As well as a range of health-tracking features, Withings’s ScanWatch helps you practice your breathing technique and this in turn can help both your mental and your physical health. The ScanWatch achieves this via its breathe mode which guides you to focus on your breathing from one to five minutes, allowing you to focus, relax, and take care of your mind and body.
Here at Women Love Tech, we reviewed the ScanWatch and we found the breathe mode is an easy way to bring short breathing exercises into your daily life. Once these exercises become a part of your routine, you can track the information and use it so you can focus and relax on a daily basis which brings a wide range of benefits for your mental and physical welbeing.
To start these breathing exercises, you just choose the number of breaths you want to take per minute – according to your breathing capacity. Then you observe your heart rate results at the end of the session so you can understand which breathing rate helps you relax the most.
Once you know what relaxes you the most, you can use these exercises as a form of relaxation. The more breaths you take during this exercise, the shorter your breaths will be. Conversely, the fewer breaths you need to take during the exercise, the longer your breaths will be.
How the breathing exercises can benefit your health
With the ScanWatch Breathe mode, you can learn to control your breathing. Doctors often recommend 6 breaths per minute, for 5 minutes, 3 times a day. Practicing this method is called cardiac coherence.
Using the ScanWatch, I practised this and I found I was able to improve and reach these sorts of numbers. It was a calming thing to do and it felt good to take time out to focus on my breathing.
Because the ScanWatch can also track your heart rate – in fact it’s the first smartwatch which can give you a medical-grade ECG, your heart rate and an oximeter through SP02 – you can use it to monitor your heart rate. This means you can check whether your breathing exercises are slowing your heart rate down slightly. This way you can tell if you’re achieving what you’re aiming to with the breathing exercises. If you have any heart issues, it would be wise to include your doctor in what you’re doing and get their advice.
The ScanWatch has a range of other health features
When I used the ScanWatch, it does strike you as pretty amazing that one watch is able to supply you with all of these health-tracking features. Developed by cardiologists and sleep experts, ScanWatch is the world’s first clinically validated hybrid smartwatch to be able to detect atrial fibrillation (AFib), overnight breathing disturbances and to measure oxygen saturation.
In fact, the ScanWatch is the most medically advanced wearable to date and it’s been used in at least four major health studies as a tool (these studies are listed towards the end of this story).
Because the ScanWatch has these high-end features – plus an associated app – it’s a device which can help you reach a range of health goals.
Heart health is well-monitored with the ScanWatch
The ScanWatch monitors your heart in a number of ways. It records your heart rate periodically and sends a notification when an irregular heartbeat is detected. If you get one of these notifications, you can then use the ScanWatch to record a medical-grade electrocardiogram.
In 30 seconds, an ECG reading is ready, complete with a diagnosis of your sinus rhythm. This report can be shared with a doctor via the Health Mate app.
A summary of the ScanWatch’s best features
The key features of the ScanWatch include: electrocardiogram with aFib detection; breathing disturbances via SpO2; heart rate; atrial fibrillation: low and high heart rate; notifications; activity tracking for 30 activities: calories burnt; sleep cycles – light, deep and REM; and connected GPS.
As well, it has a long battery life of up to 30 days. We found we got around 20 days but this is still fairly good and it beats the Apple Watch Serie 7 battery which lasts up to 18 hours and the Fitbit Charge 5 which lasts up to seven days.
The watch has you covered when you’re exercising with its workout mode able to track up to 30 activities with a push of a button – from skiing, to running, to yoga – so it’s easy to access your distance, pace and elevation post-workout.
Here’s a quick round up of the studies the ScanWatch is being used in:
Ludwig Maximilien University of Munich: To help identify complications, LMU is using ScanWatch in a study consisting of COVID-19 patients who are being remotely monitored from home with continuous measurements of ECG, heart rate, and oxygen saturation.
Centre Cardiologique du Nord, Paris area: A second study was conducted to validate ScanWatch ECG measurements and AFib detection PPG against the gold standard 12 lead ECG read and interpreted by cardiologists.
Hopital Georges Pompidou, AP-HP Paris: A study was conducted to validate ScanWatch ECG measurements and AFib detection PPG against the gold standard 12 lead ECG read and interpreted by cardiologists.
UCSF Hypoxia Research Laboratory, San Francisco: Pulse oximetry measurements from ScanWatch have been evaluated and validated on a group of hypoxia patients, against the gold standard which involved blood oxygen samples analysis.
About Withings: Withings is a French brand with a whole range of connected health products – from smart watches to sleep trackers and smart scales. For more information on the Withings ScanWatch, visit here.
For more information from Women Love Tech on smart watches, visit here.
