Here’s A Hybrid Smartwatch That’s Actually Quite Smart - Forbes

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Outstanding battery life, and all the essentials

Withings

I am staring at the Withings Steel HR hybrid smartwatch in disbelief. For five days now, I have worn it non-stop, used it to count steps, track my morning jogs, check my calories burned, gauge my sleep, and monitor my heart rate. Yet it still shows me the battery is at 100 percent. Each battery charge is supposed to last 25 days. At this rate, mine will last quite a bit longer. I think most other smart watches I’ve tried — and there have been many — would’ve needed a recharge by now. But this model is different. And you can tell it’s designed to be a watch first and foremost. The smart aspect makes it extend beyond a complete package.

My first impression is that it looks just awesome. It’s a guy’s watch — black face with silver accents. And when you first turn it on and sync it up with the smartphone app, the hands on the watch start suddenly and magically moving quickly to the exact current time. I charged it initially in the included cradle, which by the way also looks sleek.

It’s water-resistant up to 50m, super comfortable to wear for hours on end, and can provide smartphone notifications — although I haven’t tried that feature yet. When you wear it to bed, it automatically tracks light and deep sleep cycles, duration, and sleep quality via the Sleep Score. Plus, the Smart Wake-up feature can get you out of bed at the best time according to your sleep cycle. That’s important because it can help you better understand your night and make choices that can improve your sleep habits. The accelerometer, paired with heart rate, allows a comprehensive analysis of your night. The company’s proprietary AI was calibrated with a sleep laboratory in Germany and a hospital in France, using polysomnography, which is considered to be the gold standard for sleep analysis.

There’s a manual dial on the bottom half of the watch face that tells you how many steps you’ve hit. You set your goal on the app, and then the dial uses that as its guide. When you hit your goal, the watch vibrates and gives you a happy message on its tiny embedded screen up top. By the way, this tiny screen is also where you can check all of your vitals and even set an alarm to wake you up. It’s actually an elegant and simple system with one function button on the right side of the watch. I like simple, especially when it comes to technology.

You can always go into the app and check exact data, and see charts and percentages that further define your data. For me, the tiny screen works just fine — although I’d love it if it were a little bit brighter. When I’m out in the sun, it’s difficult to see. By the way, the watch perpetually measures your heart rate day and night, which is very useful for your workouts to make sure you’re not stressing your body.

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I realize a lot of people like smartwatches that are essentially an extension of their phones — with email, phone calls and videos. I’m not that guy. For me, this is the ideal blend.

The Link Lonk


June 18, 2021 at 08:00PM
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Here’s A Hybrid Smartwatch That’s Actually Quite Smart - Forbes

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