Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Withings’ Body Cardio keeps tabs on your ticker with a new metric of heart health

withings body cardio scale lifestyle
Image used with permission by copyright holder
If you go shopping for a Withings scale, you’ll find one that gives you the breakdown of your body composition (fat, muscle, and bone mass, as well as water percentage) and one that will measure your air quality. Its newest scale, the Body Cardio, keeps the former, does away with the latter, and adds a new metric: pulse wave velocity.

In addition to giving you your weight, BMI, body composition, and heart rate, the $180 Body Cardio also calculates PWV: “a measurement that is a key indicator of cardiac health and associated with hypertension and risks of cardiovascular incidents,” according to a press release. It’s a measurement of arterial stiffness, which “has been shown to predict coronary artery disease” in people with certain risk factors, according to the Journal of Human Hypertension. Doctors use a noninvasive method, applanation tonometry, to get this measurement, by placing a pressure sensor over the radial artery in the arm, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The Body Cardio, on the other hand, uses your age and the time it takes for blood to travel from the aorta to vessels in your feet to determine your PWV. It takes five weigh-ins to determine your baseline measurement, then every day when you step on the scale, it will give you a number between 4.0 and 9.0, or  “optimal” and “not optimal.”

Recommended Videos

I got to test the scale out a bit. The 0.7-inch-thin base is covered in tempered glass and has faint gray lines to help you know where to place your heels. The LED display cycles through your weight, your fat mass, water percentage, the weather, and your heart rate when you step onto it. Standing as still as possible is imperative. First, your weight will bounce around between about 0.1 and 0.4 pounds for several seconds. If you never get steady enough, the display will just go dark. If it registers your weight, it can then show you the rest of your stats, unless you step off too soon. Even when I got all the way through the cycle, I had to weigh myself about 15 times just to get the required five baseline PWV measurements.

Withings stresses that any claims it makes about the scale aren’t regulated by the FDA, and while I’d like to believe my PWV, which at 5.9 is normal and hovering near the optimal side of the scale, is accurate, I’m not sure it is. For one thing, I found a few explanations of how the tests work when professionals perform it, and they let patients lie quietly for about 10 minutes before administering it (at least for journal studies). Also, because I was weighing myself a bunch of times in a row, I saw my heart rate readings rise and fall from 69 to 75 beats per minute during a five-minute period when I was simply weighing myself. Based on my own measurements, 70 was roughly correct.

Considering the Withings Smart Body Analyzer, which does the same body composition measurements, is $150, it seems you’re paying an extra $30 for the pulse wave velocity measurements. We’ve reached out to some cardiologists and will update this story with their take on the scale.

Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
The Wyze Scale Ultra offers a massive 4.3-inch display, supports remote access
The Wyze Scale Ultra in white.

Wyze is responsible for some of the best smart scales on the market, with products like the Wyze Scale, Wyze Scale S, and Wyze Scale X gracing its catalog. All these give you an easy way to track a variety of health metrics -- including not just weight, but also body fat, heart rate, and body mass index (BMI). Its catalog is growing a bit larger today with the Wyze Scale Ultra, which takes everything great about these past products and pairs them with a gigantic new display.

The Wyze Scale Ultra takes the same measurements as the Wyze Scale X, but it now offers a 4.3-inch full-color TFT display. That makes it easier than ever to check all your health data without needing to pull out your mobile phone and check the companion app. It’s highly customizable too, so whether you want to check trends in your weight or see multiple stats at once, this smart scale is more versatile than most others on the market.

Read more
This 6-in-1 Ninja air fryer is 48% off for a limited time
The Ninja Foodi XL 2-Basket Air Fryer DZ550 with food that it cooked.

If you don't have an air fryer in your kitchen yet, here's an excellent offer that should make you finally go ahead with that purchase -- the Ninja Foodi XL 2-Basket Air Fryer at 48% off from Amazon, nearly halving its price from $250 to only $130. That's a pretty nice discount of $120 for such a helpful cooking device, but you're going to have to hurry in completing the transaction because this limited-time deal may disappear as soon as tomorrow.

Why you should buy the Ninja Foodi XL 2-Basket Air Fryer
For those who don't have an air fryer among their kitchen gadgets, you're missing out on the ability to cook fried food using little to no oil. In addition to air frying, the Ninja Foodi XL 2-Basket Air Fryer can also air broil roast, reheat, dehydrate, and bake, so it can replace multiple cooking devices to maximize space. It also comes with two 5-quart baskets with their own rapid heaters and cyclonic fans, and Ninja's DualZone technology enables Smart Finish for both baskets to complete cooking at the same time, and Match Cook that copies settings across the two baskets. With this feature, you'll be able to prepare a complete meal with side dishes in one go for the whole family.

Read more
Best Ring deals: Save on Ring doorbell and Ring alarm bundles
Ring Video Doorbell 3

While most people are probably familiar with Ring because of the Ring Video Doorbell, which is actually one of the best video doorbells on the market, there is actually a whole range of various Ring products for you to check out. Besides the doorbell, there are also Ring security cameras and alarm systems that you can set up around the home to keep you safe and give you peace of mind. And, if you're already in the Ring ecosystem, adding more Ring devices is relatively easy. Luckily, there are also a lot of great deals for you to take advantage of, which is why we've collected our favorite Ring deals for you below.

That said, if you're not particularly tied to Ring, you could check out its competitor with these Google Nest deals or our more general roundup of security camera deals instead.
Ring Battery Doorbell Plus (refurbished) — $91 $199 54% off

Read more