Have been monitoring this one for a while after having my Withings Steel HR for 6 years. Time for an upgrade.
CamelCamelCamel.
Why does someone needs to sing it’s praises? Nobody cares if you buy it or not.
It's a good smart watch that looks like a traditional watch. It also gets notifications, tracks health trends pretty well and only needs a charge every month or so. Looks far better as a watch than a glossy square.
Can this make and receive calls and messages?
I'm on iOS and am using this watch - you can receive all notifications (including calls and messages), but you can't respond to them in any way, or take a phone call.
Thanks that's what I was looking for, perfect for me. I just sometimes can't hear my phone so miss messages/calls, was looking for this exactly, thanks.
Happy to help. One weird thing is that when you turn notifications on in the Withings app, the list of available apps starts out really small. It seems that the available apps start appearing one-by-one as they actually send a notification to the phone. I'm guessing this is an iOS limitation. But after a few days, they all show up in the list.
I have original scanwatch, nice if you don’t need all the smart features. Has decent fitness tracking with connected gps although regularly says I’ve been riding my bike at random times and they’ve never fixed this. 30 day battery life is a pipe dream for mine, I get about a week. Overall I like my watch although if you are happy with less smart features and a more real looking watch- would definitely recommend a kronaby which I lovel
My original scanwatch did that too - kept detecting riding my bike. With the Horizon (and I'm assuming the original), you can now turn off the different types of automatic detection, which I've done for the bike (I'm not sure if this was changed in a firmware/app update, or is specific to the Horizon). I also think the heartrate and sleep tracking is better compared to my original, and I'm not sure if that's the Horizon watch or the result of firmware updates to all scanwatches.
sleep tracking
Wouldn't it be annoying wearing a full-size watch to bed?
It's definitely noticeably heavier than an Apple Watch or small fitbit, etc, but I got used to wearing it with the full metal band 24/7. The included silicon band does lower the weight a lot, but after a night or two I don't notice the weight on my wrist anymore. I imagine it's not for everyone though
I have Garmin Fenix and love it. At the beginning I couldn’t sleep with it and use to wake up middle of night to remove it. Slowly got to used to it.
After two years use, was diagnosed with carpal tunnel on left palm as I put my hand under head. Now wear it on right hand but not during sleep. Please be careful with chunky watches and could be specific to me.
This
you can turn stuff off using the app.
but i get really decent battery life on the original scanwatch - 20 days easy.
I had the old one.. was near impossible to read without glasses. This one looks a lot better
if im not looking for a full smart watch, i think the garmin is better over this tbh
Garmin functionality is there, they just all look crap honestly. This at least looks like a real watch and could substitute one
Biggest benefit of these is the 30-day battery life. Not sure about the other comment, I generally get 3-4 weeks out of mine – its all dependent I guess on how often you use the sleep monitoring, heart rate check, etc.
Other benefit I have is the sapphire glass (amazing scratch resistance) which you can only get on the ~$950 Garmin models.
Ive got both the Steel HR and based on how good that was I bought a Scanwatch black 42mm (normal not Horizon). Its currently $387 on Amazon which is 22% off and probably a better buy than the Horizon.
You'll get plenty of deep sleep. Registers me as deep sleeping whilst watching movies! Fitbit Charge 5 seems to be far more accurate, at least for me
Another Scanwatch owner here (not the horizon model) - Looks nice, feels great, battery lasts a month, vibration for timers/alarms is great and ECG is kinda fun
BUT
Phone sync/notifications is almost always broken for me (they just never show up),
ECG sometimes takes a few tries before it gets a solid reading.. barely registers anything if my heart is over 120bpm which is like.. when I'd want to use it the most?
HR tracking through the day is averaged so it almost never picks up spikes
Step counter/fitness tracking is very inaccurate.. like it works, but any other wearable will be better for it
Sleep tracking is even worse - I can get up to use the bathroom and it won't notice, sitting on the couch is deep sleep, and a horrible night sleep is "96% excellent!"
Interface is a little clunky, much better than the old Steel model but takes a bit to get used to
4/10, literally every other smart watch is smarter.. but I don't actually need all those smart functions so I'd still buy another one just for the looks, build quality, sapphire glass, long battery and vibration alarm.
great warts-and-all review, thanks :)
Oddly enough, I had most of these same gripes and concerns when I had the original Scanwatch. This annoyed me enough to sell it. Several months later I was tempted by a great price on a Horizon, and now I don't appear to have any of these issues (or they are significantly reduced to the point that I'm not as bothered). I don't know if the firmware/app updates have made a big difference, or the Horizon just has different components, but my previous concerns with weird data for sleep, walking, notifications, ECG, etc, aren't present on the Horizon for me. (at first I thought it was just 'rose-coloured glasses' during the initial ownership period, but it's been a while now and I do think it's improved)
I do agree though, this is a very basic smartwatch. My priority (after years of owning an Apple Watch and not liking the design), was just to have a nice looking "watch" first, with basic smartwatch functionality as second.
Oh neat, glad to hear it got improved. I'll stick with my current one for now though as I love the minimalist white on gold style - the new horizon ones look a bit too 'busy' for me..
Still got the original Steel HR from 6 or 7 years ago. Going strong! Been interesting watching all the smart watch advancements from then. Not sure what will make me pull the trigger to get a new one, unless my HR breaks of course.
I still think Withings make the best balanced watches between elegance and functionality.
Someone sing the praises of this kind of watch. Explain its strengths/advantages over other answer watches, apart from "it's a good smart watch that looks like a traditional watch"