Withings’ new Body Scan smart scales go way beyond just measuring your weight, and instead bring monitoring technology you may have only seen at the gym or the doctor’s office into the comfort of your home. Announced during CES 2022, the Body Scan adds body composition data, heart rate and Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements, nerve response, and vascular age calculations to the usual information given by a smart scale, saying it will, “turn the morning weigh-on into a sophisticated home health check.”
The Body Scan has a tempered glass platform with 14 electrodes hidden inside, plus a built-in 3.2-inch color LCD screen to show relevant data and an extendable handle with a further four electrodes in it. These are used for the ECG and to complete the body composition measurement. Using Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis, the Body Scan will assess body fat, visceral fat, bone and muscle mass, and water percentage to provide readings for individual body parts. Over the long-term, this helps understand high-risk areas in your body, along with sports-related data including muscle imbalance.
By taking your heart rate and an ECG measurement, along with calculating your vascular age and comparing it with expected norms for your age, the Body Scan can help detect changes in your heart health. By using the electrodes in the platform it will also track sweat gland activity to assess small nerve activity, which is apparently a good indicator of how healthy your lifestyle is.
Data will be shown on the Body Scan’s screen and in an accompanying app, but Withings will also offer a subscription service that will link you with a medical specialist and generate health and wellness plans based on the data collected by the scales. It’s not clear whether the subscription service will be essential for you to benefit from the Body Scan’s data, how much it will cost, or if it will be part of Withings pro-level Health Solutions service.
The Body Scan is the next step beyond Withings existing Body+ scales, which also provides muscle, bone, and fat mass, plus water retention data using Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis electrodes. We’ve also seen other companies experimenting with delivering body composition data this year, with Samsung building the technology into the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.
Withings hasn’t announced a price for the Body Scan yet but confirms it will be available during the second half of 2022 after it has received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and obtained the CE mark in Europe. For reference, the Body+ scales cost $100 so expect it to be more than this. Additionally, it took more than a year for the FDA to approve the Withings ScanWatch, which resulted in it being available in Europe after CE accreditation some time before the U.S. release, so be aware delays may also affect the Body Scan’s launch.
