Withings Steel HR Sport - Multisport hybrid Smartwatch, connected GPS, heart rate, fitness level via VO2 max, activity and sleep tracking, notifications

Just looked to get another of these amazing watches to discover I purchased the first one almost five years ago.The watch is brilliant, even after five years the battery life is still well over 1-week, and I use the connected GPS when doing walking exercise for two hours each day. I've had a few different straps, and the original soft silicone one is still totally usable, but I have also used leather straps. I like that the straps are easy to change due to the easy access to the locking pins.I've always found the step count to be a little behind that of a fitbit, even to the point that the fitbit on the same arm at the same time shows slightly more steps over a five mile walk. I have worn the watch when swimming in fresh water lakes and also in the shower with no ill effects.The Withings app for iOS is useful, though can be a little slow when you want to scroll back to check previous months step counts or similar. I do like the fitness score, and found that inline with my own fitness improvement the score does increase. On a few occasions I have seen more steps displayed on the watch at the end of the day than the app shows on the following morning.I would definitely buy this watch again.

Right first things first, a pretty long review below but.... I did buy from Amazon but they sent me the white one instead of the black which has been returned, however I already own one of these watches (the one returned was a gift!) So shall review it as I know it.I've been a Fitbit user for a long time, but the recently there have been issues with QC and nothing really that's excited me. As I wear a suit to work and in my own time do weights and powerlifting, I wanted something a little more classy that could also cut the mustard as a fitness tracker for my uses.The design: This watch is slimline and pretty classy to look at. The glass on the watch is slightly domed and looks equally at home in the office than in the gym. The options available are a black and a white face. It's subjective of course, but I personally prefer the black face model. However this is harder to read in darker surroundings, but you can always press the button and bring up the digital time on the LCD display so this isn't a issue.The Strap: This is by far one of the best smart watch straps (or watch straps in general) available. It's got a nice amount of give and flex within, is perforated for airflow and stretches with the contours or your arm. This is especially useful when swimming, as to keep the HR working well it needs to be pulled tighter to the skin to pick up the readings with water flowing around and under it. I've also got the red silicone and brown leather straps so can mix it up depending on mood and clothing choices. The watch due to the black face and grey case works well with every strap and doesn't look odd at all.The Battery life: Withings quotes 25 days max life which is very impressive but for that you need to turn off all notifications and not use much fitness tracking as these are harder on the battery life. If training every day before a competition the battery lasts around 10-12 days. If every other day or normal use that includes 24 hour a day wear, I get about 17-19 days out of the battery. Better than my Ionic that could manage about 27 hours!Fitness tracking: This is where there will always be some compromise for styling but not any that are especially negative. This watch uses connected GPS from your phone for route and pace tracking, so remember to take it with you. Has weight training options, has generic fitness and other workout options for if something you are doing doesn't have a particular category, has a number of workout options you can select to start from the watch directly, so you can pick and choose. Even has some more unusual ones for the type of watch it is, such as Pilates, baseball and elliptical. Works well with swimming, waterproof up to 50m, remember to rinse and dry the watch off afterwards to prevent skin irritation or degradation of the strap.Sleep tracking: Unlike my fitbit, this picks up if I go to the toilet in the night and wake, or when my alarm goes off and I turn it off, rather than my fitbit assuming I'm still fast asleep. It gives you your sleep metrics In the app in a far more user friendly manner than the Fitbit app and the sleep stages seem to be consistent.Notifications: The watch has a small round LCD in the face which gives you your notifications. Due to it being a hybrid with a tiny screen, you have to wait for the message to scroll and the amount of space is limited, so to bring up different metrics or continuations of what you are already doing you need to press the button. This is one aspect which could be considered negative but I don't have a issue with it. The trade off for the style is well worth it.Charging time: 10% to 100% takes around 50 mins give or take.Overall: I am very impressed with the Steel HR Sport and as alluded to above, my wife was so pleased with mine she wanted one too. It has a good mix of aptitudes that make up for any specific shortfalls. Looks right in any environment and was worth every penny of this £189.99 pricetag. Give it a try and see.

The good. Battery life is incredible. I've charged it twice since I bought it a few months ago. Worlds apart from the daily charging of my two smart watches from Asus and LG. The watch is really easy to use, with a great single button for all actions.The watch looks great (in black), with a decent strap.Heart rate monitor is pretty good, it tracks me cycling for about 75% of each ride and estimates on the blanks. Likewise in the gym, although if you are doing push ups (or similar) you are likely to accidentally long press the button and end the workout accidentally.The sleep tracker is interesting although the advice isn't very useful. It boils down to have a regular sleep pattern and try and get a decent duration. But the focus is on the amount of deep sleep you get. If that's not very much (e.g. You are in light sleep most of the night) there's nothing you can do about it, so it may cause more anxiety than help.The bad. The sub dial will only track steps. It can't be changed to track activity. So if you do an hour in the gym and an hour cycling but only do a bit of walking the dial shows you as not performing. You could change it to target only a few steps but it then becomes meaningless. It should be reprogramable to overall activity time.The step tracker also seems to be a bit low. I think it fails to count steps if you are pushing a pram.