There’s something immediately appealing about a smartwatch that still looks like a proper watch. That was my first impression of the Withings ScanWatch 2, and after testing two of them in our household for a week, that feeling only deepened.
What Withings gets right is restraint. The design feels elegant and minimal in a way that most smartwatches don’t. You’re not strapping a glowing rectangle to your wrist and pretending it’s style. The reduced screen time becomes part of the charm. You still get health tracking and activity monitoring, but without the constant pull of notifications and apps that make other devices feel like miniature phones.
In everyday use, both watches proved easy to wear and quietly useful. The only quirk we noticed was during pushchair walks, where the movement tracking occasionally got confused and assumed we were cycling. Although within the Withings app you can select pushing a pram as one of the activities on the quick launch menu on the watch, which allows you to track it as a workout.
Battery life impressed me more than I expected. After seven days of fairly heavy use, mine sat at around 45 per cent. The second watch still had roughly 75 per cent left. Withings states the ScanWatch 2 can run for up to 30 days on a single charge, and based on our testing, that feels credible for typical use.
The app itself is straightforward and well designed. It syncs data from your iPhone like step counts and sleep data, and whilst there’s a monthly subscription available for deeper health insights and goal support, the standard offering feels generous. Sleep tracking, ECG readings, and other health data all work well without feeling limited. Through the app you can set the hands on the watch, add alerts and alarms, and adjust settings easily. A nice touch: the time adjusted unprompted when the clocks went forward.
The ScanWatch 2 feels like something you might choose even before factoring in the health tracking. It looks good, feels considered, and integrates into real life with very little friction. That’s exactly what this category should be aiming for.
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