Withings Thermo

Waste of money – This item was admittedly defective after only a short 6 months. Attempts to fix it through withings was FRUSTRATING. No phone number to call, just an email which took about a week between responses. After about 6 weeks of back and forth I was told to just go back to the store I bought it from. I’ll never ever buy a Withings product again.

The best thermometer for your home – I purchased a Withings Thermo Smart Temporal Thermometer so I can check my temperature and save the meausrements to my Mobile Phone. It also chargers much faster and the battery lasts longer.

Simple and thoughtful – Readings are visible in the dark at night. Record automatically in app after you easily select user right after reading temp. After reading is finish, vibration is felt instead of a loud beep. Good when taking temp of sleeping kids. Thermometer need not touch kids at all while taking temp. God sent. No disposal cups etc is being used. No long term expenses other than batteries of course.

Very easy to take temperature. No worries of wrong angle on ear or not deep enough on armpit or under tongue. Just a close distance swipe across half the forehead.

Down side.

I have other withings products which uses healthmate. Though thermometer readings appear in healthmate too, it needs another app to set up.

Withings “Thermo” thermometer that uses skin surface readings, and its phone app and database – With the coronavirus epidemic I realised that having a reliable thermometer handy is important. Of course, everyone thought that, and thermometers all sold out quickly. I eventually managed to get a regular thermometer, which has a probe you hold in your armpit or put under your tongue, and that uses tiny button batteries to power it. It used up batteries at a prodigious rate, and they were batteries that were impossible to buy anywhere convenient other than by mail (thank you, online battery shopping!).

Then recently, I saw that I could get a Withings “Thermo” for half price (for $89), and that it used AAA batteries and also recorded my temperature in a cloud-based database. It reads your body temperature from your skin surface, namely your forehead, (actually, the temporal artery there) which is supposed to be very accurate.

Being a complete gadget geek, I snapped it up, and I’ve been using it for a few days. Yes, it is good. Withings have a reputation for personal health equipment – it’s apparently a leader in heart rate monitors for people exercising. However, it turned out the “Thermo” associated database and its phone app are a work in progress. But apps are easy to update, and so I am hoping for some improvements as they get their act together.

These types of surface reading thermometers are targeted at children, which seems to be why there are some odd features in their “Withings Thermo” app. But it is aimed at home use. You also need to be aware that to use it properly you have to use it in conjunction with a smart phone (android or iPhone), and set up an account with Withings and give them some basic personal information. From feedback on the app download site, some users are offended at this, so if you only want a simple thermometer without connecting with the cloud, then the Withings “Thermo” is a poor choice.

So when you first get the “Thermo”, you then need to install the “Withings Thermo” app on your smart phone. That app then directs you through the installation and use of the thermometer. You set up an account, and enter some personal information like your email, and a name for each user of the device; it permits up to 8 users. Of course, if you worry about privacy, then you can use fake or abbreviated names, with a special email account, I guess. If you want to use it with non-family users, I guess you can set up a user called “Guest”. You need to add all the users; it does not accept adhoc users.

The thermometer pairs with your phone via bluetooth and your home wifi; they recommend wifi in preference, and I added both.

Then you turn the device on using the single button, move it across your forehead from the centre to the side until you reach the hairline. You can run it lightly across your skin, or else preferably hold it a centimetre above your skin; which is easier on someone else. It vibrates twice to let you know it’s gotten a good reading.

Make sure you wait for it to vibrate twice at the end; I lifted it off too quickly, and got odd readings until I worked this out.

Then you scroll with your finger on a touchpad (it’s a vertical line of dots), until the name of the person whose temperature is being taken appears; any person who has been registered via the app already. Press the button again, and that temperature reading is recorded against them, and a light glows green, if it’s normal, or orange or red otherwise.

The body temperature reading is displayed for a short while on the device, but is kept on the Thermo app on your phone.

The Thermo app is the main deficiency with this system. It’s very basic. I can’t find any way of deleting a reading that is wrong. There’s no way of refreshing the readings either. I took a few readings, and for some unknown reason the first 3 appeared in the app, but the later two did not. There’s no explanation for how to refresh the display, as restarting the app doesn’t seem to do anything. Oh well, they do appear the next day, it seems…

Annoyingly, it insists you enter a full name, a gender, a date of birth, the weight and height of each user. I suggest you alter or disguise these, as an elementary privacy step; these should be optional, and some people won’t know this, or won’t care to disclose the data. Clearly little thought has been given to this by the Withings’ developers,which is disappointing. It also means the device can’t easily be used for other people, who are not registered; although having a “Guest” person might look after this situation.

The Thermo app has some additional functions that are poorly explained; you can schedule reminders to take a person’s temperature, and record some general notes, and details of medicine taken. But I’m still not sure how they work, and the user guide is detailed when it comes to using the device itself, but poor for the app, which is the more important half of the system. There are also links to health advice about fever, but also annoying notes about that advice appear on the screen unnecessarily, stating the obvious.

Still, the app can be improved easily, and it handles the tracking of your temperature okay, since that’s just a simple piece of information.

A big advantage is that the device uses 2 AAA batteries, and is supposed to last a long time before replacement; they say up to 2 years.

This is a device that has potential, with the automatic logging of people’s temperature, and it manages that basic function quite well. The accuracy of the data is apparently high, and the reading without skin contact is great, especially with infectious disease running rampant these days. There’s easy battery replacement, and my hope that the associated app can be improved. The price is good (at least at the half of normal price that I paid), for the device’s fairly useful functionality and excellent accuracy.