Withings ScanWatch 2 Review

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The ScanWatch 2 is for a specific person: someone who wants medical-grade health tracking on their wrist but refuses to take off a nice-looking analog watch every night to charge it. If that’s not your priority — if you want a full-color touchscreen, third-party apps, and Siri on your wrist — stop reading and go look at an Apple Watch or Garmin Venu instead. This review is for the person choosing hybrid on purpose.

What it is

The ScanWatch 2 looks like a normal analog watch — steel hands, a clean dial — with a small 0.63-inch grayscale OLED window at the 6 o’clock position that surfaces heart rate, steps, and notification glances. It comes in 38mm and 42mm cases, ships with a fluoroelastomer band, a magnetic charging dock, and both USB-A and USB-C cables. List price is around $349.95 (around $369.95 depending on retailer and finish).

The health tracking is the real product

Withings built this watch around sensors, not apps, and it shows:

• Medical-grade ECG — an on-demand electrocardiogram that can flag signs of atrial fibrillation, the same category of feature Apple popularized but housed in a watch that never needs a nightly charge.
• SpO2 and continuous temperature tracking, plus respiratory rate monitoring layered on top of standard activity and sleep tracking.
• HealthSense 4, Withings’ onboard AI system that analyzes roughly 35 biomarkers to flag early signs of illness (like a temperature or respiratory-rate shift that might precede a cold) before you’d otherwise notice.

None of this requires a subscription. ECG, heart rate, sleep staging, SpO2, and temperature all work on the free tier.

Battery life: the marketing number vs. the real one

Withings advertises up to 30 days, and some reviewers have logged 35. In practice, expect 7 to 14 days with SpO2, continuous temperature, and regular workout/GPS-connected tracking switched on. You only get close to the 30-day claim by dialing back to watch-plus-basic-steps mode with respiratory scanning off. That’s not a knock on the watch — 7-14 days still means you charge it monthly instead of nightly — but don’t buy it expecting a full month of use at full sensor load.

Withings+: optional, and mostly skippable at launch

Withings sells an optional subscription, Withings+, at around $9.95/month or around $99.50/year (new ScanWatch 2 buyers typically get the first month free). It adds a Health Improvement Score, guided wellness programs, and — on the annual plan — four remote cardio check-ups a year with a health professional. It’s a reasonable add if you want the coaching layer; it’s not required to get any of the watch’s core medical tracking, and most buyers can skip it for the first few months and see if they miss it.

Setup and day-to-day wear

Pairing is straightforward: the Withings app walks you through Bluetooth pairing and a firmware update on first boot, which took about ten minutes in testing. After that, the watch mostly disappears — there’s no daily charging ritual to build a habit around, so the main interaction is a wrist-turn to check the OLED window for heart rate or the time of your last sleep score. The 38mm case suits smaller wrists better than most hybrid competitors, which tend to default to a single bulkier size; the 42mm is the one to get if you want the sensor package to feel proportional to a men’s-watch-sized case. One real annoyance: the small OLED display is genuinely small, and scrolling through more than a step count or heart-rate reading (like a full sleep breakdown) is more comfortable done in the phone app than on the wrist.

Within Withings’ own lineup, the ScanWatch 2 sits above the cheaper ScanWatch Light (no ECG, fewer sensors, lower price) and below nothing currently — it’s the top of the analog-hybrid line, with the separate ScanWatch Nova aimed at a slightly different, more premium-materials audience rather than more sensors.

How it compares

The honest takeaway: if you already live in Apple’s ecosystem and don’t mind nightly charging, the Apple Watch does more. If you’re training for endurance sports and want dedicated sport profiles and mapping, Garmin wins. The ScanWatch 2’s lane is narrower — and it owns that lane — for someone who wants to wear one watch, glance at a real dial, and not think about charging more than twice a month.

Check price on Amazon

The verdict

Recommended for anyone who has previously given up on smartwatches because of daily charging, but still wants ECG, SpO2, and sleep tracking that a basic fitness band doesn’t offer. Not recommended if you want app notifications with full detail, a bright always-on color display, or dedicated multi-sport GPS training modes — those all belong to full smartwatches, and the ScanWatch 2 deliberately isn’t one.

FAQ

Is the Withings ScanWatch 2 worth around $349.95?
If hybrid design and multi-week battery are the priority, yes — you’re paying for sensor depth (ECG, SpO2, temperature) in a form factor competitors in this price range don’t match. If you want a full touchscreen smartwatch experience, look elsewhere at a similar price.

What’s the real battery life, not the marketing number?
7 to 14 days with regular use (SpO2, temperature, some workout tracking on). The 30-35 day claims require dialing back to minimal sensor use.

Do I need to pay for Withings+ to use the health features?
No. ECG, heart rate, sleep staging, SpO2, and temperature tracking all work without any subscription. Withings+ (around $9.95/mo or around $99.50/yr) adds a Health Improvement Score and guided programs on top.

Does it work with both iPhone and Android?
Yes, the Withings Health Mate/Withings app supports both iOS and Android, syncing over Bluetooth LE.