Withings

The Withings Activité Pop is one of very few fitness trackers that look like a normal watch at first glance – and on the second and third too. There is no display, just a large dial that, like any other analogue time iron, also shows the time – and another small pointer that the user has to drive from “0” to “100”.

  The detailed Review report reveals what is so “smart” about the Activité Pop and how the fitness tracker performs in practice.

Design

As already mentioned: The Activité Pop looks at first glance like an ordinary wristwatch in the lower price range. The case looks as if it were made from a plastic coated in matt metallic – and that is how it feels with its low weight of 37 grams. If you look at the back, you will be instructed better: This is “Stainless Steel”, which Withings has hardened using the PVD process. And indeed: Even after several weeks of use, the case of the watch still looks like new – even though it was not always treated with care. But more about durability later. Fortunately, the Withings Activité Pop has two connections for standard bracelets with a width of 18 millimeters at the top and bottom of the case. The supplied copy is made of silicone – and you can see that at first glance. Appropriately, the background of the clock face (I would have almost written “homescreen” here) is colored in one of the three color variants “bright azure blue”, “shark gray” or “wild sand brown”. No comment on the color names. If you replace the supplied silicone wristband with a fabric or leather strap here, you can significantly upgrade the fitness tracker. Alternatively, the French manufacturer offers also a set in the accessories from three silicone bracelets in “Orange”, “Plum” and “Teal” – unfortunately I couldn’t find the certainly entertaining German translations of these color names.

By the way, we didn’t have any problems with the durability of our Review device. Do quite a few on the Internet User reports the round, according to which the mineral glass over the dial was broken without the use of force. However, the French manufacturer says that it is “open to our customers who have problems and offer them a free product exchange.” At this point, a small anecdote: I have the clock when biking in the forest when I collide with a tree unnoticed lost to that very thing and found it hanging on one of its branches two days later. The bracelet had detached from the case on one side, but could easily be attached again. Permanent damage to the watch: zero.

 

service

There is not much to say about operating the Activité Pop – the watch has no controls. To initiate the connection with the smartphone for the first time, there is a reset button on the back, which can be pressed using the supplied tool. And if you keep the watch still for five seconds and then tap twice, you will see the currently set alarm time. But more about the alarm clock later. Well, and then every morning the user starts with the little pointer at zero and has the primary goal of getting it to the 100 percent mark throughout the day. This brand consists of a self-imposed goal – the default is 10,000 steps. In addition to the number of steps, the Activité Pop also records the wearer’s sleep – however, this data can only be evaluated in the Withings HealthMate app or on the manufacturer’s website. Incidentally, the clock is also configured entirely via the application.

App

At the market launch, Activité Pop only supported iOS, but the HealthMate app is now also available for Android. The applications look identical here and there – and clearly show the user the recently recorded data. If you have other devices from the Witihings universe, you will not only see the number of steps and length of sleep, but also weight, body fat percentage, air oxygen in the bedroom, pulse and so on. In addition, it is also possible to manually record values ​​for weight, blood pressure or heart rate. However, the Withings app does not offer a function for keeping a food diary. And the French manufacturer is also reluctant to make any statements about the calorie consumption of the user – at least in the app. But there are a few features from the gamification corner. In this way, the user can add other Withings users to a friend list and then fight with them for the largest number of steps. The HealthMate app also tries to motivate the user with the help of push messages. If you break your personal best, you get virtual trophies. On the other hand, if the user is lazy, the application lets the drill instructor hang out and comes around the corner with sayings such as “Did you take your foot off the pedal?”. Everyone has to decide for themselves whether that motivates or annoys them.

Connection problems

There were various connection problems in the Review on both iOS and Android. Here and there, the first connection of the Activité Pop with the smartphone worked perfectly. But afterwards it was no longer possible to synchronize the clock with the app. What finally remedied was a reset of the clock by pressing the reset button on the back five times. Incidentally, removing the battery does not help here. Then the tracker runs absolutely perfectly. And fortunately, the Activité Pop now automatically synchronizes itself with the smartphone. At the start of the market, it was necessary to open the app practically every day to avoid data loss: the Activité Pop only kept the tracked body data of the user for 37 hours. But even with regular auto-sync, you should make sure that the withing tracker is within range of a linked smartphone every day if there are no gaps in the tracking.

Web interface

As usual in this product category, the Withings app not only stores the body data locally on the smartphone, but also transfers it to the cloud. This has the advantage that you can also view your services in the browser on Withings.com. Here, there is essentially the same information as in the app – just a little clearer because it has been prepared over a large area. By the way, Withings recently revised the web interface. I like the result very much.

Sorry, your data protection freaks: Unfortunately, there is no way to deactivate the mentioned cloud synchronization. However, I would not know any direct competitor product with which this is possible.

Pedometer

The integrated pedometer is probably the central feature of the Acitivté Pop. After all, it is the one that drives the small hand on the watch from zero to one hundred – and ideally encourages the user to move more. At first glance, like all fitness trackers, the pedometer delivers sensible results across the board. In a direct comparison with other current trackers from Runtastic and FitBit, however, it is striking that the Activité Pop always only counts one to two thirds of the steps. The difference here is not inaccuracies when counting the actual steps, but in what lies in between. When rinsing, brushing teeth, writing reviews and so on, the Activité Pop simply counts significantly fewer steps than most rivals – regardless of whether it is worn on the left or right hand. When I go out the door and take 500 counted steps, they record almost all pedometers with a pleasantly little deviation.   The bottom line, however, is relatively unimportant. After all, the 6000 or 12,000 steps taken every day are only an abstract value and, at best, have meaning if you want to measure yourself against friends. The core goal of the pedometer, however, is that the user should simply increase in percentage. It doesn’t matter whether it doubles from 3000 or 6000 steps – twice as much is twice as much. The Activité Pop movement only rewards a little differently than many of its competitors.

In this context, it quickly becomes clear that the calorie consumption calculated by the various trackers is relatively meaningless if it is based solely on the number of steps and does not include the heart rate, for example. At Activité Pop, for example, I came up with 2224 calories (6431 steps) last Monday, while the FitBit Surge spits out 2808 Kcal (9013 steps). The next day it is 1665 Kcal (3477 steps) against 3033 calories (9870 steps). The truth is somewhere in between, but it should feel closer to the FitBit Surge results – otherwise I would have to gain weight faster with my current diet.

Swimming tracker

Withings has announced a new feature for Activité Pop. With a future and free update, the watch should also serve as a swimming tracker. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good idea. According to the manufacturer, the watch is waterproof to a depth of 50 meters. However, when swimming, arm pressures sometimes result in significantly higher pressures than the associated five atmospheres. To DIN 8310 devices are only suitable for swimming from a water resistance of 10 atmospheres.

The following paragraph from the operating instructions does not necessarily give more courage: “Furthermore, the waterproofness of the watch can be affected by the increasing age of the materials. Permanent water resistance cannot be guaranteed. “ If you want to systematically monitoring your swimming performance, you should be happier with a dedicated swim wearable such as the Swimmo – you can find more details in Episode 34 of the NewsDrop at this point. As soon as the swim update is available, I will force the Activité Pop into the water and update the Review report here. According to the manufacturer, the update was planned for “end of April 2015”, but the versions 2.04.50 (Android) and 2.4.1 (iOS) we were using at the time of testing do not yet support the function.

Sleep tracker

The second major aspect that Withings Activité Pop captures in the life of its wearer is sleep – and its quality. Fortunately, the user does not have to let the watch know when he goes to bed or when he gets up. The tracker independently detects this based on the movement profile and uses it to record the total length of sleep, such as nighttime baby or pee trips. Based on the movements during sleep, the Activité Pop also records how much time the user spends in which sleep phases. We haven’t tested the Withings watch in a sleep laboratory. But in practice there is a clear connection between a lot of deep sleep, little sleep phase changes and fitness the next day. In a direct comparison with the FitBit Surge, the total sleep times are largely the same – and differ from reality at best in the single-digit minute range.

Alarm clock

The Withings Activité Pop does not have an integrated loudspeaker, but it does have a vibration motor. And this can be used to wake the wearer – at least in theory. Unfortunately, my sleep is so deep that I don’t even notice the buzzing on my wrist. I also have the same problem with the vibration alarm clock of the FitBit Surge. However, if you have a light sleep, the vibration alarm clock is definitely a nice feature – especially if you share the bed with a partner who can sleep longer. Unfortunately, there is no way to tell Activité Pop an appointment to wake up very late and then wake up in the cheapest possible sleep phase. The current Jawbone trackers such as the UP24 offer such a sleep phase alarm clock.

Battery life

To speak of a “battery life” at Withings Activité Pop is not strictly correct – the watch has no battery at all. Instead, the French manufacturer uses a standard C2025 watch battery that can also be easily replaced by the user. Cost: two to three euros. And don’t worry, the exchange does not even have to be carried out too often: According to Withings, the power storage lasts for a whopping eight months. Cheers to Bluetooth Low Energy – and the missing display. In practice, it is really refreshing to have such a wearable when you are constantly suffering from a latent lack of energy with your various gadgets. Interestingly, the battery stress factor for fitness trackers with a battery life of three to ten days is, by the way, higher than for smartphones, because there is no ritualized charging every evening, but rather a regular shit-again-no-no There is more electricity panic.

Summary

To call the Withings Activité Pop a smartwatch is certainly a bit high. But she is smarter than most of her colleagues – and at the same time brings the benefit of the seemingly endless runtime from the “dummies” corner. Anyone who invests a few euros in a slightly fancier bracelet will have a rock-solid fitness tracker with the Withings Activité Pop for fair money, which does not support notifications or similar gimmicks, but reliably monitors the steps taken and sleep. A fancier alternative, which is also much more expensive at just under € 400, is the Withings Activité (without “Pop”), which is equipped with a polished 316L stainless steel case, sapphire crystal and a Barenia leather strap.