Brands
Latest top stories
Technology

Withings Body Scan 2: how a smart scale is becoming a home health monitoring platform

8 January 2026

The Withings Body Scan 2

 

At CES 2026, Withings presented a product that stood out not because of a flashy form factor, but because of its ambition. The Withings Body Scan 2 looks like a bathroom scale, yet it is positioned as a multi-system health monitoring device designed to be used regularly at home.

Rather than focusing on weight or fitness tracking alone, Withings framed Body Scan 2 as a preventive health tool. The company says the device can capture more than 60 biomarkers in a single session of roughly 90 seconds, grouping them into what it calls a longevity assessment. The goal is not a one-off snapshot, but longitudinal insight into cardiovascular, metabolic and cellular health trends over time.

This approach reflects a broader shift in digital health: moving monitoring out of clinics and into daily routines, while keeping a strong emphasis on medical credibility and regulatory compliance.

What Body Scan 2 measures — and how

Body Scan 2 builds on Withings’ earlier Body Scan platform, but significantly expands its scope. The device uses 12 electrodes in total: eight integrated into the scale platform and four in a retractable handle. This allows the system to measure signals across both the upper and lower body in one continuous session.

Key measurement capabilities highlighted by Withings include:

  • Six-lead ECG readings captured via the handle, designed to detect heart rhythm irregularities.

  • Impedance cardiography (ICG) to assess cardiac pumping efficiency, a parameter typically measured in clinical settings.

  • Pulse wave velocity (PWV) to estimate arterial stiffness and vascular age.

  • Ultra-high-frequency bioimpedance spectroscopy (BIS) for body composition and cellular-level metrics related to metabolic efficiency.

  • AI-based risk notifications related to hypertension and early signs of glycemic dysregulation.

Results are displayed on a colour screen built into the handle and synced to the Withings app via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. Withings positions the software layer as equally important as the sensors, translating raw data into system-level indicators and longer-term trajectories rather than isolated readings.

Some health features are subject to regulatory clearance, including FDA review in the United States, which affects rollout timelines and regional availability.

A premium product by design

Withings is not targeting the mass-market scale segment with Body Scan 2. The announced price—$599.95 in the US and €499.95 in Europe—places it firmly in the premium category. Battery life of up to 15 months and an emphasis on privacy, data security and regulatory alignment are part of that positioning.

This pricing reflects a strategic choice: Withings is competing less with entry-level smart scales and more with medical-adjacent home monitoring devices, offering consumers an alternative to periodic clinical tests rather than a replacement for fitness tracking.

How Body Scan 2 compares to competing smart scales

The smart scale market is crowded, but most competitors focus on a narrower set of use cases. Comparing Body Scan 2 with established alternatives helps clarify where Withings is differentiating.

Wyze Scale Ultra BodyScan: segmentation at a lower price

Wyze’s Scale Ultra BodyScan is one of the few consumer scales that also uses a retractable handle and multiple electrodes. It offers segmental body composition analysis—breaking down fat and muscle metrics by limbs and torso—at a much lower price point.

What it does not offer are ECG readings, arterial health metrics, or cardiac performance assessments. Wyze competes primarily on accessibility and value, while Withings focuses on multi-system health monitoring and clinical relevance.

Garmin Index S2: part of a fitness ecosystem

The Garmin Index S2 is designed to integrate with Garmin’s broader wearable and fitness ecosystem. It tracks weight and body composition metrics and presents them within Garmin Connect alongside activity and training data.

However, it does not attempt cardiovascular diagnostics or metabolic health analysis via the scale itself. Garmin’s strategy keeps the scale as a supporting device rather than a standalone health assessment tool.

Fitbit Aria Air: simplicity over depth

Fitbit’s Aria Air represents the opposite end of the spectrum. It focuses on weight measurement and app connectivity, making it easy to log trends over time. It does not provide advanced body composition or physiological metrics.

In this context, Body Scan 2 is not a direct competitor. The two products serve very different audiences and expectations around health insight.

QardioBase X: body composition focus

QardioBase X offers an expanded set of body composition metrics, including visceral fat and muscle mass. It positions itself as a comprehensive body analysis scale, but remains within that domain.

It does not claim cardiovascular pumping metrics, arterial stiffness assessment, or AI-based cardiometabolic risk notifications. Withings extends beyond composition into systemic health monitoring.

Tanita and InBody: composition specialists

Brands like Tanita and InBody are well known for professional and semi-professional body composition analysis. Their connected home products bring validated composition techniques into consumer settings.

What distinguishes Body Scan 2 is not that it replaces these capabilities, but that it combines composition analysis with cardiovascular and vascular measurements in a single consumer workflow.

Why this matters beyond consumer electronics

The significance of Body Scan 2 lies less in any single metric and more in how many traditionally clinical signals are being combined in a repeatable home experience. Withings is not positioning the device as a diagnostic replacement, but as a way to surface trends and risk indicators earlier.

For healthcare systems under pressure, and for employers and insurers increasingly interested in prevention, this category of device sits at an important intersection. It reflects a European digital health approach that prioritises regulation, trust and incremental clinical validation over rapid consumer scaling.

A European approach to connected health

Withings’ CES 2026 announcement also highlights a broader pattern: European health technology companies often compete by deepening medical relevance, rather than by expanding lifestyle features.

Body Scan 2 does not promise radical behaviour change or instant optimisation. Instead, it embeds complex sensing into a familiar object and focuses on continuity, accuracy and interpretation over time.

In a market where many smart scales still equate “smart” with connectivity alone, Withings is redefining what a home scale can reasonably be expected to do.

Conclusion

With Body Scan 2, Withings is pushing the smart scale category into new territory. By integrating ECG, vascular health metrics and metabolic indicators into a single device, the company is betting that consumers are ready for more clinically meaningful health data at home.

Compared with competitors, the differentiation is clear: Body Scan 2 is less about tracking weight or fitness progress, and more about monitoring health systems. Whether that model scales widely will depend on regulatory approvals and consumer trust, but as a CES 2026 launch, it sets a new benchmark for what connected health hardware can aspire to be.