Withings ScanWatch Nova reviewed: looks classic, feels premium

Not every premium smartwatch carries a big screen. The Withings ScanWatch Nova keeps the analogue look and gets great health tech and solid battery life in a design that’s easy to love.

It’s always nice when people have things to choose from and options to pick. You have plenty of choices when it comes to buying a phone, loads of options in the computer world, an abundance of earphone offerings, and even a few TVs to try.

The same is true with wrist-worn wearables, because there are plenty of those, as well. Some are big screens, others are small screens, and some again have no screen whatsoever (Whoop, we’re looking at you).

Withings’ take on the area is a little bit different from what’s out there, focusing the area on health tracking tech, but keeping the look of the classic analogue watch intact.

It’s an approach that we’ve seen several times before, and almost always delivers a battery life to be envied, measured in weeks as opposed to mere days. Is the latest take on that a winner, and does it have what it needs to take on other premium wearables?

Design and features

Designed with a more premium diver-style aesthetic, the ScanWatch Nova actually comes with a practically identical look to the previous ScanWatch Horizon, but with the innards and tech inside the ScanWatch 2.

Consider it a marriage of styles, as the Nova supplies an even more premium aesthetic to the ScanWatch 2 design, which isn’t a bad thing.

That means inside, you’ll find a solid set of health-based features, including heart rate tracker, electrocardiograph (ECG), SpO2 blood oxygen checking, sleep tracking, temperature, menstrual tracking, and activity tracking, as well as that thing you might have heard of called “the time”.

It comes in a stainless steel casing with sapphire glass to protect what’s underneath, which is both a set of glow-in-the-dark Super-LumiNova hands and a small OLED screen. Surrounding that sapphire glass is a rotating bezel not unlike a diver style of watch, which this aims to be.

Withings includes two bands in the box, providing a fluoroelastomer and Oyster metal link bracelet, complete with hardware to let you take out (or add) links to set the bracelet to your wrist.

The design is such that you’ll find water resistance down to 100 metres, which is 50 more than the ScanWatch 2, essentially supporting 10 atmospheres (10ATM) compared to the ScanWatch 2’s 5ATM.

In-use

Because it’s built on a similar template to all of the other ScanWatch models, the Nova is easy to use and doesn’t force you to struggle through screens like any other smartwatch. In fact, while it is definitely a smartwatch, it feels more like a conventional watch with smarts rather than any other smartwatch.

Your Digital Crown on the right side will have you dial through the various displays on the small screen, starting with a digital version of the time inside your analogue face, plus steps, heart rate, elevation, calories, temperature, and triggers for other tests such as ECG and blood oxygen.

It’s certainly easy to use and works in most lighting, though the little screen could be a touch brighter in direct sunlight. To be fair, however, you have a natural way of dealing with this, simply covering the OLED display with your hand. There. Sorted. No complaining. It’s a quick glance, too, given the screen is so small.

Performance

You shouldn’t have to worry too much about performance in the ScanWatch Nova, and that’s because it primarily acts as a watch that monitors your health. The screen is a small part of how it works, and it just shows you what you need as you scroll.

As you scroll through the options, we found lag was rare, and for the most part, everything just worked.

Wearing this thing for weeks, we found very little went wrong. You just wear it on the day to day, let it do its thing, occasionally being proactive with its health features such as triggering an ECG or SpO2 blood oxygen check, and the information is reported to your app. There were no performance issues to speak of.

Notifications. Health information. The time. It’s pretty clear what this watch does, and it does it well.

Battery

The ScanWatch Nova also handles battery life better than most smartwatches, achieving close to two full weeks in ours tests before needing a charge.

Granted, that’s not quite the 30 days Withings suggests should be possible, but it’s a whole lot better than say the two or three day maximum available from just about any other wearable out there.

Seriously, this battery is measured in days.

There’s a solid reason why, mind you: the ScanWatch Nova isn’t one big screen scrapped to your wrist, and so its battery situation is a little different. It’s not fair (or ethical) to compare apples with grapes, and so comparing the battery of an Apple Watch Ultra versus the ScanWatch Nova doesn’t seem right. They’re just not remotely the same type of watch, even if they both measure the time and your health.

But if you had to on battery life alone, the Nova would definitely be one of the more interesting gadgets to check out. Its battery just keeps on going, and you rarely have to take it off.

Value

Value, however, becomes more difficult when you take into account that the ScanWatch Nova is marketed as more of a premium smartwatch, much like the Apple Watch Ultra 2, or even a luxury smartwatch model from TAG Heuer.

It’s not that the features necessarily make it more impressive than the ScanWatch 2, but rather the design: this is a diver-style of watch, and so it carries a more premium look and feel.

Attaching the word “value” to that is a bit of a misnomer, simply because this type of watch is rarely made for value. They’re made to be functional and long-lasting, which you get from spending time with the ScanWatch Nova.

Like its Horizon sibling, the Nova feels like it’ll stand the test of time, both in looks, design, and functionality.

But priced at $100 more than its $699 ScanWatch 2 sibling, the design shift also helps the Nova feel like better value overall. There’s just a little more to this watch, even if it is basically the emperor’s new clothes.

What needs work?

Despite this, we still want some features for this generation of Withings watch. Namely something that makes it stands out.

Comparing the ScanWatch Nova to its predecessor, the ScanWatch Horizon, there’s not a lot of difference. You’ll get temperature tracking and a little more in heart and sleep tracking, plus a new set of charging connectors which sees you using a new charger, but it is by and large the same device with the same issues.

You can’t change the small dial to be anything other than a step tracker — even if you could on the older model — and it may not feel like you’re seeing a totally new device. At least the notifications worked for us on iOS, which suggests a recent patch would have fixed one of our bugbears from the ScanWatch 2 review. As you do.

Our issue is that as great a smartwatch as the ScanWatch Nova is, it doesn’t necessarily stand out as being much more premium except in design. Both the ScanWatch 2 and ScanWatch Nova offer similar stainless steel casing and sapphire glass, and they both offer practically identical features.

Except for the extra resistance to atmospheric pressure and aesthetics, they’re so close in feature set, you it would be difficult for anyone to work out the difference.

Withings could have made the Nova that much more interesting and useful for fans of the diver watch, such as replacing the mini dial locked to steps with a mini dial made from an e-ink screen that would have both been low power and customisable to certain goals. Something with more customisation would have gone some of the way to making the Nova stand out.

It’s not that it’s a bad, watch either. It’s just more of the same in an equally excellent package. And Withings appears to have removed the Horizon from sale, making it less able to compete with itself in terms of lower pricing.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

Despite the omission of really anything different, the ScanWatch Nova feels like an absolute winner for folks unconvinced by the premium offerings in the smartwatch world.

A good watch should offer the whole package: a design you like, excellent features, and a battery life that means you don’t need to take it off all the time. That last one is important, because people live in their watches, often showering with them, too.

Most smartwatch models get within spitting distance of this feature set, but get stuck on the latter. It’s difficult to achieve a brilliant battery life you don’t have to take off when the entire device is a screen. We’re just not at the point of long-lasting battery optimisation in that style of device yet. It’ll happen, but not now.

The Withings ScanWatch Nova nails it because of what it is: a watch with clever smarts that eases back on the screen. It’s a premium classic that never dies. We can totally appreciate that.

Don’t get us wrong, there are definitely things Withings could improve next time, and make the watch that much more premium, or even more distinct to its ScanWatch sibling. In the Nova, it’s largely about a more premium aesthetic to an otherwise great package.

But it’s also a smartwatch that does something few other smartwatch models achieve. It looks classic, feels premium, and keeps going where you need it. And that’s a win from where we sit.