Connect with us

Technologies

I Nearly Replaced My Apple Watch With This Swanky, Luxe Hybrid Watch

A fancy hybrid timepiece, the Withings ScanWatch Horizon is packed with health trackers. But the Apple Watch is better at keeping me detached from my phone.

What’s happening

I normally wear an Apple Watch. But I spent a couple of weeks trying out a hybrid watch called the Withings ScanWatch Horizon.

Why it matters

Smartwatches aren’t cheap. You should know what you’re getting for your money, and whether alternatives might be worth investing in.

A smartwatch is more than a computerized time tracker, and the best versions excel at three tasks. They monitor various health data, look attractive on your wrist and provide peace of mind when you’re away from your phone. But not all smartwatches are the same: Some are better phone alternatives, while others have a more stylish, watch-like appearance. That’s the main distinction between hybrid smartwatches like the Withings ScanWatch Horizon, which I reviewed, and conventional smartwatches (like the Apple Watch).

Traditional smartwatches do a little bit of everything. They’re relatively chic, have plenty of health and activity tracking functionality, and are packed with phone-like features such as NFC for mobile payments and a speaker and microphone for taking calls. The Apple Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, Fitbit Sense and Pixel Watch fall into this category.

But hybrid watches usually combine the qualities of analog timepieces and smartwatches, as the name implies. They tend to look more like regular watches with traditional faces that have physical hands for the hour and minutes instead of digital numbers. Hybrid watches don’t have as many «smart» features, but they typically last longer on a single charge and pack plenty of health-tracking options.

I prefer traditional smartwatches and usually wear an Apple Watch. But spending a couple of weeks with the $500 Withings ScanWatch Horizon reminded me why hybrid smartwatches can be appealing — and also how they fall short compared with general-purpose smartwatches.

Read more: Google Pixel Watch: What We Know (and Don’t) So Far

Tethered to my phone

I felt more reliant on my phone when switching from the Apple Watch to the ScanWatch Horizon. Withings’ hybrid watch can show notifications (like calls, texts and app alerts), and you can also use the watch to set timers and alarms.

But even these basic tasks are easier to accomplish on traditional watches. Since the ScanWatch Horizon only has a small circular screen that occupies a fraction of the watch’s face, it’s not ideal for reading full notifications. As I wrote in my review, the ScanWatch Horizon’s lack of a touch screen and voice controls also made it less convenient to set times and alarms from my wrist.

If you want a smartwatch that can take some of the burden off your phone when it comes to everyday tasks, the ScanWatch probably isn’t it. Think of the ScanWatch Horizon as a watch first and a smartwatch second. Even though I don’t have my Apple Watch connected to my data plan, it’s still a useful surrogate for my phone. I don’t have to take my phone out of my pocket for tasks like replying to text messages, browsing news headlines while I’m waiting for the elevator or checking out at the cash register at my local Rite Aid.

That’s not the case with the ScanWatch Horizon. I grabbed my phone almost immediately whenever I felt the buzz of a notification. The ScanWatch Horizon feels more like a fashion accessory with built-in health tracking. I loved the way it looked on my wrist, but didn’t find myself using the screen for much other than to check the time or start a workout. Most of my engagement happens within the Withings HealthMate app, which provides a breakdown of bodily metrics and activity.

Read more: How the Apple Watch Can Become an Even Better Fitness Tracker

The ScanWatch Horizon is more limited than the Apple Watch when it comes to mimicking your phone’s functionality, but it has a different advantage. With its stainless-steel casing, rotating laser-engraved bezel and analog watch face, the ScanWatch Horizon is one of the most elegant smartwatches you’ll find.

Amazing battery life

The Apple Watch may have more smarts, but it can’t come close to the ScanWatch Horizon’s battery life. Withings claims the ScanWatch Horizon can last for 30 days on a single charge, far outlasting standard smartwatches. In my experience, the ScanWatch Horizon’s battery depleted to 35% after a little more than a week. I haven’t spent long enough with it to see if it lives up to Withings’ 30-day claim, but that’s impressive nonetheless.

The Apple Watch Series 7, on the other hand, usually lasts for one to two days on a single charge. But that’s also because the Apple Watch has a lot more technology built into it. The OLED color touchscreen alone has a huge impact on the battery compared with the ScanWatch Horizon’s tiny display. Some other wearables like the Garmin Venu 2 Plus that also use OLED displays can last up to nine days. It is possible to get more battery life out of today’s smartwatches without sacrificing a bright color display.

Both watches go deep on health, but have different strengths

If there’s one area where neither watch compromises, it’s health tracking. The ScanWatch Horizon and Apple Watch Series 7 can both measure all of the hallmark health metrics found on high-end smartwatches. That includes electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) measurements — both watches have Food and Drug Administration clearance for this feature — along with general heart rate data, activity and exercise, sleep and blood oxygen saturation levels. Withings’ blood oxygen feature also has FDA clearance, unlike Apple’s.

Even though they share many similarities when it comes to health tracking, the smartwatches have their own strengths. Withings, for example, has more sleep data to offer. You can see a breakdown of how much time you spent in light or deep sleep, sleeping heart rate and breathing disturbances, similar to the Apple Watch. Beyond that, Withings also issues a sleep score that assesses the quality of your sleep, similar to products from Fitbit, Oura and Amazon.

The Apple Watch shows sleep duration, time spent in bed and sleeping respiratory rate. When WatchOS 9 launches this fall, it will also show sleep stages, which addresses one of the Apple Watch’s major shortcomings compared to other sleep trackers. That information is useful too, but having access to a sleep score helps me understand why I might be feeling tired or energetic in the morning. It also motivates me to hit the sack earlier than usual if my sleep score hasn’t been very high lately.

The Apple Watch’s design gives it an advantage over the Withings ScanWatch Horizon in a few other areas. It’s smaller and lighter, which makes the Apple Watch much more comfortable to wear during workouts and to sleep (although I usually charge my Apple Watch overnight instead). Plus, the Apple Watch has built-in GPS for tracking outdoor runs, while the ScanWatch Horizon must rely on your phone’s GPS. The Apple Watch is also more effective at encouraging me to stay active throughout the day since I can customize the display to show my Activity Rings.

The bottom line

The Withings ScanWatch Horizon inherits some of the biggest advantages of analog watches: a classy design and a battery that doesn’t need to be charged nightly. It’s also a top-notch fitness tracker that doesn’t require a subscription to unlock deeper insights like devices from Fitbit and Oura do.

That said, it hasn’t convinced me to stray from more traditional smartwatches like the Apple Watch. I value the convenience of being able to verbally ask my watch to start a workout, or respond to texts from my wrist, more than having the best-looking watch. I might have appreciated the ScanWatch Horizon’s distinguished design more back in 2013 when smartwatches still looked like this. Now that smartwatches have gotten smaller and lighter and they’re more common, they don’t seem out of place on your wrist at weddings and dinner parties.

The ScanWatch Horizon is ideal for those who want both a classic watch and a fitness tracker in one device. I could see why some might prefer the ScanWatch Horizon’s simplicity, since it means the watch itself is less distracting. But the Apple Watch does a better job of freeing you from your phone, and that matters more to me.

Related Topics:

Technologies

Marvel Rivals Season 2 Adds New Vanguard Emma Frost, Krakoa Map

Emma Frost and Ultron are joining the Rivals roster in season 2, and developers are upping the pace to one new hero per month starting with season 3.

After surviving the endless night in New York City with the Fantastic Four, Marvel Rivals players are getting invited to the shores of Krakoa for the start of season 2 on April 11. The game dropped the first trailer for the new season, giving us our first official look at the new heroes, and a developer vision video dropped major news about the future of hero releases. 

The trailer features the former foe and sometimes-leader of the X-Men, Emma Frost, inviting people from across Rivals’ various timelines to the mutant nation of Krakoa, where everyone gets dressed up for a fancy gala — even Wolverine puts on a white tux. The event, however, is unceremoniously interrupted when Ultron shows up preaching extermination. 

We also got a look at some of the cosmetics in season 2, though it’s unclear which are from the shop and which might be in the battle pass. In addition to the dressed-up Wolverine, we also got looks at Magik and Psylocke in the traditional X-Men blue and yellow. Nonmutant guests are also getting in on the fun, with fancy attire for heroes like Cap, Widow and Luna Snow. 

New Heroes and balance changes in Marvel Rivals Season 2

Emma Frost joins the roster as a Vanguard who can project a shield forward, give herself damage reduction by going into her diamond form, and also choke-slam people while insulting them. We got a glimpse at her abilities in her hero trailer, but we don’t have detailed information about her abilities yet — expect that information to drop ahead of next week’s season launch. Ultron is coming in the season 2.5 update, which should be in late May. 

Some team-ups are changing in season 2, including three new team-up abilities that were previewed in the newest developer vision video. 

  • Emma Frost allows Magneto and Psylocke to create illusions of themselves.
  • Doctor Strange teams up with Scarlet Witch allowing her to use small portals to seemingly increase her damage output via a rapid-shooting alternate fire.  
  • Cap finally teams up with Bucky, allowing the Winter Soldier to leap to allies.

A few existing team-ups are getting adjustments, with Psylocke, Winter Soldier and Doctor Strange being removed from older team-ups in favor of new ones, and Namor moving from working with Luna’s anchor to Hulk’s to empower his ultimate with gamma energy. Two team-ups are being removed entirely: Magneto can no longer team up with Scarlet Witch, and Thor is no longer anchoring Cap and Storm.

Rivals announced the full list of season 2 balance changes, including buffs to Peni, Mister Fantastic and Moon Knight, with Strange losing some damage for more survivability (via his new anchor buff) and Rocket getting several adjustments, while Loki and Adam Warlock receive nerfs to their Regeneration Domain and Soul Bond abilities.

Future seasons will be shorter, which means more new heroes

One of the most surprising moments in the developer video was the announcement that, beginning with season 3, seasons will be two months long instead of roughly three. There has been a lot of discussion online about whether Rivals’ pace of new heroes (about eight per year based on three-month seasons) was sustainable. Well, apparently the Rivals devs took that personally and are cranking up that pace to a new hero every month, meaning 12 new heroes per year. 

This feels borderline ludicrous compared with other hero shooters that average about three new heroes per year, or even MOBAs like League of Legends, which has averaged about four new champions per year over the past five years. Rivals benefits from having an overflowing stable of Marvel characters to pull from rather than inventing their own hero concepts, and compared with Overwatch, the developers seem less worried about mechanical overlap in their heroes, as seen with many support ultimates. Still, a new hero every month feels unheard of for a hero shooter.

New Krakoa map and competitive changes

Season 2 is adding two new maps, including a Krakoa-themed domination map at the season’s start. Yggsgard: Royal Palace (domination) and Tokyo 2099: Shin-Shibuya (convergence) will rotate out of the map pool for ranked modes, though they’ll still be available in quick play and custom games.

The threshold for competitive picks and bans, which currently only happen in diamond-ranked lobbies, will be lowered to gold 3. Players in Eternity or One Above All ranks will only be able to duo queue, instead of queuing with larger groups — a measure that’s likely intended to keep high-level teams from stomping lobbies. 

Speaking of ranks, season 2 will drop everyone by 9 divisions, which is equal to 3 ranks. That means players in Eternity will drop to diamond, and any players at platinum 3 or below will start their climb from bronze 3 again. (AGAIN… AGAIN.)

Rivals developers also announced that individual player performance will be weighted higher when determining competitive progress after a match, meaning if your stats outperform your team’s, you’ll earn more for winning and drop less for losing. This change can help elevate smurfs and other high-skill players in lower-ranked lobbies by getting them into their appropriate ranks faster. However, it can also lead to players stat-farming, instead of playing in a way that is most effective for winning games. Overall, given that Rivals doesn’t use any sort of competitive placement matches, this should be a net positive for the game.

Other announcements

Rivals is adding new skin recolors to certain hero skins and (finally) giving players the option to gift costumes to their friends so they can surprise someone for their birthday, which you definitely did not forget about.  

Missions are changing a bit, with the addition of weekly missions and a redistribution of where battle-pass-progressing chrono tokens are earned. The devs framed this as creating a «smoother expectation» of how to earn chrono tokens, but the surface-level description sounds like they’re just making it harder to earn battle pass progress over the season by tucking away more progress under missions with shorter time limits.

The developer vision update also gave us our first look at the competitive distribution, showing how many Rivals players are in each tier as of season 1.5. 

The Hellfire Gala trailer says season 2 will start on April 11 UTC. While it doesn’t give a specific start time, expect the between-seasons maintenance to finish sometime in the middle of the night in the US.

For more on Marvel Rivals, check out which heroes and roles you should play and how to get free skins.

Continue Reading

Technologies

Nintendo Switch 2 Preorders: New Tariffs Mean US Customers Will Have to Wait

We’ve got all the need-to-know details about the new console, but Nintendo’s recent announcement has caused some uncertainty.

It’s finally here. Well, almost. The Nintendo Direct event on April 3 gave us our first concrete information about its highly anticipated Switch 2 console. In addition to the official release date (June 5), we also got details about the specs, price and some hot new titles. Preorders were originally supposed to open on April 9, but the new tariffs mean that US customers will have to wait a little longer. Below, we’ve rounded up everything you want to know, including when and how you’ll be able to preorder one of these nifty new handhelds.

Where to preorder the Nintendo Switch 2

When can I preorder the Nintendo Switch 2

Preorders we’re originally set to open on April 9, and for most countries, that is still the case. However, in light of the new US tariffs, Nintendo has delayed preorders in the United States while it assesses «the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions.» As of now, there are no details about when US preorders will start, but we’re closely monitoring the situation and will update this page as soon as new information is available.

Read More: How Nintendo is Combating Switch 2 Scalpers

How much will the Nintendo Switch 2 cost?

The standalone console will start at $450, which is a $150 increase compared to the original console. You can also bundle it with Mario Kart World for $500, which saves you $30 compared to purchasing the game and system separately.

When will the Nintendo Switch 2 be released?

The Switch 2 will officially begin shipping on June 5. As of now, Nintendo has stated that the preorder delay in the US will not affect the release date.

When can I preorder Nintendo Switch 2 accessories?

Nintendo and several other retailers already have preorder pages for controllers, cases and other accessories, as well as games. It’s likely that preorders will begin at the same time as consoles, but there’s no official confirmation as of yet.

When can I preorder Nintendo Switch 2 games?

As with accessories, we expect that Switch 2 game preorders will be available when console preorders go live.

Nintendo Switch 2 preorders: What are people saying?

Feeling about the Switch 2 are mixed — to say the least. While the new console certainly offers some nice upgrades over it’s predecessor, including a larger screen, improved Joy-Cons and boosted storage, many are wondering if it’s enough to justify a fairly significant price hike. Especially when you consider with the new $80 price tag of its two biggest launch-window games — Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza. CNET gaming expert Scott Stein sums it up as a console that «feels a lot like an updated version of a system many people already own.» Additionally, the confusion about preorder availability has many gamers wondering if they’d be better off waiting a year or two and grabbing a refurbished console at a lower price.

Continue Reading

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for April 5, #1386

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle No. 1,386 for April 5.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Still recovering from yesterday’s tricky Wordle? Today’s Wordle puzzle is a little easier, although the first letter isn’t one I often guess. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

There are two vowels and one sometimes vowel in today’s Wordle answer.

Wordle hint No. 3: Start letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with the letter F.

Wordle hint No. 4: Under the sea

Today’s Wordle answer is sometimes associated with ocean waves, and also with soap.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to something that is frothy or creamy.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is FOAMY.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, April 4,  No. 1385 was KRILL.

Recent Wordle answers

March 31, No, 1381: BOOTY

April 1, No. 1382: JEWEL

April 2, No. 1383: CURSE.

April 3, No. 1384: SHEAR

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © Verum World Media