitness tracker inside a svelte, stylish analog wristwatch with some basic smart functions. But anyone in the market for a more capable watch will be better off spending their dollars on a smartwatch.