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Comment by Xenonym | Hacker News Reader

The Withings Steel HR seems to fit the bill perfectly - it has a screen for phone notifications, a step tracker and basic fitness function, and I regularly get two weeks and more of battery life out of mine. Only problem might be that you find it’s small circular screen too small - but I think that’s a feature of its minimalist aesthetic, not a bug.

https://www.withings.com/us/en/steel-hr

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I've owned a Steel HR for many years and I can highly recommend them. I wanted a basic smart watch with a classic analog look that isn't too flashy but offers notifications, basic fitness tracking with a battery that I don't have to think about very often (we have enough stuff to keep charged in our daily lives). The Steel HR fits the bill perfectly. I've gotten many compliments about it too, and people are surprised to learn it is a smart watch. Don't expect to read full emails on it. But then again, I never understood why people would want to.

As for size, I never thought it was too small. In fact, I would say it's a perfect size for my wrist.

I similarly love my Withings ScanWatch. I charge it maybe every three weeks at my desk, and it monitors my sleep and hearth rhythms which is important to me for genetic reasons. Otherwise it's just a good old fashioned watch!

My wife and I both had these, we loved them and I agree it fits the description perfectly. However, both of them failed for us right around the time the warranty expired in the same way - the watch worked fine but refused to charge. My wife managed to get hers replaced, but mine failed just after a year and they refused to replace it. I decided not to get another one because of this, but I do miss it and there’s really no other I’ve found like it.

I’ve had my Steel for years (it’s nokia branded so pre 2018) and would buy another in a snap if it broke or i lost it. my battery life tends to be closer to a month or more (though recently that’s been creeping down)

Came here to recommend Withings. I have the ScanWatch and love it. All the other watches I've tried were either too dumb (o.g. pebble and the similar tiny Garmin) or too smart (android wear / Apple Watch). Withings strikes a perfect balance between the two

I have it and if fitness/sleep tracking is the main thing you are after, it's easy to recommend. It looks fantastic and the battery lasts forever.

But I find it almost completely useless for reading notifications from my phone. The small screen + no way to recall notifications if you don't watch the whole thing scroll past when it originally comes in are very frustrating. Plus it's very annoying that despite having users asking for this for years they have not implemented a "find my phone" feature.

I really love my scanwatch, so Withings is a big recommend from me.

I was reading to pull the trigger on a Withings but then I got so many reports of inaccurate tracking data that I backed out. How's been your experience with it?

It makes the same mistakes all the other watches I've tried do. It'll track drumming, for instance, as swimming. But it's easy enough to update the activity or just delete it from your history altogether.

I've had a Steel HR for 6 years (Nokia branded) that I bought of eBay for £50. Steps and activity tracking works well, sleep tracking mostly works. Battery still lasts a month easily, has shown no signs of degradation.

They look really nice... can you have something other than your heart rate displaying on that little screen by default..?

There's about a dozen of screens you can toggle between (time, date, next alarm, number of steps, distance and so on). Short press of the only button toggles between them, long press does some action (example: cancel next alarm).

However I don't have anything on that screen by default to extend battery life closer to a month.

Two more features I highly appreciate:

- I don't think I could go back to an alarm on my phone. Smart wakeup really works wonderfully.

- Even when battery's at 0%, basic functionality (telling time, counting steps) still works for like a week or two.

Sorry last question - does it do sleep tracking?

I have one, and I can confirm it does.

It does. Sometimes it does that incorrectly though.

Does the smart wakeup have a vibration-only alarm?

Yes, that's the only form.

Scanwatch is the newer model which uses sapphire glass, usually can find it pretty cheap on a marketplace

How privacy-friendly is that watch? It looks great on paper.

Its features are minimalist, so it really doesn't have access to anything other than your text messages and whatever health data it collects, which you can control in a fine-grained way.

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