Withings Activité Pop: classic watch with smart features

Lately the market has been flooded with a plethora of activity trackers all promising to rethink the way you use your wearable. Tracking sensors, health sensors, UV detectors, activity sensors all built into these wrist computers. And all have one terrible flaw: looks. Call me shallow but sometimes I feel that what’s inside doesn’t suffice and it’s the whole package that does it. Apart from few exceptions, the activity trackers sport the same bland rubbery design. But what if you had on your wrist the same sophistication of an old school mechanical watch with nearly the technology and array of modern sensors a smartwatch has? If the answer is yes then look no further for the Withings Activité Pop which will be available for $149.95 starting February.

The Withings Activité Pop is aiming the fitness and activity tracking zone but does it with style by having a PVD-coated watchcase and smooth silicone strap for your wrist and comes in three colours: azure, shark grey and sand with additional wristband options soon to be available. The Withings Activité Pop sports two dials on the watch face that show the time and a sort of progress percent for your designated goal, kind of like the 5,000 or 10,000 steps per day objective. Once the objective is achieved, the watch alerts you by vibrating. Furthermore, the watch tracks your swimming record and goals because its water resistant up to 30 meters and can track your running sessions as well. It also monitors the quality of your sleep and has a silent vibration alarm clock for those moments when you wear it at night.

Withings activité pop available colours and all good-looking

Withings Activité Pop available colours and all good-looking

Activité Pop automatically syncs with the Withings Health Mate App, and at launch the watch will be compatible only with iOS but the company promises that Android support will follow suit. The unique feature of this watch however lies in the fact that the device automatically adjusts its time when the wearer crosses time zones or whenever Daylight Savings time begins or ends. After all I said so war you might think that you would recharge this baby on a daily basis but good news is(in my opinion) that the battery used is the same old watch coin cell type and Withings says it lasts up to 8 months. Although Withings Activité Pop is not a smartwatch per say, and is in fact an activity tracker, it does however offer features that are found on smartwatches too. I guess incorporating smartwatch features into a mechanical watch might be impossible but one dares to dream.