Withings Activité Pop

You don’t always want a flashy smartwatch on your wrist, but you'll probably always want all of the fitness tracking tech, even if it's plugged inside a stylish wearable.

That’s where the Withings Activité Pop comes in. It gives you a lot of the step tracking features you see on a normal smartwatch, but combines them with an analog watchface, making for a wearable that no-one would assume was a fitness device.

The problem Withings faces is this market is already becoming crowded with products such as the Misfit Phase – but the Activité Pop doesn't cost as much, so it's got that going for it. Price alone is rarely enough though, so how does Withings wearable compare to the rest of the market?

Withings Activité Pop price and release date 

• Retails for $129.95 (£99.99, about AU$160)

The Withings Activité Pop isn’t all that cheap at $129.95 (£99.99, about AU$160) but offers a lot for the money and matches up well with a lot of the competition in this market.

In fact, the Withings Activité Pop is actually at the cheaper end, with the similar Misfit Phase for example costing £165 ($175, AU$246). In the UK we've also seen the price of the Activité Pop drop slightly too as it originally launched at £120.

Design

• Slim design, unlike some other smartwatches
• Some bold color choices that may not suit a professional
• Easy to read screen and comfortable to wear strap

The Withings Activité Pop won’t have a design that everybody loves, but it’s good to have a smartwatch choice that isn’t powered by a full-blown AMOLED display you need to charge every night.

Instead, the Activité Pop is much like any normal analog watch, with a watchface you’ve seen on every other normal watch you’ve ever owned. It has a glass front, with a slightly raised design. You won’t be able to interact with the watch face and there's no crown to program the watch or to change any features.

Instead everything is controlled through your smartphone. But the lack of buttons to press means you can always see the time, and you can see your step count in the smaller counter on the bottom right.

The step counter reads from 0 to 100 and works as a percentage of your step count for the whole day. If you set your target in the app to 12,000 and walk 6,000 steps you'll see it reach the 50% point.

It's useful to be able to change your step target and still see your percentage completed without the Activité Pop having to include a digital screen.

The strap for the Activité Pop is comfortable to wear thanks to the durable silicone material,, but it can feel a little bit weak when you’re out for a run and slide about on your wrist. The silicone is a good material and won’t irritate your wrist like some fitness trackers, but it’s not the best for keeping it in place.

We didn't find ourselves wearing it all day - especially when typing at a desk - which means it can get left behind quite easily and you'll not always be tracking your steps. It is lightweight though so you likely won't notice the Activité Pop  when you're out walking.

The Activité Pop may be attractive in its overall design, but it might not work in a professional or formal setting, especially if you go for the pink option. You have the choice of four colors: blue - pictured throughout this review - black, pink or off-white.

The off-white color isn’t very attractive, while the pink is particularly bold. If you’re looking for a formal watch you may be better off looking toward the Withings Steel HR.

The strap is easy to take on and off though and because it doesn't have to include a huge battery Withings has managed to keep the device slim and close to your wrist.

Specs, performance and fitness 

• Step, swim and sleep tracking are all provided by the Activité Pop
• No heart rate tracker or advanced fitness features provided

The specs of the Activité Pop are nothing impressive, this won’t give you the same level of fitness tracking as some of the high end Fitbits (like the Fitbit Blaze or Surge) or a Garmin running watch.

But if you’re looking for a tracker to record how many steps you do and note down the odd run, this should suit you just fine.

It will take into account steps based on your movement and will also translate that into distance you’ve traveled. Distance tracking is not super accurate as there’s no GPS in the Withings, so you’ll want to use a running app on your phone if you want to record where you’ve been and how long it took.

But if you're just after a tracker to see if you've reached your daily steps, we found the Activité Pop to be a great option.

If you’re on a fitness drive, the Withings Activité Pop will also track your calories burnt, but it won’t be as accurate as some people want it to be as it doesn't monitor your heart rate like some other trackers. You may want to track your calories through another monitor if you’re after complete accuracy.

The Activité Pop can also be taken in the pool. It will automatically track your swimming and will give you details on calories burned as well as how long you’ve been in the pool.

The last thing the Activité Pop can do is sleep tracking, and the size of this smartwatch makes it comfortable to wear in bed. 

Large Android Wear watches can get in the way when you’re sleeping, but we found the Activité Pop to not have that problem.

To the best of our knowledge this was tracking us well and the details made sense compared to how we’d felt we'd slept that night. It will note the time you fell asleep, how long for, your sleep cycles and whether there are any sleep interruptions.

Much like exercise, the Activité Pop doesn’t go into too much detail for sleep tracking.

A big shame of the Activité Pop is the lack of a heart rate monitor. At this sort of price point we’ve come to expect heart rate tracking tech, like you get on the Fitbit Charge 2, but that would have made this device a lot thicker if it was included.

If you like the design of this watch and need a heart rate tracker, the Withings Steel HR may suit you well.

App and compatibility

• Slick and useful Health Mate app that plugs into a lot of other fitness applications

The app for the Withings Activité Pop is called Health Mate and it’s one of the simpler fitness tracker apps you’ll find on the market right now.

Health Mate opens with a menu showing off your steps, goal and a leaderboard you can set up with your friends.

For steps it will show the number you’ve done today - when you’ve synced the watch with it - and you can set a goal too.

You can switch that to whatever target you want, but it starts at 10,000 as that’s the standard target most people like to meet. 

This number will then change your percentage meter on the watch itself. For example, if you change it to 8,000 your watch will show 50% complete when you've completed 4,000 steps.

There’s also a section to show off your sleep tracking, which is simple to read and easy to keep up with.

The app also provides sections for heart rate tracking and your weight. You’ll be able to use weight by tracking it and inputting the information yourself, but for heart rate you won’t be able to use this device.

Sadly you also can't include data from other devices, such as a chest strap, in the app so you'll need to use a separate service for tracking your heart rate.

The interface within the app is slick and attractive, but more importantly it's simple to navigate, which you don’t always get with fitness applications.

If you’re buying this device to track your steps rather than for full blown workouts, you’ll be happy with what the app is able to do.

If you are looking for a little extra, you can also partner with MyFitnessPal, RunKeeper, Nest and Nike+, so you can inform those apps of your step count each day. 

We connected it with MyFitnessPal and found it a really simple process. It’s useful to see your steps appear within MyFitnessPal without having to input it ourselves, so you're bound to save time by setting this up.

As for compatibility, you’ll likely be able to use this with your phone if you have a recent iPhone or Android device. There’s no support for Windows Phone devices though, which is a bit of a shame.

If your iPhone is running iOS 7 or higher software, the Withings Activité Pop will be compatible with it. As for Android, your device will need to be running Android 4.3 software or higher, but there are a few exceptions so check this list before you buy the Activité Pop

Battery life

• Very useful 6+ month battery life
• No way to recharge, have to buy a new watch battery

One of the biggest drawbacks of owning a smartwatch or fitness tracker is having another thing to charge at night when you’re sleeping.

The Withings Activité Pop avoids that problem entirely by offering up 6 or more months of battery life. It works on a normal watch battery, which you can buy from most jewelers.

We haven’t had time to test the battery life exactly, but with 6 months of usage promised it's unlikely to let you down.

Another benefit of this is you can always use this for sleep tracking as you won’t need to charge it overnight either.

Compared to a smartwatch that encourages you to use sleep tracking features but then doesn’t give you a time to charge it up, the Withings Activité Pop is the perfect opportunity to track your sleep and not have to worry about battery life.

Withings has managed to create a good-looking wearable device that doesn't cost the world, but still looks like a high-quality watch.

There's not much that's new about the Activité Pop, but it's packaged in an attractive design at a reasonably low price and that's probably enough to sell most people on a fitness tracker.

There's a lot of competition in this space right now though, but there are a few reasons you should consider the Activité Pop when buying a new fitness tracker.

Why you should buy the Withings Activité Pop

The small, attractive design is the main reason to pick up the Activité Pop. When wearing this Withings wearable we received compliments on the look of our watch, but no-one knew it was a fitness tracker until we explained.

That's likely down to its small size and conventional timepiece looks, so if you want a fitness tracker and would prefer it was disguised, this is a great choice for you.

Battery life of the Activité Pop is another big selling point. Six months is a good amount of time to get from a single watch battery, and not having to think about charging your smartwatch is a big benefit.

The Health Mate app is also a big bonus of the Activité Pop. If you want something simple to use, this is a great app and it even connects with other health-based services to give you a few extra features Withings doesn't offer.

Why you shouldn’t buy the Withings Activité Pop 

The lack of a heart rate tracker on the Activité Pop does disappoint us a little, considering most other fitness trackers at this price would include this. It has clearly been left out to keep the tracker slim though, so you should go for the Withings Steel HR if you want to know your heart beat during workouts.

The Withings Activité Pop also isn't the go-to device if you're looking to improve your fitness.

If you want that, we recommend checking out our best fitness tracker guide, which includes a lot of better options for you to monitor your health kick. 

The fitness features are fine on the Activité Pop if you just want to track your steps, but this isn't anywhere near as comprehensive as a lot of the devices from Fitbit or even Jawbone.

First reviewed: February 2017

Competition

Not a fan of the Withings Activité Pop? Here are some alternative devices you may prefer.

Withings Steel HR

Fancy something a little more premium? The Withings Steel HR comes with a heart rate tracker included as well, so this is the ultimate fitness device for all those people who don’t want to wear a Fitbit.

It’s even more stylish than the Withings Activité Pop and will probably suit a more formal setting as well, but it’s going to cost you a little bit extra.

• Read the hands on review: Withings Steel HR

Fitbit Charge 2

When recommending fitness trackers, it’s very hard to not take notice of the Charge 2. You may not want this kind of device if you’re looking at more traditional watches, but we enjoyed a lot of the features the Charge 2 offered.

Go for this as your next fitness tracker if you’re looking for a lot more fitness features on your device and think you need GPS plus phone notifications through to your wrist, but can live without the subtle styling of the Activité Pop.

• Read the full review: Fitbit Charge 2