Withings Steel HR
The Steel HR from Withings is an attractive Hybrid Smart Watch, this means it has both an analog and digital face. The Steel HR is a great watch for people looking to transition to a smarter watch but aren’t ready for a full blown smartwatch. Enjoy the best of both worlds with the Withings Steel HR. Main features are activity tracking, sleep tracking, fitness and HR tracker with connected GPS.
- HEART RATE MONITORING – Maximize your workouts with continuous heart rate and in-depth reporting plus daily and overnight HR.
- LONG-LASTING BATTERY – Up to 25 days battery life on one charge, plus 20 more days on power reserve mode (time & activity tracking only).
- 24/7 TRACKING – Automatically tracks walk, run, swim, and 30+ activities in workout mode. Connected GPS provides a map of your session with distance, elevation and pace.
- WATER RESISTANT TO 50M – Steel HR is water-friendly – from automatic swim recognition to having no fear when you shower, go snorkeling, or get caught in the rain.
- SLEEP TRACKING – Wake to a Sleep Score based on light & deep sleep cycles, interruptions, depth & regularity.Water resistant up to 165 feet deep (50 m, 5 ATM)
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Stephanie W. –
I’ve had a Fitbit Charge 2 for almost two years now and wanted to switch over to a more aesthetic watch while trying to preserve my fitness features. Ultimately, I had to forgo some key fitness attributes for a classic looking watch. I have not made a final decision if I like this watch yet and have to still test it running. For $180, I’m expecting a little more out of this watch.- I am a small female and the 34mm watch is the perfect size. I did not want the bulky-ness of its competitors. I would have actually preferred if the watch was even a little smaller. The band has proven to bit too long and the arm fastener does not keep it in place. The material of the band is really soft but it does catch a decent amount of lint over time. Overall very nice looking watch and extremely light and comfortable. It does not bother me at all when I sleep.- The hour and minute hands are controlled automatically through the app. I had zero problems setting up the watch and have had zero issues with connectivity to my iPhone (running iOS 10).- I have showered with the watch and had no condensation (as customers have experienced before Nokia bought Withings)- Sleep tracking does not seem very accurate; so far has not been able to detect that I was awake despite pushing the button to check the time… EDIT: Even after 2 weeks of wear, the watch does not provide accurate sleep data- Work out mode is not customizable from the start. I have to log the work out and change the type of work out within the app.- Had a pattern of inability to check heart rate while in work out mode; as if it was going to measure but takes forever- I workout about 30 mins every day. From afternoon fully charged to next-day morning after logging 30 min of exercise, 20% was drained. So I’m thinking that it would only last me 5-6 days (I was lazy this week and haven’t worked out all week).- Too many screens to view summaries. For example if you want to see your heart rate, you have to cycle through and it shows a heart screen for a half of a second before it shuffles to the heart rate. They should just program it to go directly to the attribute rather than the filler screen.Features that the Steel HR has but the Fitbit Charge does not:- Smart alarm- Almost 1 month of charge (if you don’t use work out mode)- Water proof (for showering and swimming)- Slim, stylish and comfortableFeatures that the Fitbit Charge has that the Steel HR does not:- Continuous HR, ability to turn off, on, or auto- Multiple alarms- GPS tracking- Elevation tracking- Ability to tweak sleeping sensitivity- Automatic workout set up- Customizable clock faces- Ability to disable/enable alarms and/or notifications easily without the app- Accounts for left vs right hand- Stop watch feature
Jorge Marrero –
Great product that fits a niche market very well, not everyone is going to love it so do your research before buying.Pros -looks like a traditional watch, not a massive kids toy or plastic bracelet like other fitness trackers.very fast pairing and sync with mobile.Heart rate seems to be spot on when compared to gym equipment and chest straps.Great battery life.Water proof.all Metal design .Minimalistic well designed app.Cons -Only one repeatable alarm timewould prefer an even larger size of 44 – 48 mmI work shifts that would make it impossible for me to wake up at the same time each day so multiple alarm times would be great.The stock band is very comfortable, easy to clean and secure but somewhat cumbersome to take on and off your wrist because of the retainers. I have upgraded the band to a leather strap with a deployment buckle which makes the tracker look more upscale and easier to take on and off. I come from owning a Garmin vivoactive and replaced it with this type of tracker because I did not use any of the smart watch features on that device after the novelty wore off, and just wanted something that will track my activity, heart rate and sleep ,have a long battery life and not sit unused on a counter because I can’t get it wet or on a charger because the battery is dying yet again.
Michael John Barnes –
First off, I write very few product reviews on Amazon. Second, I work for Amazon in product development & product experience design. Third, I have owned so many fitness trackers I have lost count but spanning 3 different Nike Fuel Bands from the very early days and the very first wrist heart rate/ fitness trackers from Mio etc etc.So, suffice it to say I have been using QS (Quantified Self) fitness/wellness products from the early days of IoT including the Gen 1 Withings scales etcWith all that said, this is simply an extremely well thought out, well-designed, well executed and easy to use product. Despite all the Fitbit reviews and plethora of tracker choices, I intuitively felt this would be the right product and design for me. It definitely is.It does not have a bunch of superfluous hard-core features you will never use, but for me, it has ALL the features I will always use! Steps, calorie burn, sleep, heart-rate, discreet vibration for notifications/phone calls, and best of all killer battery life.It integrates with the elegantly designed and mature Health Mate App along with the excellent Body + scales (which I also own – a great combo). It just pairs instantly, easily and works simply without additional interaction or hours of frustration and tears. So many products don’t do this, I know…I have owned them. The box opening to actual use journey on this product is the shortest I have ever experienced and has been really well thought out.Hats off to the Nokia/Withings team for seeing the need for an elegant timepiece with the fitness essentials and delivering a great-looking product with just the right balance of features/price that is not at all techy, clunky & pairs over Bluetooth first time seamlessly and the onboarding experience is effortless. I even synced it with a seldom used, several years old Withings profile from my generation 1 Withings scales and it imported that legacy profile fine too!The only thing extra I personally would ever want is multiple alarms and multiple time zone clocks I could step through for monitoring my teams when traveling – I have to track 5 time zones ( California, Austin, London/UK, Tallinn/Estonia, Japan) , but this could be very easily added via software update. (**Please Nokia consider these features if you read these reviews which I know a good Product Manager does!) :))
Kath –
There are good and bad things to say about this watch but on the balance, after an uncertain start, I have decided to keep it. I do hope that further development will improve some of the niggles over time.So, I’ll start with the good. I have the Rose Gold version with a grey silicone strap. I find the watch attractive, it is bigger than my previous watches but does not look out of place on my small wrist (circumference 14.5cm). The strap has ample holes for wrist size adjustment. Although I bought the watch thinking I’d like calendar notifications to my wrist but was not that interested in the activity monitoring, I find myself hooked! Seeing sleep pattern, heart rate, steps etc is interesting and according to my little tests I think fairly accurate.However, the niggles … Well, the watch obviously connects and disconnects from bluetooth according to whether you are in range of your mobile phone. This seems to go ok for several days at a time and then one day they do not connect no matter how patiently I wait. I have found that usually turning my phone off and on again resolves this, if not I have to go through the process of getting bluetooth to “forget” the watch and then re-pair the two. I’ve got used to it!If your main wish is for notifications when you get a call, text or from other apps, then I would not recommend this phone yet. It does work most of the time …. but not all of the time. Also, when it is working, the vibration of the watch is not very strong so I sometimes do not feel it. I have found that if I want a reminder of an event it is better to set the alarm on the watch, however even this vibrates only 8 times and can be missed if you are concentrating on something else.Notifications do work from third party apps like Google calendar and Google Hangouts but strangely not at all from the Gmail app. This problem is still with the support people awaiting a response from the developers.I have found that the support by email is fairly prompt to reply but they just mete out standard advice and links to support online that you could find yourself. They pass the problem from one to another for a long time asking you the same questions repeatedly. Finally though they have referred my question on and I am hopeful of a meaningful reply or bug fix.Despite the above I do like my watch.