A Connected Scale For the Masses

Withing’s Wi-Fi-connected Body Smart scale is so smart it can even hide your weight from you—if you want it to. The “Eyes Closed” feature is meant to help you work towards a weight goal, and make it easier to fight through setbacks. It’s just one of the features that make this scale great.

The Composition of a Smart Scale

• Measurement: Four weight sensors (precise to 0.1lbs)
• Weight range: 9 to 440lbs
• Body composition: Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) Multifrequency
• Body composition units: body fat %, total body water %, muscle mass kg or lb, bone mass kg or lb, Visceral Fat Index
• Users: Support for up to 8 users
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n compatible with WEP/WPA/WPA2 security; Bluetooth for initial setup
• App requirements: Phone or tablet with iOS 14 or higher or Android 10 or higher
• Power: 4 AAA batteries rated for about 15 months of use
• Dimensions: 12.8 x 12.8 x 1.1in (325 x 325 x 25.6mm)

Withings highlights the Body Smart scale’s Eyes Closed feature because it is sort of a novel idea. A scale is supposed to tell you your weight. At first, I was skeptical of its usefulness or even its purpose, but after turning it on and using it, I found myself feeling less stressed to step on the scale, knowing it wouldn’t shock me with any news.

I’m not currently overweight for my height, but I don’t like seeing my weight go up. Back in 2020, I was looking to lose weight, so I began weighing myself regularly after running. Eventually, the results came and I dropped some weight, but it was tough to get over the first couple of weeks when very little changed and new habits were forming.

This Eyes Closed feature would have gone a long way for me back in 2020, but even now, I liked using it. Hiding the number of pounds is a small quality-of-life trick that removes a tiny hurdle. If you do want to see your weight, you can enable the feature, and if you don’t, you can hide it. I found it to be a simple feature that went a long way.

Of course, having your “eyes closed” won’t be for everyone, and this scale doesn’t hinge on this feature alone, but it is worth trying.

Additionally, there are modes tailored to being pregnant, athletes, and weighing babies. Those are all toggles within the Withings app, available for iPhone/iPad and Android. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the Athlete mode and Eyes Closed at the same time—though I’m not clear on why it wouldn’t let me.

Weighing In On a Withings Scale

The Withings Body Smart scale wants to do it all, or at least a lot of things. Not only will it measure your weight, but it can figure out your percentage of body fat, percentage of total body water, muscle mass, bone mass, and record your Visceral Fat Index. When I stepped on the scale, the total time to measure and record all of these figures was less than a minute.

This new Body Smart scale displayed its information on a color LCD that looked crisp from a standing distance. I don’t think scales need a color screen, but it was helpful to see the results using green, yellow, or red, depending on whether they were in a suitable range or not.

Withings claims the Body Smart scale is advertised as being clinically tested and precise to 0.1lbs. I didn’t have a scientific way to verify this, but I did compare it to a previous Withings scale and a Eufy smart scale. All of them produced similar results comparatively, but each also continued to produce constant results in line with their own readings day after day.

Beyond the actual health metrics, this scale can show your location’s air quality and outside temperature. It pulls this information from the internet. It doesn’t have any local sensors gathering this data. Personally, my watch, phone, and bedside clock are already telling me this information so I didn’t need my scale to do as well.

I’ve had other smart, Wi-Fi-connected, scales in the past and have occasionally had trouble with some of them not syncing data immediately. I didn’t have that problem here. Usually, within seconds the Withings app had the new measurements and that was conveyed to Apple Health as well because I had enabled that data sharing.

Changing users on the scale, if multiple are enabled, is a little clunky. You need to lift the weight off one foot to move left or right between different people. Similarly, a guest can use the scale by doing the same thing if only one user is enabled. If the scale gets confused it will ask you in its app who to assign certain results to.

Understanding Withings Body Smart Results

The Withings app does a good job of displaying your measurements in its app so the information is front and center. I liked that it included a footnote under the metrics that was very clear about whether the numbers were stable, gaining, or decreasing, along with arrows.

If you connect either Apple Health or Google Health, Withings will pull in your daily exercise activity as well. Syncing my weight to Apple Health worked perfectly for me. You can also connect Withings with Strava or MyFitnessPal to create a more complete picture of your health data.

Withings+ is a subscription service compatible with the Body Smart scale that’s positioned as a way to fully utilize the results of this and other Withings products. I didn’t use the subscription service and did not feel limited without it. If you’re looking for features like recipes and fitness tips directly tied to your figure measurements, it might be worth considering. But I personally didn’t find its $10 per month pitch tempting in the slightest.

Should You Buy Withings Body Smart Scale?

The Withings Body Smart scale retails for $99.95 and is the second model up from the company’s entry-level Body scale, which starts at $59.95. After testing the Body Smart scale, I think it hit the right balance between price and features to be a good value.

I appreciated the extra body composition measurements as well as the more attractive color display. I also don’t think the jump to the $199.95 Body Comp scale and its nerve health assessment or vascular assessment are particularly worth the high additional cost. The Body Smart finds a solid middle ground.