Ceramic bezel and oyster bracelet costs $599
Withings has unveiled the new ScanWatch Nova – a luxury version of its excellent ScanWatch 2 health hybrid smartwatch.
Withings did the same last time out with the ScanWatch Horizon, which was a diving watch embodiment of the analog form factor of the ScanWatch.
This time it’s gone a little more luxury – and there’s more than a little nod to the likes of Rolex Submariner and Tag Formula 1 in the design.
The rotating bezel is ceramic, and it’s etched with minute intervals – and it comes in green, black, or blue options for the bezel and dials. Each comes with an oyster link bracelet in silver.
Under the hood, it’s a classic ScanWatch 2 – which got a solid 4/5 stars in our review.
It retains the greyscale OLED display on the dial, which is used for navigating watch modes via the crown, as well as getting smartphone notifications, and browsing your daily stats. And the inset step goal dial stays as well.
It comes with temperature tracking – both for wellness and workout recovery – a focus on breathing quality during sleep, and a PPG sensor. It also has a coveted FDA/CE-cleared ECG sensor.
And you don’t need to pay Rolex or Tag prices for the ScanWatch Nova. It retails for £549/$599 – which given the materials, design and the original $350£329 price tag of the ScanWatch 2 – doesn’t feel prohibitively expensive. This isn’t a watch that’s going to be obsolete any time soon.
You get 30 days of battery life between charges (as long as you keep the breathing tracking turned off) and with ECG, advanced heart rate, and some pretty decent workout tracking too – this hybrid makes fewer compromises than you might think.
There are some aspects of the app and experience that could use attention – and we did run into some accuracy issues around sleep tracking and auto-workout detection.
The Withings ScanWatch Nova is available now for $599/£549 from withings.com.
