Withings Ws-50 Smart Body Analyzer, White

Shouldnt these last 10, 12, 15 years? Against my better judgement I am buying another Withings scale, but for less than half the price of what this one was. I can't believe this other one ran me $160 7 years ago. Horrible value!!! Problems were: 1) the batteries needed to be changed much more frequently than I thought they would... does it stay in active mode even when not in use or something? I mean a person is on a scale for like 10 seconds or so.. do the math on how long the batteries should last... they lasted a fraction of that, 2) I put the setting on "lbs", but after several uses, it CONSTANTLY changed the seeting to "kgs" or to "stones" ...SO ANNOYING!!!!! 3) this may be a battery issue, but sometimes I got 'bad' readings that were 5-10% off from what I was expecting, and the next day it would be back to normal, 4) tried syncing with the phone app... not sure what value I was going to get from it, but just more passwords to rememebr and a cumbersome apps to navigate. Before trying to make a digital community out of your product with all these bells and whistles, please just concentrate on making a decent product that lasts. My folks had maybe 2 bathroom scales in ther bathroom over the course of 40-50 years that worked PERFECTLY. This one lasted me less than 7 years, was expensive and frustrating to use. I mean think about that... 'frustrating to use' LOL... all you have to do is stand on it, get a reading and step off... this thing was a pain in the butt!!!!

I've only had the scale for 2 days.Le't start with the scale. I bought the WS 50 White. No doubt it came exactly as pictured. Unfortunately, in the world of online shopping. there's no way to physically inspect any product before hand. Not to say the product came damaged, it did not. However, it's only when you pick up the product and turn it on its side, that somewhat subpar (I suspect) build quality is used. What is my basis of comparison; my old Japanese scale and my brother's Fitbit Aria. These other 2 did not exhibit any sort of creaking sound. The housing for both felt solid. To be fair, if you aren't really OCD and you're reasonably careful as you should be with any electronic device, I think you should be fine with the WS 50.Next, setup, apps and website dashboard features. Setup is easy. I didn't encounter any issues (yet?). I created an account and one user profile on the website then logged in on the Withings app. Pairing is also relatively easy and fast. The app gives a simply of instruction of "pushing on the pairing button" but it's not really a button in the traditional sense. It's more like applying pressure and you don't need a lot. Once paired you might want to update the software first. Again, you need to pair the scale with the app to check for software updates. I initially felt it quite annoying that you had to pair it every single time you wanted to check for software but how often does one set up a scale and check for updates right?Apps. There's something weird and I really, really want them to fix about the app. I created a brand new account on Feb 22nd at 10.48pm but the moment I accidentally turned on activity tracking, both in the widgets and/or leaderboard and/or timeline, all of a sudden the day before at 12am, I walked I already walked 4,162 steps and the day I set up the account for the first time, I already walked 4,202 steps and got a quiet day badge, all without leaving my chair. To make it worse, there's no way to delete this specific category of measurement from the dashboard on the website. You can delete weight, height, heart rate entries but there are some categories which can't be deleted. Aside from this weird activity ghost measurements, you cannot delete air quality (consisting of temperature and C02. All of this can be remedied by brute force by deleting the affected user(s) profile and NOT the whole account. There's no need to delete the account, only the user(s) is/are enough.Next, Customer Support. Prior to realising I didn't need to delete the whole account, I did, therefore I had to create a new account but the same issue happened (stupid fingers for turning the issue on again). I emailed CS, and they never got back to me, even after 20 hours. You might be thinking, "Only 20 hours? Relax, give them some time to get back to you." Guess what? After I realised only deleting the user(s) profiles are enough, I wanted to reactivate my original account. I emailed them one night at around 2am and they replied close to 6am. I'm not sure if they're choosing to reply only to certain support tickets but they had better step up on their response time.Compatibility. In my opinion, if you are using an iOS device like an iPhone, Withings would be a better choice as the Apple Health app can receive health data sent from the Withings app. Fitbit has explicitly said they do not want to do this, i.e., they've chosen not to allow syncing of data to the Apple Health app. Obviously if you have an iPhone but already are using a Fitbit device like their bands, then the Fitbit Aria would be a no-brainer as you're already invested into the Fitbit ecosystem. I can't say anything about Fitbit's customer support.

This scale has been in use for 10 months. The set up seems ridiculously simple but in practice it can be frustrating when despite there being minimal steps, it just doesn't work, until it miraculously does. The scale does not like to be moved. I would slide it out from under the vanity for use and for weeks it was giving weights that would be +/- 4-7 pounds (confirmed when the display would show a weight after I stepped off the scale). Further research suggests waiting at least 5 seconds before getting on the scale after it has been moved or jostled. Now its no longer an issue. Occasionally the scale would disconnect from the wifi for days on end, then (again, "miraculously") decide to reconnect. Moving the scale closer to the router had no effect on speed of reconnection. I have replaced the batteries on 3 occasions. The first two times took much longer than expected as the scale seems to be very selective about which brand new Energizer batteries it will accept from a 24 pack. The App is had some issues at first, like step counting destroying your battery life, and lots of little graphical glitches, but I disabled the step tracker and the updates seem to be ironing out the bugs. My take on the product was that it was kind of rushed to market and things just weren't really developed to the point where they could perform reliably. It is a nice looking product though and when it works, its great. At the time, the fitbit aria was the only other "smart" scale out there. I picked this one because it looked cooler and it seemed like the company was starting to push nicely designed integrated products to the market (I had previously seen the Activite watch and thought that was pretty sweet)The third time I changed the batteries all hell broke loose. The scale refuses to sync via bluethooth to my phone (or my wife's phone) and therefore cannot be set up. It no longer has any idea about users, wifi, the weather, or anything else that would make this more than a fancy looking regular ol' scale. It tells me my weight, but I guess I have to record it myself from now on. Email based "customer service" is a joke. The agent just sent me back to the website to the review the set up process after reminding me to use new batteries. I requested to schedule a call to see if we could trouble shoot it live so that's in process. Another oddity is that doesn't seem to be any forums or an active community of users to review issues. Its just the company's own literature which is woefully inadequate.Seemed like a product with alot of promise. I cant imagine most people wasting as much time as I have on it, so unless you like futzing around with things, steer clear. Its just not ready for prime time.

Great range of options but really sensitive to where it is put. Really need to ensure you keep it in the same place every day for it to be worth using.

Short story: Got a fitbit for Christmas so I was enjoying the 'new world' of fitness trackers / apps / etc.. (never used anything similar before so I didn't even have any myfitnesspal or any similar accounts).. So I decided why not stick with the fitbit app and see what it has to offer.. Needless to say I saw that they have support for smart scales.. in fact they have their own scale, the aria 2, which I was going to buy, but it was out of stock on amazon at the moment so I googled alternatives that are still supported by the app.I found this one and it was actually praised to be even better than the aria 2 by lots of people and you could still link it to the fitbit app.. I didn't really think twice about it and ordered it :)It arrived fast (expedited delivery) without any issues.. it was easy to set up, though quite annoying that even after you set it up you have to press the connect button on the bottom side every single time you want to use your phone to change settings / update firmware etc just to wake it up and have your phone find it (usually it's not needed for daily use as it remembers the wifi settings and works completely independent of your phone, so bluetooth here isn't an operational technology, just required for setup).The health mate application is actually decent.. I never saw what the Whitings one looked like before, but I read many complaints about the new nokia app... In my case it's working perfectly and does what it's supposed to do so I can't complain about the app at all.I also managed to link it with my fitbit account really fast... however they do not have a 'place' on the website where you can find that as neither withings nor nokia are in the supported apps section for some weird reason... but if you simply google 'link withings smart body analyzer with fitbit account' a fitbit hosted page comes up with a simple wizard that gets the job done in a couple of seconds. (No trace of that shows up afterwards either.. so I couldn't see any information about the 2 being linked either in fitbit or the nokia account, but it works flawlessly so that's good enough for me)Now for the actual product and the flaws it has imo.I'm not going to be the one who complains that 'Oooh the bodyfat measurement is not accurate' like many people do, without understanding the implications. Bodyfat is an estimate, regardless of which method you use, be it DXA, hydrostatic... calipers.. or in this case BIA it's always just an estimate. Of course if you have a ripped 6pack and the thing says you're at 35% then yes, you should have a nice laugh about it then try to troubleshoot it, but in my case the bodyfat percentage is actually a surprisingly accurate estimate as it's giving me values around 16%. I'm 182cm tall, about 74kg with decent sized muscles little to no fat on the shoulders (individual muscle strands visible there) and the top 2 rows of my abs visible with slight overhead lighting and yes.. that is roughly in the 15-17% range. (this should also serve as a reality check to those who have no visible muscles, but complain that they get over 20% and try to turn on athlete mode to get less, because some other random machine said they were 14% - just a random example I made up based on typical internet complaints, nothing concrete)However.. this is where the problems start, it actually feels like the bodyfat estimate is more precise than the actual scale.. which is silly, since that shouldn't be a 'guess', weight can be measured properly and quite accurately with digital scales, even the cheapest ones. As a former athlete (10+ years of judo as a teen way back) I'm quite used to weigh-ins and all sorts of scales and their shortcomings. I believe they failed on this one when designing the feet of the scale as they're hard plastic and slide too easily (you can use it as a skateboard on a hardwood floor). I understand that soft materials affect the reading, but adding the slightest rubber coating on those feet wouldn't have hurt anything. So how accurate it is?.. It gives me anything from 73.5 to 75 and rarely gives the same reading twice in a row.. if you move it (thinking that the feet might not be level) it can be a couple of kilos off even if you wait those 10 seconds listed in the online manual. As a comparison my previous scale was a simple cheap zelmer (~10 pounds).. that one had rubberized feet so it didn't move while the feet were also fixed (this one allows for play in case your floor is slightly uneven) so you had to place it in a completely flat spot and check that it doesn't wobble even the slightest before measuring. That one gave me the exact same reading no matter how many times I stepped on it in succession, furthermore it was located in the exact spot this one is atm so I know that portion of the floor is completely level. Now the other thing is that the cheap zelmer had the same increments as this one.. 100g, I was kind of hoping for a more precise 50g increment on a premium scale like this, but obviously that's being nit-picky and not actually needed for everyday use.I am going to do more experiments with the weighing... maybe even try sticking on the carpet feet it comes with, but given that I use it on a hardwood floor it shouldn't be installed.Bottom line, the reason for my 3 star review is the mere fact that this one makes me doubt the actual weight measurement, even though it's in there in the proper range so it would be more than fine for most people.. it just gives you that feeling of uncertainty which I never had with a cheap 10 pound scale.. I would overall give it a 4 star as it is quite useful and does what it's supposed to do for the most part... even the room air quality function can be useful (for example I learned that I need to open my windows more often lol), but the sliding feet and all... and given that it's a premium product and isn't actually cheap, yet these issues could've been so easily avoided.. I think the minus 1 star is pretty warranted..Don't let my review put you off though, overall it's a nice product and I do like it. Also sorry for the long review, but I really wanted to include everything :)

I bought this as I wasn't happy with my Aria scales.I've been using both side by side for a month and here's my review.This weighs 2lb lighter than my (2 year old) Aria, I suspect the Aria is inaccurate. There's no way to adjust either.The Aria does a better job of fat and lean measurements, the measurements are more consistent day to day although both are equally consistent at the overall weight measurement.That said, the Aria suffers from some really strange rounding, inconsistent with the value displayed in the iPhone app. The Withings however shows the same result on the scales and in the app.The Withings Health Mate is a better web app than the Fitbit (Aria) site. In fact the Fitbit site is pretty useless.The Aria can measure multiple people but only if their weight difference is more than 8lbs, which is of little use in a typical family. I believe Withings has a similar limitation but haven't tried it.I use the free Trendweight web app for both scales, much better graphs, less clutter.The Withings takes longer to weigh, calculate body fat, heart rate, air quality etc than the Aria which measures less and only takes a few seconds.Overall neither scales are perfect, but the Withings has better web and phone apps so I'd lean towards it, or even buy the cheaper WS-30 as the other measurements aren't really relevant to measuring weightloss.Withings need to address fat/lean measurement inconsistencies.Aria need to replace their software development manager.

Used the product for two weeks, and we use it everyday, with a perfect experience, until now, not a single failed reading for Weight, Body Mass, CO2, only Heart Rate failed to read one single time, relative to use, and the product itself everything was perfect so far.GOOD: Great Product and Design!! Easy to use daily! Weight reading has been flawless for multiple users daily. CO2 reading, Weather and Body Mass are great features, and used all and with only one failed reading for one single Heart Rate, as I feel is just normal (because in other devices just one foot position can cause issues reading, so nothing strange for me). Simple and Effective Design. Easy to use apps. Multiple users and accounts feature is a fantastic option, for individual monitoring. Step Challenges on the app is a fun feature to have with the family.BAD:Both apps for Android and iOS feel outdated, with little development. The device's screen is not an LCD with great graphics as for me it would be a great refreshed addition. Some issues setting up the device on first use, around 10-15 minutes having it setup and working.Overall:Would buy the product again, feel that it is a great product, use it daily with no issues. Great Design and Perfect Usability!Not 5 Stars only due to outdated feel on the apps, the scale screen and the issues setting up.

Easy to use, easy to set up. Clean interface and the app is great too. Seems very reliable and syncs very quickly with no issues.Only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars was the heart rate sensor often not managing to detect a heart beat. After ascertaining that I am not a member of the living dead this is a problem. The air quality sensor also doesn’t sync its data with the app unless you weigh yourself it seems, so you don’t find out the air quality until the next day. Minor issue though as you can always step on it quickly then delete the measurement.Battery seems to last a while, and it looks quite clean and doesn’t look out of place or overly techy.Worth buying.