Withings Body+ Body Composition Smart Wi-Fi Scale review

Withings designed its Body+ Composition Scale to be intuitive and easy to use. This scale is focused on helping you reach your fitness goals and is designed to give you a broad overview of your health. In addition to weight, this scale tracks BMI, total body fat, water percentage, muscle mass, and bone mass.

When you stand on the scale it syncs all your data to the Health Mate app. It does this through Wi-Fi, so no need for cables or Bluetooth pairing. The Health Mate app contains a history of the metrics that the scale has recorded.

Design and Battery life

The Body+ scale is a square glass slab that has a sleek and minimalist approach. The scale isn’t trying to be the focal point of the room, but it is well designed and pleasing to the eye.

This device measures 0.9 inches tall, 12.9 inches long, 12.9 inches wide, and weighs 4.41 pounds. The 2.9 inch LCD display is clear and easy to read. It supports weight measurements in pounds, kilograms, and stones. It has a maximum user weight capacity of 396.8 pounds.

Generally, scales are most accurate when used on a hard surface such as on tile or wood floors. This scale does include “carpet feet”, which are caps that go on the regular feet and are designed to be used on the carpet. I used the device on a hardwood surface for most of my testing. I don’t have any real carpets in my home, but did test the scale on a bath mat and the results were within my normal range. Just keep in mind, depending on the size and type of your carpet, your results may vary.

The scale is powered by four AAA batteries. It has an auto-shutoff feature and Withings claims up to 18 months of usage from those 4 batteries.

Setup

Upon powering the Body+ scale for the first time, I was instructed to download Withings Health Mate app. From there you create an account and sync with the scale.

During setup, you can choose what metrics you wish to track. I chose to track everything, which includes, weight, body fat, muscle mass, body water, and bone mass. You then input your age and height. If you have a specific weight goal, you can input that in during setup in addition to how many pounds you would like to lose a week.

Overall, the setup process was efficient and easy, without any hiccups.

Price and Performance

The scale typically goes for $100, but you can often find it for less. At the time of writing, both Amazon and Best Buy had it on sale for $78.

Typically scales just measure weight, but this is a smart scale, designed to give you a clearer view of your overall health.

Using bioelectrical impedance analysis, the scale sends a safe and undetectable electrical signal to measure your full body composition. It works by detecting how long it takes the signal to travel through your body. The signal moves faster through muscle and slower through fat. It only takes a few seconds for this signal to travel and for your results to start showing on the screen.

The Data

When you stand on the Withings Body+ Composition Scale, you are immediately given your weight. It then shows you a graph to show the recent history of your weight. It’s a great way to quickly show if you are gaining or losing weight directly from the scale.

You then get the local weather displayed on your screen. I don’t really need the weather to be displayed when standing on a scale, but I came to the conclusion this “feature” was added to give the user something to look at while the electrical signal travels through your body.

After the weather, the scale will cycle through the metrics you chose to track. It will give you your results on top, with a bar underneath to show healthy ranges for each metric.

I found the results to be very accurate and the results did not deviate more than a fraction when I would re-check the data by getting off and standing back on the scale.

Syncing Users

The scale supports up to eight users and automatically detects who is standing on the scale. If you have a baby in the house, you will be pleased to know that this scale can easily track the baby’s weight as well. All you have to do is hold the baby and stand on the scale. It will then give you the results of the baby’s weight. As my children are not babies anymore, I couldn’t test the feature, but absolutely love that Withings incorporated it.

The Body+ scale will automatically sync your information over Wi-Fi. Your device doesn’t need to be near you when you stand on the scale. When you check your results later, they will be there waiting for you.

The scale does support Bluetooth Sync as well, but it isn’t nearly as convenient as Wi-Fi Sync and I didn’t test it for this review.

Health Mate app

The Health Mate app is simple to use and easy to find the information that you are looking for. The app goes beyond just showing you the results from the scale. It is an all-encompassing health app, allowing you to track your daily steps and activity level.

Tabs of Data

On the app’s home page, you are quickly given your current step total, current weight (with a graph of recent weigh-ins) exercise, fitness level, and recent health trends.

The dashboard tab gives you a quick look at all your health metrics. You get your fitness level, steps, workouts for the week, BMI, body water, bone mass, fat mass, height, muscle mass, and weight. If connected to other devices, it will even show your average heart rate and blood pressure.  You can track your food intake here as well.

The devices tab shows all of your current Withings devices and their remaining battery life. This includes scales, watches, trackers, blood pressure monitors, sleep sensors, and the Aura (Withings’ wake-up light). This tab allows you to quickly sync a device by tapping install device and selecting whatever Withings device you are trying to use.

The profile tab allows you to share a PDF Health Report. It also shows your current achievements, how many times you have weighed yourself, the total number of steps you have taken since using Health Mate, your best step day, reminders, and connected apps.

Diving Further into the Data

Although all of your information is given to you in an easy-to-read format on the various tabs, things get a little more difficult to read when diving further into the metrics.

For example, clicking on the weight box brings you to a graph with your weight history. Up top, you have a weight tab, body composition tab, and BMI tab. Then a line graph is broken up into weeks, months, or years.

Looking quickly, you can see your overall trend on the graph. It gets a bit tougher to digest when trying to take granular control to see your past history. You can tap anywhere on the graph to see the results, but I found it doesn’t offer a great way to view your data.

At the top is an icon that looks like a list. If you click that it gives you a broken-down list of all your weigh-ins. This was easier for me to digest and see my progress.

I understand why Withings made the choice to show the graph first, as it is easy to see your trending data. It just feels a bit more difficult to drill into the data than the rest of the app.

When someone stands on the scale who doesn’t have an active profile, you are given the option to view the unknown measurements to see if any were yours or to dismiss them.

Connected Apps

You can use the Health Mate app to connect to over 100 different apps. You can choose to import or export data to and from the Health Mate app to match your needs.

Some popular apps that you can connect to are:

• Google Fit
• Samsung Health
• Fitbit
• Garmin
• Apple Health
• MyFitnessPal
• Weight Watchers
• RunKeeper
• Nike Run Club
• MapMyRun
• Strava

I typically use the Samsung Health app to track all of my steps and my exercise routine. I chose to export the scale metrics to Samsung Health and I am happy to report it worked flawlessly. Within seconds of standing on the scale, the Samsung app was displaying all of my body composition metrics.

Unforuntanetly, syncing from the Samsung Health app to the Health Mate app didn’t work as well. My step count and recent exercise information were completely off. At times I had double the steps in the Health Mate app when compared to the Samsung Health app. When tracking running information, the Health Mate app would show my running times to be twice as fast.

This wasn’t an issue for my wife when syncing to Apple Health, so this may be a Samsung-specific issue, but one that needs to be pointed out. For what I use it for, exporting the data was fantastic.

Conclusion

The Withings Body+ Composition Scale was an absolute joy to use. I didn’t realize how important it was to track my body composition in addition to my weight. By doing so I have a much clearer picture of my overall health.

At $100, it isn’t the cheapest smart scale, but it isn’t the most expensive either. In fact, for the included features and great performance, this may very well be the best bang for your buck smart scale on the market.

I have no concerns regarding the durability of this device and plan on using it for a long time to come. With a renewed interest in my health, I am happy to have the ability to see more of the metrics that matter to me.