Today at IFA Berlin, Withings unveiled its new smart scale Body Comp alongside Health+, a service providing health analysis and digital tools to help people improve their well-being with a recommended daily health routine.
The company claims to “reimagining the use of smart scales and home health optimization” because its new body assessment device measures multiple biomarkers usually monitored in clinical environments.
Withings offers Body Comp and 12-month access to Health+ in a bundle that will be available on October 4 for $209.95.
According to CEO Mathieu Letombe, the product, capable of delivering advanced health metrics assessment and habit-building modules, was developed around four key pillars: sleep, nutrition, activity, and stress management.
The key innovation lies in the new biomarkers that Withings can monitor, thanks to new sensors, unique algorithms, and patented electronics. Body Comp is the first scale that measures body fat, visceral fat (the fat hidden around the organs in the belly), vascular age (the pliability of the blood vessels), and nerve health (the function of the nerves in the feet) in a single consumer-grade device.
Since 2020, Digital health is experiencing significant momentum, and many companies in the sector have pushed the envelope to bring professional medical services into the home. BBalance, a smart scale mat for the bathroom, is one of them, and like Withings, it aims at helping people implement daily health habits. (Disclaimer: I am an Advisor for BBalance).
Many people barely use smartphones to place voice calls. Thanks to Withings, they will soon use smart scales for far more than weight management. Body Comp is bringing cardiovascular and nerve health risk assessment to the home.
In addition to full body composition (weight, muscle mass, fat mass, water %, bone mass, BMI, and for the first time, visceral fat), the intelligent scale packed with sensors delivers cardiovascular assessment (Standing heart Rate, Vascular Age) and nerve health assessment (Nerve Health Score*). See the different displays in the gallery:
Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) is a measurement of arterial stiffness and a key indicator of cardiac health. Designed by top cardiologists, Vascular Age is based on PWV and is a measure of the age of both large and small arteries. The consumer device provides user-friendly monitoring of arterial health and indicates whether the user is optimum, normal, or not optimum for her chronological age.
The Nerve Health Score (pending regulatory clearance) is calculated by monitoring the sweat glands in the feet. A sign of degeneration of small nerve fibers would be a low Nerve Health Score, corresponding to a reduced sweat gland innervation.
Designed to work in combination with Health+, Body Comp provides a better understanding of each user’s cardiovascular and metabolic diseases (heart attack, stroke, and diabetes), and offers recommendations for improving health.
Health+ allows users to log food, mood, sleep, and annotations related to each measurement. The app provides daily plans with recommended workouts and recipes alongside a library of 6-weeks habit-building modules. The goal is to help people improve activity, sleep, stress management, and nutrition.
On Sept 1 Withings is presenting Body Comp and Health+ at Showstoppers, an exclusive media event hosted at Berlin Messe during IFA.
Filed in . Read more about Digital Wellbeing, IFA, IFA 2022, Scale and Withings.