Withings Move ECG Watch Is Good for Your Ticker

Dwight Eschliman; Styling by Ari Gelardin

I’ve long thought Withings wearables are the kind of smartwatches that most people actually want to wear. The French company eschews “wrist-computer” designs, opting instead for devices that look and feel like analog watches and—hallelujah!—don’t need to be recharged every night. Withings’ first smartwatch that tracked your activity, the Activité from 2014, even had “swiss-made” emblazoned on it. Smartwatches have grown more sophisticated since then, thanks to an explosion in health-tracking apps and the proliferation of sensors to feed them. So even if you hate the battery-draining displays and toylike straps of nerdwatches, it’s hard to beat their health-measuring features. Which is why Withings’ Move ECG smartwatch caught my eye. Like its forebears, the new model appears to be simply a stylish watch, but it can record my walks, runs, swims, and snoozes. Daily steps are displayed on a small, secondary dial nestled into the watch face; everything else shows up in Withings’ mobile app. Most notably, as the name suggests, the watch takes electrocardiogram readings from the wrist and can sense possible irregular heartbeats. And unlike the ECG-capable Apple Watch Series 4, which needs a daily recharge, the Withings uses a coin cell battery that lasts up to an entire year. But possibly the best thing about the Move is that it isn’t yet another notification-blasting, attention-sucking screen to stare at.

Be still, my heart.

$130

This article appears in the April issue. Subscribe now.