Withings Activit review: a slightly smarter watch

On the Activité’s round face, which comes in either black or white, are two dials. The first does that ticking thing a watch does and tells the time (but not the date, which I wish it did). It’s beautifully simple, 12 silver dashes around the side, a Withings logo under the 12 and the words "Swiss Made" surrounding the 6. (Did you forget it was Swiss Made? How dare you!) Down in the bottom right, there’s another dial. It counts from 0 to 100, with marks at intervals of ten. It’s the Activité’s one and only clue as to the technology that lies inside, and it’s there that this becomes more than just a timepiece.

If you have an iPhone, the Activité syncs its data via Bluetooth to Withings’ Health Mate app. (Android support is coming soon, I’m told.) That’s the highest-tech thing that it does. Then, whenever you’re wearing the watch, it tracks your activity: your steps, your sleep, your swimming. It’s not a particularly sophisticated workout device, just a simple activity tracker.

It’s all but invisible as it works. The only indication is the hand on that second dial sweeping from 0 to 100, displaying the percentage of your step goal you’ve reached so far today. After a five-minute long set-up process — in which you use an included pin-like tool to turn the watch on, connect it to your phone, and set the time by spinning a dial on your phone — you never have to do anything on the watch itself again. Every setting, every feature exists only on your phone, and a lot of the Activité’s job happens automatically. Its algorithms figure out what you’re doing and track each activity differently. I actually wish there were more I could do on the timepiece itself, but I don't mind the way it works here.

The watch is meant never to come off your wrist. Its battery (which is just a watch battery) lasts eight months, and there’s even a second one in the box. It’s water-resistant enough to wear in the shower, as long as you switch to the included silicone strap instead of the very much not-water-resistant leather. Its silent alarm buzzes your wrist to wake you up at the appointed time, so you’re even meant to wear it to sleep. Sleeping was the only time I didn’t wear it; having anything on my wrist, especially something as coldly metallic as the Activité, makes it hard to fall asleep. The alarm itself is annoying, too: you can’t turn it off, you just have to wait the 30 seconds or so while it buzzes on your wrist. I literally flung it across the room while it was still buzzing, one particularly early morning.

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