Customer Reviews

Withings Pulse Wireless Activity Tracker + Sleep and Heart Rate Monitoring, Black

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I'm a big fan of activity trackers. After buying my first one, an original Fitbit when they first came out, I started paying attention to how much walking I was doing, which motivated me to walk more. I upgraded to a Fitbit One when they came out, and loved it. Now I have a Withings Pulse. If you're trying to choose between them, you can't go wrong with either, the similarities outweigh the differences. But there are some differences, I think the Pulse is a little better, on balance.

Both of these activity trackers use accelerometers and altimeters to track your steps and elevation gain, and both provide rough estimates of calories burned and distance traveled. Both can be used to track your sleep (albeit somewhat crudely and inaccurately). Both are tiny and easy to wear (and to lose, if you're not careful!). Both allow syncing to smartphones via bluetooth.

Reasons why I like the Pulse better:

The Pulse has better battery life: I'm getting 11-12 days between charges, with frequent syncing and pulse checking. With the Fitbit, I never got more than 6 days from a charge. (UPDATE: My first full charge with the Pulse lasted 11 days. My second lasted 15 days. I think this is because during the first week, I was checking the display and/or syncing with my iPhone very frequently because the Pulse was new and novel.)

The Pulse can measure your heart rate, the Fitbit cannot. It's easy to do, though you have to press the button a few times to get to the heart rate screen and then touch the heart icon on the screen in order to activate the feature. The readings are accurate in my experience--I compared them to the readings taken at about the same time from a drug store blood pressure cuff and also my Withings BP cuff.

This feature is important to me. Your resting heart rate is an important indicator of your level of cardiovascular fitness, and for most people the Pulse will be their only gadget to regularly measure (as well as track over time) their heart rate.

The Pulse's altimeter is a little more accurate than Fitbit's. It only counts elevation gain when it also senses that you're walking, so it won't count elevator/escalator rides.

With the latest firmware update, the Pulse can display data from the last couple of days, not just the current day, so you can see how many more steps you need to take to beat yesterday's total.

You'll need to use the Withings health mate app on your smartphone to initially set up your Pulse, update its firmware, and of course track your measurements over time. I think the app is perfectly adequate but I'm not crazy about it. It shows all the information it collects from the Pulse, and shows neat graphs of your measurements over time, and more. I already had the Withings scale and blood pressure monitor, which use the same app.

The Withings app connects with lots of other fitness apps to share each other's data. I've connected my Withings app with MyFitnessPal (for tracking food consumption) and RunKeeper (for tracking my bicycle rides and jogs). There are some apps it doesn't work with, such as MapMyRide, my preferred bike ride tracking app. But it works with many apps, and more are added every few months. The Withings app also works with competitors' apps, like FitBit and Jawbone UP, so you could get a FitBit One or FitBit Flex and use it with the Withings app (though not sure why you'd want to do this, unless you already have the Withings scale or BP cuff). The extent of integration and information sharing with external apps varies from app to app; it might be that your favorite app can import just a little of the data collected by the Withings app, or vice versa.

The Fitbit has one feature the Pulse lacks: you can set an alarm and the Fitbit will vibrate when the alarm goes off. I never used this, but some people find it helpful. A friend must sleep with ear plugs (her husband snores), so she can't hear her alarm clock in the morning; the vibrating FitBit alarm is therefore really handy for her.

On the negative side, the Pulse's display in direct bright sunlight is very faint and almost impossible to read.

Another negative for some people: you MUST have a compatible device with Bluetooth 4.0 to setup and to sync the Pulse. Compatible devices include most Android phones and iPhones/iPads/iPod touches released in the past few years. It doesn't sync with Blackberries, Windows phones, certain older Android phones, or even computers. The Fitbit One can sync with computers (using a tiny USB dongle that comes with the Fitbit) or with a smartphone with Bluetooth 4.0.

This is a dealbreaker for people without the right gear. So, please check that your phone or tablet is compatible before buying.

If you DO have a compatible smartphone or device, the setup and syncing in my experience work perfectly (though after browsing other reviews, I see a few people have had some issues).

The Pulse syncs with your smartphone/device periodically, maybe 3-4 times a day. If you want to see up-to-the-minute data on your smartphone, you can force a sync by long-pressing the button; this works fine.

Whenever the Pulse syncs with your device, the data is automatically uploaded to your Withings account in the cloud, and you can then view it at my.withings.com. This is useful if your phone has a small screen, and you'd rather see the data on a bigger display.

I've tried the sleep monitoring with the Pulse and the Fitbit One. I have sleep apnea so I was particularly interested in this feature. I think the Pulse and Fitbit One are not especially accurate at measuring sleep time or quality. But, if you track your sleep regularly over time, you can see the trends, which can be helpful. Just don't expect too much.

Bottom line: If you're trying to decide between the Fitbit One and Withings Pulse, I recommend the Pulse (as long as you have a compatible smartphone--check this first!). If you already have a Withings scale or blood pressure cuff (both of which are excellent in my opinion), it's a no-brainer.

Yet, I think the Fitbit One is also very good, and does almost everything the Pulse does; at the moment I'm writing this, Amazon has the Fitbit on sale (it's normally the same price as the Pulse).

If you already have a Fitbit, it's probably not worth buying the Pulse unless you really need the integrated heart rate monitor.

If you're trying to decide between the Pulse and a wrist-band type tracker, like the Jawbone UP or Fitbit Flex, I can't help you--I haven't tried those. The wrist band format is great for some folks, but not for me.

I own both the Fitbit (the old school simple one you put on your belt) and Nike Fuel, and now the Pulse. My comments below reflect the first few days w/ the product. I'll update this review once I have more time with the unit.

It's very small, almost too small. I am very concerned about losing it, but I love the way it integrates into the Withings ecosystem.

The build quality is not bad, it is only 8grams so it's feather light. BUT: Don't wear it in the shower like you can w/ the Nike Fuel, or it will end poorly - it's not water resistant.

1) I am having trouble getting to read my pulse. I can't seem to figure out the 'sweet spot' for my finger on the rear sensor. I with the display would tell me when I am in a good spot and it's measuring my pulse so I know to stay still.

2) I like the sleep analysis...but I have NO idea what to do w/ the data. Deep sleep? Ok? Light ? Yup. But how do I make my sleep better?
Also, I wish I could set it up to automatically detect the time and flip to sleep mode. I don't like having to manually do it.

3) I wish there was more feedback on the UI. Beeps or haptic feedback would be great. I also wish it had an alarm and vibration to wake me up. It's on my wrist, why not take advantage of that placement and be a wake up alarm?

4) The UI is simple and very nice but not very readable in direct Sunlight

5) The iPhone App is great - I can manually sync the data even while the app is not open

6) No way to sync to a PC or Mac...you must have an iPhone or Android device to set it up.

I wanted to like this device, I was trying to convince myself that it was better than the Fitbit One, but it just can't beat 4 years and 3 revisions of experience. I own the Withings Smart Scale Which is amazing, and I wanted to keep within that ecosystem, but it isn't cutting it.

I owned both the Pulse and the One at the same time for a few days and I had my gripes with both, but the Fitbit won in the end. I will list how the Withings is better:
- Easy to slip in and out of the belt clip
- Touchscreen and history is a great addition.
- Bluetooth 2.0 support, no need for a dongle for your PC. (I own an Android)
- The heart rate monitor is a neat feature, but it is nothing my phone can't do.
- Micro USB charging is convenient and you don't need a proprietary device to charge.
- Elevation is measured in feet, and not floors.
- The battery life is impressive, but isn't any better than the Fitbit One. I never went over a week without the "20%" notification popping up.

Now I will list its drawbacks from the One:
- The overall build quality feels cheaper.
- Belt clip is not as tight and it HAS disconnected from my body a couple times.
- Soft touch plastic scratches way to easy.
- No vibrate function, which is honestly very handy with my Fitbit.
- No right/left handed options. So when it it clipped on your right side the display is upside down.
- No way to calibrate your stride.

** 8 Aug 2013 - I don't know if the Fitbit does this, but I lost an entire day of activity because my Pulse didn't turn off of sleep mode. I think that this device would benefit from a firmware update that would automatically turn off sleep mode when it detects steps for a certain amount of time. I was running around airports all day and noticed tonight that I slept for 22 hours...

Sure the ability to view history and take your pulse is neat, but those functions are rendered obsolete when you are using the device with a smartphone. I can view history on my phone, take my pulse, track my diet, and much more. Fitness trackers are made to show you how active you are in the day and night. At the end of the day, Fitbit has a much more refined product. Sure it isn't compatible with USB 2.0, but the Fitbit can be synced using the computer. I spend hours of my day next to a computer, and syncing is no problem. Just not immediate.

It's the small things that the Withings wins in, but that's what they are, small things. Fitbit has used their experience in the fitness market and made a great upgrade to the older devices that were already fantastic. Maybe Withings will come out with a armband that will blow things out of the water.

My water-resistent Withings Pulse went through a wash and dry cycle with NO DAMAGE! I was really impressed! My Fitbit One, in the same pocket, was toast!

Things I like about the Withings Pulse -- the heartrate meter seems to be accurate. I usually get a reading about 90% of the time; 10% of the time I have to retake my pulse (an error message appears). Rechargeable battery life seems to last a week or more before needing USB charging. The Withings Pulse is the newest unit; probably the most advanced of Withings and Fitbit products. The touch screen seems to work well, although once I guess in my pocket I accidentally switched it to sleep monitoring mode, and the next day it told me I had slept 20 hours!

Things I don't like about the Withings Pulse -- the Pulse is an Iphone/IPad-centric device; it can't connect to a PC. I don't generally use my Ipad, so when I want it to synchronize I have to get my Ipad out and have it download the data from the Withings Pulse. That only takes about 30 seconds, but I prefer to have something that connects to my PC.

I have also used the Fitbit Zip (an older, button battery-powered unit), and the Fitbit One.

Things I like about the Fitbit units -- they both connect via a dongle to my PC! If I get within a couple feet of my PC, they automatically download the data to my PC! The Fitbit One is newer, and also monitors sleep, which I don't need or use. The Fitbit One has a rechargeable battery which lasts only a couple days.

My favorite of the three is actually the older Fitbit Zip!!! It is about half the cost of the Withings Pulse or Fitbit One. The button battery it uses lasts more than a month. I purchase the CR2025 batteries in bulk through the Internet and they only cost about 30 cents each in bulk (DON'T purchase at Radio Shack -- that will set you back about $7 per battery!!!). The Fitbit Zip is actually the smallest of the three units. It is NOT water resistant like the Withings Pulse, however, and did not survive the wash cycle that the Withings Pulse did!

I did check the pedometer function of the Fitbit Zip vs. the Withings Pulse -- the readings were comparable (380 steps vs. 397 steps). Without actually counting steps I cannot state which unit was more accurate, but the readings were close. Obviously if you are very concerned about accuracy you might want to calibrate your steps by actually counting them and seeing what your unit reads, then measure your average step to correct for what the unit thinks the distance you are traveling is.

To recap, the Withings Pulse is probably the most technologically advanced -- and survived a wash and dry cycle!!! -- while the much less expensive Fitbit Zip is my preference because of its PC connectivity and smaller size! Withings makes very high quality equipment -- I also have their blood pressure meter (which also only connects to an IPad or Iphone) and their body fat scale. You won't go wrong with a Withings product, but do be aware that you'll need an IPad or Iphone to use! ---

If you really want one, I would WAIT until after they fix their quality problems.

I really want to like this device. I have had 2 devices in less than 30 days, both died within a few days.

The few days it worked, I liked the heart rate measure, loved the sleep analysis as I found that very eye opening how much time I really spend asleep. I found the steps a bit inaccurate; mostly because my unit would shut off during workouts, which defeats the purpose of having it. The ones I received had battery life issues, they would only last 10 hours without a charge. For other reviewers they say that they last 10+ days, so what I see here is an issue with their manufacturing process, they have poor and spotty quality.

I could (almost) deal with that IF their customer support made up for it, but it doesn't. They ignore their customers. With the first device I reached out to Withings customer support- within 2 days of receiving the device- when I hit issues. They quickly responded and replaced the device within a week.
The second device worked great out of the box. It worked for 4 days before dying. I had to charge it at least once a day, as it had poor battery life. Eventually it just died, and won't take a charge. (The same issue that happened to the first one.) I again reached out to Withings support (via support Ticket)- Last Week. I have heard nothing back. I asked for a fix or a return, I guess when you say you want to return you get ignored. I've been updating my support ticket each day asking for a status, no response. It's unfortunate. As I didn't get a response I can only assume either a) they are overwhelmed with support issues due to poor quality, or b) they don't care about their customers. Either way it's a problem.

Right now, it's been less than 30 days sine I received mine, I've had 2 broken ones, and I basically have a a $99 piece of plastic sitting on my desk.
Not worth the money or aggravation.

I pre-ordered the Pulse from the Withings website. I have a Withings Scale and Blood Pressure Monitor and couldn't be happier with either of them. The Pulse has nearly all the functionality I wanted in an activity tracker and has great potential. I've worn it daily for just over 6 weeks. It's a good first offering. However, it isn't perfect.

The good things:

It integrates very well into my Bluetooth phone and the Healthmate application. Setup was painless.

The battery life is excellent. I use it 24/7 and it the battery lasts well over two weeks. Recharging is easy and takes very little time. When I sit at my desk to work for a long period of time, I put the Pulse on the charger and in a couple of hours, it's full.

It's small, lightweight and unobtrusive. I clip it on my belt during the day and forget its there.

It uploads its data throughout the day without intervention.

Its firmware upgrades via Bluetooth from the phone app.

Now, for the not so good:

My first concern is there is no way to calibrate stride. There is absolutely no way for it to accurately measure distance without knowing the average stride of the wearer. The further you walk, the more the error accumulates. If you have a short stride, then your distance will be overstated; a long stride understated. I've addressed this with Withings and asked for a way to calibrate the Pulse, but have received no response to date.

Second, the Elevation measurement is suspect. I've actually measured my elevation change and compared it to the Pulse. For several days I kept track of the number of times I climbed the stairs in my home. The elevation change is ~9 feet from top to bottom. Some days, the Pulse did a reasonable job, but most days it underestimated my elevation change by at least 60%. Walking from my car to my office is an elevation change of at least 18' involving a hill and stairs. I've made the trip twice today. I've also climbed the stairwell in my home twice, yet the Pulse only shows a total change of 22'. It's neither consistent nor accurate.

Third, the protective coating which covers the soft plastic body is flaking and peeling. This is a bit disturbing considering this device is to be worn during vigorous workouts, can be kept in your pockets and is potentially subject to harsh use. The front of my Pulse is beginning to show surface scratches in the plastic as a result. So far, it is still operating as designed.

Fourth, there is no way to clear measurements nor is there a way to take intermediate measurements. For instance, if I wanted to take a walk during lunch and only measure the distance I traveled during this walk, I could not do so. Of course, you can manually display and remember the step count when you begin and check it when you end. An option to force an upload, clear today's measurements and start over today would be acceptable, but it's not available. Currently the software begins measuring your day's activity anew at 12:00 AM. This can't be altered.

I am still using my Pulse and will continue to do so until a better product appears or it ceases to function. However, having experience with it now, I probably would have waited until the second generation came to market before purchasing. Withings will undoubtedly continue to update the firmware to increase the functionality and accuracy. There has already been one update and there was a noticeable change in step count and distance. However, until they provide a way to calibrate a person's stride, I'm not sure how accurate it can be made.

*** Update 8/20/2013 13:32 ***

In all fairness to Withings, their customer service has always been responsive as witnessed by the comment posted below. Long term, I believe the Pulse will become a great asset to those who are electronically monitoring and tracking their health.

I'm glad to have learned that there are updates coming for the stride calibration and the elevation issues. This demonstrates to me that Withings is working to make a good product even better. Once these issues are addressed and I've had a chance to use them, I'll revise my review. If the solutions are workable, I'll likely up my rating to four stars.

I also should note that I contacted Withings Customer Service for a remedy to the peeling of the outer coating on the Pulse. Without any further inquiry on my part, I was sent an response saying that a replacement is on its way! This is only a few hours after my original contact. This is how customer service should be run! If I could give Withings Customer Service five stars, I would do so without hesitation.

Again, I'm not disappointed in the product overall. It does provide me with some very useful information on my activity. Like all new products, there are teething pains and I believe Withings is working to correct the Pulse's shortcomings and deliver a superior product.

I have been using the Withings pulse now for around 3 weeks. Since the first day that I had charged it and put in on my belt, I noticed how little I walked around on a daily basis. The pulse has sort of been my workout buddy that keeps on pushing me to go out and do things. I usually now take an hour at lunch and briskly walk. The other day I reached a daily step count of over 20,000 steps! My goal now is always to be over 70k steps for the week!

As for sleeping this device is giving the a look into my sleep patterns and that I need to sleep more, the graph really helps me see how much sleep and quality of sleep I am receiving. Way to go Withings.

Another aspect of the pulse, dealing with its name, is the ability to take your pulse anytime you want to, and something that I found interesting is that you can you use the wristband as a way to take your pulse and not only using the tip of your finger.

The simplicity of Pulse in all aspects is great. Just charge it up, stick it on your clothes, or in your pocket and go about your day!

I use other Withings products as I have one of their scales and blood pressure cuff.
Looking forward to other withings products or enhancements in the future.

I got this mainly for the sleep monitoring, though the activity tracker is honestly what I use more often. I like how it combines with the Withings scale I already have. I get a nice picture of how my weight gain/loss relates to my activity increases/decreases. It's motivating, without actually pressuring you to do anything. All it does is set 'healthy goals' and any progress you make towards that is considered good.

One flaw I found in the new healthmate website (a replacement for the old dashboard that came out in conjunction with the Pulse) was the goal periods seem to not understand the idea of 'yah, I got distracted and stopped trying to lose weight and now I'm trying again.' I hadn't used my scale for 5 months before this, so with my 'weight goal' being 20 pounds to go, and the latest weight test being .1 pounds lower than my 5 months ago weight, it decided that with that weight loss per time ratio, I'd meet my goal in 2091, presumably from dying. I'm not sure how the algorithm is set up, but presumably it will continue to be inaccurate..

Overall though, the healthmate system is great, and integrates everything in the Withings 'family' of products in a really great way. It 'just works' together.

The Pulse, and everything else in the Withings 'family', are all about the gamification of health to me. I've already noticed a difference, trying to meet that 10000 step goal. I'm taking the stairs more often, not being as efficient (lazy) with how I get from point A to point B while at work and on my off time. On my first work day with the Pulse I managed 8500 steps, so I'm getting close. :)

Some people elsewhere in the comments have been having problems with firmware, well that wasn't an issue for me. During a manual sync I got a prompt to upgrade, and although the reconnect was odd (it restarts, and obviously loses the connection, and acts like this was an unexpected development, so you just have to reconnect), it wasn't debilitating, and only happened once. The manual syncing has been kind of a pain, I haven't figured out if there's some sort of trick to it, but sometimes it'll start the sync process when my phone is on standby, other times it won't. Sometimes it'll do it when I have the app open, other times it won't. Once I couldn't get it to work at all, so I reset the bluetooth on my phone and then it worked fine. I think this is just the growing pains of working around dozens of different Android devices and all their bluetooth quirks. I have a Pebble smartwatch and experienced similar issues early on, which have since been sorted out.

So back to the main reason I got it: sleep monitoring. I've always had this weird idea, that maybe I sleepwalk and nobody's ever told me. Well now I know the answer! I know for certain, that in the last 2 days, I did not sleep walk. I did however wake up to go to the bathroom, and the Pulse accurately showed when and for how long and presented the information to me on a nice graph. I've also learned, that despite my long held belief, it really doesn't take me that long to fall asleep. I suppose the only particularly useful information is the duration of sleep you get over long periods of time, as this relates to your health and mood and what not. But all of the other data Pulse gathers is still really interesting to be able to look at.

The jury's still out on whether or not this will help me lose weight, but one thing is for certain.

For the last two days I haven't been sleepwalking.

Purchased this unit for my wife to replace a body media tracker. She has issues with the body media being in contact with her skin for extended periods.

I have used the unit for about two weeks now to evaluate it and be better able to help my wife use it. I also use a bodymedia armband.

The setup was a breeze. Connected to my iPhone 5 very quickly. An update for the unit loaded right after it connected. The update installed with no issue.

The pulse integrates very well with the whitings health mate website. The data updates reflect quickly and the display is very user friendly.

Actually using the pulse is where the short falls lie. The heart rate monitor is very hit and miss. Out of five tries I might get a near accurate pulse once. I have gotten resting heart rate from 44 to 120 within a five minute period with no change in activity. My actual was about 58 and the pulse only came close once at 60. Frequently the unit is not able to get a pulse and just displays an X on the screen.

Tracking steps seems pretty accurate. It compares with my BodyMedia armband within 5% to 10% everyday. I am not sure how it converts steps to distance, but that is WAY off. During a recent six mile run the pulse calculated it at 9.5 miles. Steps were pretty close to the same as my bodymedia armband (which does not attempt to convert the data to distance). I use "RunKeeper" on my iPhone (Outstanding program by the way) so I am very sure the distance the pulse is recording is way out to lunch.

It is very light and very easy to forget you are wearing it. I have had to pull it out of the cloths hamper a couple of times. Fortunately, it has not made it into the washing machine yet.

Bottom line, I really like the size and concept of the Pulse and the integration of the data into the Withings HealthMate website. The Pulse just needs a little more work to bring it up to the same standards as the scale and the blood pressure monitor (love both of them).

I was/am a loyal Fitbit user. When I read about the Pulse I immediatly decided to get one.
The idea of integrating the Withings Pulse with their Smart Body Analyzer and their Smart Blood Pressure Monitor was very exciting.
Currently, I do not think that their is any other company that has this kind of integration with all these measurments. In addition to the regular measurments of Activity, Distance .... etc, the withings products also measure quality of Air, Heart pulse, BP, ... etc
I got all three, the setup was quite easy and fun.

The idea of Synching through an iPhone or Androide device instead of a computer was at 1st a little strange to me, but I found it much easier and much more fun.
I set all 3 to work with my iPhone 4 and with my Kindle Fire HD (Android Device)
I have been using the Withings products fo 2 days now and am really happy with them.
I would have rated them as 5 stars because although there are several companies selling such products, currently I do not see any competiton with the Withings product as explained above. Having said this, I am still using my fitbit Flex (together with the Withings Pulse) because I think that wearing a tracker in the hand is more conviniant than using a clip, because on the hand you will never have to take it off, you can even swim with it. This is why I will give it a 4 star instead of 5.

I hope that Withings come out with a device simmilar to the pulse that can be worn on the hand like the flex.