Today we’re reviewing the ScanWatch Horizon, a brand new hybrid smartwatch from Withings that has the style of a dive watch, but is packed with features like a half inch screen to display notifications, Heart rate tracking, ECG sensor, o2 sensor and a battery life that will last over a month.
We’ll be taking a look at the style and design of this watch, along with testing all the different features like notifications, sensors, and also putting it to the test for hikes and workouts to see how it stacks up as a fitness smartwatch.
ScanWatch Horizon: Features and Specs
ScanWatch Horizon Specs
- Sapphire Glass
- ½ inch AMOLED circle screen
- 316L Stainless Steel Case
- Heart Rate, ECG and o2 Sensor
- Analog Dials with Step Counter Dial
- 100 meter water resistance
- Rotating Bezel
- 30+ day battery life
Disclaimer: Prices are at time of the review and subject to change.
Who’s it for: Watch wearers who don’t want a large and bright display from a smartwatch, having a more analog style while still having a discreet way to check texts, notifications, with fitness tracking capabilities.
Why we liked the ScanWatch Horizon: It can be a really good daily smartwatch for those who want something more stylish while still having analog aspects to it. It’s high quality and durable with a 5 year warranty.
ScanWatch Horizon: Unboxing and Setup
First let’s take a look at what you get inside the box. It comes with an instruction manual, the charger, and a tool to adjust the stainless steel band, along with extra links to make the band larger. You also get a rubber strap that matches the color of the watch, in our case a blue band, and the watch comes with the stainless steel band pre-installed.
Setting up the ScanWatch through the app is easy and it has many tutorials to walk you through all the features.
Setting up the watch, you download the HealthMate app from Withings. It’s available on the App Store, and in the Google Store for This is the app that’s used across all of Withings smart health devices like scales and other wearables.
ScanWatch Horizon: Design, Case and Watch Bands
Taking a look at the design of the ScanWatch horizon, it definitely looks like a regular analog watch at first glance. The case is a 43mm size, and is made of 316L stainless steel. It’s 13mm thick, making it around the same size as other analog dive watches.
There’s 2 colors to choose from, blue and green– we bought ours in the blue version which looks really sharp. But, we would love to see a black or gray or maybe even a gold or Bronze with black accents like we see in our Shinola Bronzer Monster.
The case of the watch also features a rotating bezel, which is normally used to time your scuba dive tank. While the watch is up to 100 meters water resistant, let’s be real: most of you probably won’t be using this watch to do any scuba diving.
Included Bands and Aftermarket Options
The stainless steel band comes on the watch standard, and inside the box they include the tools you need to adjust the metal links along with extra links to increase the size. And the band has a quick release mechanism so you can quickly swap out.
Meanwhile we also really like the rubber strap they include and matches the color of the watch, so the green comes with a green strap while the blue comes with this light blue band.
The band size is 20mm, and we found this 3rd party blue sailcloth style band on Amazon for only $20 bucks. It matches the watch perfectly and is made of good quality, so be sure to check it out if you’re interested that style.
ScanWatch Horizon: Screen and Functionality
Looking at the face of the watch, there’s a Sapphire glass to protect it, and underneath you’ve got mechanical dials, and a tiny half inch LED screen at the top.
The small analog dial at the bottom is a step counter to show you the overall progress you’ve made throughout the day.
The hands of the watch have an hour and minute hand, and will be set automatically by the watch, so it will always keep perfect time. The face also has luminescent dials that will glow in the dark.
Displaying notifications, the screen will show the incoming notification or phone call. One nice thing is that you can restrict which apps to allow notifications from, so you can get phone calls and text messages and turn off emails or social media. This is nice so you don’t have to get bothered with a ton of notifications all day.
One important thing to mention- for iPhone and iOS in order for the notifications to work, you need to turn on “Show Previews” text messages. That means when you get text messages and notifications it will show a preview of what’s in the message. We really don’t like having to do this, and it could be a privacy risk for some. But it’s a limitation to iOS, and Apple limiting what other 3rd party companies have access to. Android users won’t have this problem.
The LED screen is easy to see, but we did notice under the bright sun it was a little bit harder to see. But, it has an auto-brightness setting, which you can turn off or set a custom brightness in the app. There’s also a vibration when you get notifications and calls, but unfortunately we didn’t find any way to change the vibration levels.
ScanWatch Horizon: The Crown is Your Control Button
The crown is your main button and controls for the watch. Pressing it will immediately turn on the screen and show you the time, day and date. And one cool feature is that the hands will automatically move out of the way in case they are covering the screen. It’s a cool feature that feels analog and advanced at the same time and is really just quite fun to see in action. But you can turn it off in the settings if you want.
To turn on the display you press in, and you scroll through the different modes and settings. You can cycle through different screens like heart rate, step counter, miles and floors count, along with the ECG, o2 sensor, settings, or start a workout.
And if you go into the settings of the HealthMate app, you can customize which modes and the order in which the settings appear in the menu. You can also customize which workouts you have pre-loaded in your presets.
One of the complications we would like to see added would be weather. We noticed there’s no way to see local weather directly on the watch, but hope this could be added in future software updates.
We really like the Health Mate app, it has a clean UI that’s easy to navigate and you can easily find all your health details and also see your workouts. It also has integration with Apple Health and Android Health, so it can pull in all your previous data and vice versa.
Health Sensors: Clinically Validated for Accuracy
Looking at the health sensors, they are clinically validated, so you can trust they will be accurate. The Heart Rate sensor runs every 10 minutes, while the ECG and o2 sensors can be activated by going into the menu of the watch. Wearing the watch for many days at a time, we were happy with the results from the sensors and were on par with what we see with our Apple Watch.
For Sleep tracking, you can wear the watch at night– but it might be a little bulky on your wrist. But the sleep tracking is good- It can track light and REM sleep and also breathing disturbances. But we did notice the battery life started to get affected more– due to the sensors working more often when wearing day and night.
Testing the workouts feature of the watch, we tried using the ScanWatch on a few runs and hikes. It’s pretty basic, and does a good job if you’re going on simple walks or hikes. One thing to note right away is that it doesn’t have built-in GPS, so you’ll need to bring your phone with you for it to record location data. You also can’t control your music that’s playing from the watch, or have any kind of dedicated music app on it. It also doesn’t have the ability to connect an external chest heart rate monitor for more accurate measurements of training parameters like cadence and vertical oscillations. So we can’t stress enough that this isn’t going to be a good watch for dedicated runners or hikers who want to leave their phone behind.
Battery Life: Up to 30 days!
For battery life, this is where this watch is a real winner. Withings advertises a 30 day battery life. In our testing, we found that you can get 20-30 days with daily use and workouts. But if you’re getting a lot of notifications, workout 4-5 time a week or wear it for sleeping every night you should expect 10-14 days. It’s still really good, especially compared to an Apple Watch or other Android Wear watches.
Conclusion: The ScanWatch Horizon Review
ScanWatch Horizon
Overall, we think the ScanWatch Horizon can be a really good daily smartwatch for those who want something more stylish while still having analog aspects. The Health sensors are top notch, however we'd like to see new software updates adding more functionality such as complications for weather, music control, and the ability to change vibration settings.
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Display
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Health Sensors
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Style
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Usability
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Battery Life
