Withings is releasing a Brilliant edition of the ScanWatch Nova, but I find the design anything but
Hybrid smartwatch maker Withings has just announced some fresh color options for the ScanWatch Nova, and with them, a slightly new name for the ScanWatch Nova Brilliant. Meant to be more of a dressy, dress watch – as opposed to the more diver-oriented styling of the current ScanWatch Nova – customers in the US and Australia (UK availability is still unknown) will have the option of titanium silver or “bicolor silver and gold” finishes.
To coincide with the new color options, Withings has also given the ScanWatch Nova Brilliant a white watch face, with a white sub-dial at 6 o’clock to track your progress against a goal you set in the companion app, and the now-customary OLED screen at 12 o’clock to display notifications and other health-related info.
The dress-watch nature is further enhanced by the smaller 39mm dial compared to the 42mm of the standard Nova, which not only makes it easier to slip under a shirt cuff but also better suited to smaller wrists. It’s also not rather water resistant, good for up to 50 meters (5ATM), compared to the Nova’s 100 meters (10ATM).
Inside, it’s pretty much business as usual for Withings, with a number of health tracking and monitoring features – which also appear on the ScanView 2 – includes a heart rate monitor, SpO2 sensor, and an on-demand medical electrocardiogram (ECG), which can help detect irregular heartbeats. It again lacks built-in GPS, but can use your phone’s capabilities to track distance traveled during workouts.
The watch also has a 30-day battery life and is available in the US ($599.99) and Australia ($799.99) for the same price as the ScanWatch Nova.
Hybrid design, now a little less hybrid-like
I’m a big fan of Withings smartwatches. I think the hybrid design is clever and a great option for anyone who wants health tracking without the obvious all-digital watch face on their wrist. I appreciate traditional analog watches, so the current Nova is a perfect smartwatch – as you’ll discover in my review Withings SmartWatch Nova Review – but I’m not completely convinced by the Withings ScanWatch Nova Brilliant yet, and for one clear reason.
It certainly looks like an analog watch – the Rolex Day-Date is a comparison that immediately comes to mind – and I like the use of a white dial to give customers something different from the black of the Nova. However, the digital display at 12 o’clock remaining black is a bit of a faux pas in my opinion.
The appeal of Withings watches for me is that they hide the fact that they have a digital brain, something that’s reinforced by the use of black dials to camouflage the OLED display. But the stark contrast of both white and black dials on the ScanWatch Nova Brilliant ruins that illusion. One thing I think Withings could have done was produce a sort of “panda” watch, a watchmaking term for watches with white dials and black sub-dials at 3 and 9 o’clock.
The ScanWatch Nova Brilliant could have done with a black sub-dial at 6 o’clock to balance out the overall look. Of course, with many ‘panda’ watches falling into the sports or aviation watch categories, and the Nova Brilliant being more of a dress watch, this might not have worked.
The other option would be to give the digital display at 12 o’clock a white background with black numbers and characters. It is an OLED display after all, so it is certainly something that can be done. It would have at least been nice to see an option in the companion app that would allow you to change the background in a similar way to how we can change the theme of other smartphones to light or dark. But there is no mention of this in the official press release and there is currently no such option available for the ScanWatch Nova, so I don’t expect it to appear on the Nova Brilliant. There is also no way to make the display white on the ScanWatch 2 with a white dial, which only reinforces the expectation that the ScanWatch Nova Brilliant will do without it as well.
I find it a shame, because as much as I appreciate Withings’ watches, I can’t see myself wearing the ScanWatch Nova Brilliant to a formal event. I’d rather wear something a little more understated, or at the very least, attention-grabbing for the right reasons. A flashy black OLED screen isn’t a great look in my book. But maybe I’m a watch snob?