The Withings Body Cardio smart scales are a stylish addition to any bathroom. The health-focused device can measure a range of physical attributes, including weight, muscle and fat mass, and heart rate. The newly-released Vascular Health feature, combined with the scales’ comprehensive fitness and health monitoring, makes the Body Cardio some of the best connected scales money can buy.
- Vascular Age feature for monitoring your heart health
- Data syncs via Wi-Fi to the Withings Health Mate smartphone app
- Full body composition measurements
- 12-month battery life
- Brand: Withings
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi
- Integrations: Over 100 services, including Google Fit and Apple Health
- Color: Black/White
- Material: Aluminum, tempered glass
- Battery: 12 months
- Can allow up to eight user profiles
- Data displayed on the scales can be adjusted via the app
- Data is presented clearly and with useful insights
- Vascular Age feature is impressive, useful, and unique
- Top-heavy design makes them prone to falling over if stored
- Knowing exactly where to stand takes some getting used to
Withings Body Cardio
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For decades, people have used bathroom scales to keep an eye on their health. Initially, these were limited to analog units, which only showed your weight. Then, digital scales became more commonplace, offering guidance on weight, body fat, and muscle.
Then came “smart” digital scales. Companies like Fitbit and Withings are two of the most popular, and their scales integrate with their respective apps, syncing data to your smartphone so you can keep an eye on your physical health over a period of time.
Withings initially launched the Body Cardio smart scale back in 2016. However, the company has continued to support the unit and even now, five years later, is still adding features, like the recently launched Vascular Age measurement.
Withings Body Cardio Design
We’re all familiar with the basic design of bathroom scales. The units are usually square, low to the ground, and have a dial or display near the top. To measure your stats, you just need to step onto the scales with both feet. Withings haven’t done anything radical with the aesthetic design or essential operation. However, the Body Cardio scales do look decidedly modern.
The front face is made from high-strength tempered glass with a black body behind. At a glance, the scales look like a purely black square, but the glass plate is slightly patterned. Although this prevents the scales from looking too plain, it also has a more practical reason. The front plate is covered in electrodes which are used to perform some of the more complex measurements.
Unlike many other scales, which run on disposable batteries, the Body Cardio comes with a built-in rechargeable battery. On the side of the device, you’ll find a micro-USB port for top-ups. However, you shouldn’t have to do this often, as the battery should last up to 12 months on a single charge.
Withings Body Cardio Features
Withings currently offers three smart scales; Body, Body+, and Body Cardio. The Body is the entry-level model, with data syncing but a limited number of features. The Body+ is an upgraded edition of the Body scales, adding body composition measurements. Finally, the Body Cardio is the most advanced set of scales the company offers.
As you’d expect for a set of bathroom scales, the Body Cardio measures your weight, and the display offers up the numerical value and a trend line for recent measurements. Using the companion app, you can add multiple users to the scales, and in many cases, the unit will automatically recognize who has stepped on. An on-screen prompt will highlight which way to lean to select your user profile when it is unsure.
Alongside weight, the Body Cardio scales also monitor your body fat and water percentage, muscle mass, bone mass, and current heart rate. If you also use a Withings fitness tracker, smartwatch, or sync data from other sources to your Withings account, your scales will display yesterday’s step count. An exciting inclusion here is the Pregnancy Tracker feature. If you opt-in using the Withings app, you’ll get an overview of your progress, health-related information, personalized insights, and data on your pregnancy-related weight gain.
The scales send a low-amplitude electrical current through your body and measure the resistance it encounters to obtain this data. The voltage drop between your right and left feet is used to calculate the impedance, which results in a value for your body’s fat-free mass. Before 2021, the last user-focused update was in early 2019, when the Pulse Wave Velocity feature was enabled. Despite this, in May, Withings released a software update that added an entirely new feature: Vascular Age measurements.
Withings Body Cardio Vascular Age Monitoring
Your heart health is crucial to your overall wellbeing, but it can be hard to get a sense of how this integral but hidden system is doing. Despite releasing the scales in 2016, in mid-2021, Withings added a new Vascular Age feature to the Body Cardio scales. As you step onto the device, alongside all the standard measurements, using the company’s algorithm, the scales can offer assessments on your arteries, too.
As we age, our bodies change both internally and externally. In any assessment, generally, you’d like your metrics to conclude that the performance of your internal systems is in line with, or potentially younger than, your actual age. However, the other way around, where your assessed age is higher than your chronological age, could indicate that there are health issues you need to resolve or explore.
For example, I’m in my early 30s, so I would expect my vascular age to be in a similar or lower range. If the scales suggested my vascular age was somewhere between 50 and 54, I’d need to take note and visit a health professional or adjust my lifestyle and exercise regime. Fortunately for me, the scales did determine my vascular age to be in the 30 to 34 range.
As with any measurement, including your weight, there’ll be variance each day, so the value of the vascular age measurements is over the long term. If you start to see a rise or drop in your assessed age range over a month, six months, or a year, it’s valuable feedback. It also means that you can judge the effectiveness of your interventions. For example, if you’re a smoker and quit smoking to lower your vascular age, the change won’t be immediate, but the trend should show improvements.
Withings places your Vascular Age into three color-coded categories; Optimal, Normal, and Not optimal. The scales can capture this data by measuring the time difference between blood leaving your heart and arriving in your feet. This is displayed on the scales as the Pulse Wave Velocity, and in turn, is converted into a Vascular Age estimate compared to other Withings users.
All you need to do is step onto the scales. However, there are ways to increase the reliability of the measurements. For example, your heels should be roughly in line with the second horizontal band on the scales. Likewise, if your feet are too dry, then the reading may fail. Withings recommends that your feet be slightly moist to get the best results, and, in practice, I found wiping a drip or two of water onto the soles of my feet helped.
Withings Health Mate
As with other Withings devices, the Body Cardio scales integrate with the company’s Health Mate smartphone app, which is available for Android and iOS. This app acts as a hub for all your Withings health data, including measurements from its smartwatches, fitness trackers, thermometers, and blood pressure monitors. However, most of those devices sync data via Bluetooth.
The Withings Body Cardio scales connect to your Wi-Fi network and sync data automatically, so there’s no awkward pairing process with your phone every time you want to step onto the bathroom scales. Rather than forcing you to tap out your Wi-Fi password through some complex and challenging buttons on the device, you initially set up this connection using your smartphone and the Withings Health Mate app.
You can also use the app to customize the Body Cardio’s on-screen measurements when you weigh yourself. For instance, you can disable today’s weather overview, which is a nice touch but not immediately necessary on your scales. You can also remove other measurements from the display, although the scales will still capture this data for you to view in the app.
The Health Mate app also connects to over 100 third-party services, including two-way data sync with Google Fit and Apple Health. If you have health tracking devices from multiple manufacturers, these apps become an excellent place to view all of your data. Similarly, the two-way sync means you can view much of this data from within Health Mate, which I find presents data in a more user-friendly and intuitive way.
Sustainability and Longevity
Withings first launched the Body Cardio scales in 2016. For most consumer technology products, this would likely mean that, by 2021, the device was out of date, would probably be unsupported, and may no longer connect to the required online services. However, despite the company changing owners twice in the years since, Withings has not only maintained the scales but released software updates intermittently and rolled out some new features, too, including the Vascular Age measurements.
While some fitness and health tracking products like smartwatches or fitness trackers become obsolete within a few years (although, notably, not Withings’ wearables), scales are also a long-lasting investment. These weight-monitoring devices have long been a staple of bathrooms, households, and gyms for decades. Technology has made it easier to capture more data through the unit, but fundamentally their purpose remains unchanged.
Of course, unlike the analog scales of years gone by, you won’t be able to repair the Body Cardio scales should something physical go awry. Fortunately, the scales are quite hardy, but they can be prone to falling over onto the glass front if you stand them up and don’t balance them quite right. As the unit is relatively weighty and slightly top-heavy, you need to be cautious of how you move them about.
Still, this is more of a consideration if you have limited bathroom space. If you have a fixed space you can leave the scales in, you shouldn’t need to move them except to recharge the unit. As Withings actively maintains and updates the scales, any bugs would likely be resolved without hassle. Likewise, the company has a strong reputation for customer service, should you need any support.
Should You Buy The Withings Body Cardio Smart Scales?
If you’re in the market for new or upgraded scales, then the Withings Body Cardio should be at the top of your list. No other connected scales offer this level of insight into your health, and the measurements are easy to capture and only require you to step onto the scales each day. Like the company’s other products, there’s an emphasis here on your heart’s health and performance.
From the newly-launched Vascular Age feature to the PWV measurements and heart rate monitoring, the Body Cardio scales put your health, not just your weight, at the forefront. Your data isn’t locked into the Withings platform either, so you don’t have to own other devices to make the most of the scales. Compared to standard digital scales, the Body Cardio are certainly a premium option but worth the investment.