Standing on a scale could tell you more about your arterial health, thanks to a new feature Withings is adding to its Body Cardio Scale.
It’s not just the wearable you might wear on your arm that can help keep you healthy, but other gadgets in your life, as well. You can sleep on a sleep analyser, you can take your blood pressure with a gadget, and you can even get your temperature sent to your phone, so it’s pretty clear health technology is coming home.
The humble scale might be the next thing to get some of that technology, and Withings appears to be at the forefront, thanks largely in part to how it has an option for every single one of those gadgets we just mentioned.
Its latest addition isn’t so much a new gadget, but rather a feature that it’s adding to one, with the Body Cardio Scale getting a new feature this week known as “Vascular Age”.
Essentially, Vascular Age is an understanding of your arterial health, measuring the time between blood ejection in the aorta and the arrival of blood flow in your heart, analysing that and noting it in weight variations detected on the scale.
It’s complex, but it essentially allows the scale to analyse your Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) which measures are arterial stiffness, and can provide a warning sign to other health conditions, such as cholesterol problems organ failure, stroke, heart attack, Alzheimer’s, and more. Withings is looking at this, and measuring the speed at which the pulse of your blood pressure makes its way through the circulatory system.
To do this, Withings is using a similar technology to what it uses in its Sleep Analyser, as it channels ballistocardiography to detect heart beats in the feet, while also using impedance plethysmography to look for the wave of your pulse. The result is a Vascular Age, which Withings says takes the PWV measurement and compares it to physical characteristics and a person’s age.
It means you might find out whether you’re at optimum health or the opposite, and may provide a cardiovascular check-up in less than 30 seconds that could send you on your way to expert advice from a doctor, telling you perhaps to exercise or diet in an effort to prolong your life and avoid illness.
“Body Cardio redefines how people use connected scales by providing them with a tool to manage their weight as well as their cardiovascular health,” said Mathieu Letombe, CEO of Withings.
“By simply stepping on their scale each morning, Body Cardio will provide the type of cardiovascular assessment people normally only receive at a doctor’s office,” he said.
“By linking the information to age, an index everyone understands, we are making it easy for people to stay informed and motivated to make healthy choices.”
The Vascular Age technology is rolling out to owners of the Body Cardio scale as well as those with the previous Nokia Body Cardio scale, alongside other features, such as BMI readings, heart rate, and more. As for the price, in-store models will see the feature, too, with the Withings Body Cardio for $249 at JB HiFi stores across Australia.
