Withings BeamO reviewed: your home health toolkit

Science fiction has long painted the idea of a medical scanner that can say exactly what’s wrong with you. With the Withings BeamO, it’s one step closer.

It’s 2025, and while there are no flying cars, we’re gradually walking closer to a world where inspirations of science fictions are clear.

Isaac Asimov’s vision of cars that drive themselves (automatobiles) are one step closer with self-driving computers, and there are universal translators being built into earphones, such as with the latest AirPods generation.

We’re not quite at the point where we have holodecks from Star Trek, nor do we have huge space ships that can take us really anywhere, but everything comes in little steps. Small developments can make a big change, and the crazy far out ideas ventured from science fiction can help inspire us to a place of “what’s next” in technology.

Another gadget in Star Trek may well be closer than you think. No, it’s not the transporter, though there are rumblings in research on aspects of this, kinda sorta.

No, instead it’s what Voyager‘s Emergency Medical Hologram carries, as does TNG’s Beverly Crusher and The Original Series’ Bones: a medical tricorder.

In Star Trek parlay, a tricorder is a scanning device, used to provide information about something quickly, making a medical tricorder like that, but for medical conditions, used to help a doctor diagnose and treat quickly.

In 2025, French health technology company Withings has something pretty close to that ready for people today.

What is the BeamO?

Almost like today’s interpretation of medical tricorder, the Withings BeamO is a compact scanner you can use to learn useful information about a person simply be touching it to you, holding it with your fingers, or scanning it over your head.

It’s not quite a medical tricorder, but it’s definitely the closest concept we’ve seen, and can actually be used and purchased by people today.

If anything more aptly describes the Withings BeamO, it’s probably the multitool, the pocket gadget that for many includes a good 10 to 30 useful tools that can be kept on your person and in your pocket.

The BeamO is like that. It’s a compact gadget that includes an electrocardiograph, SpO2 blood pulse oximeter, digital stethoscope listening device, and an infrared thermometer.

These aren’t entirely new devices for Withings, either. It’s not just smushing a bunch of features together in one place. Rather, they have all appeared on prior Withings gadgets.

Case in point, the ECG is on a number of Withings watches including the ScanWatch Nova alongside the pulse oximeter, the digital stethoscope was a feature on the BPM Core blood pressure cuff, and the infrared thermometer has its been its own gadget from Withings.

In the BeamO, all of those features are housed under the one handheld device.

What does it do?

Withings’ BeamO has the privilege of sitting in a category all on its own, because there is simply nothing out there that does what this gadget does. Not entirely, anyway.

There are certainly other devices that cover aspects of the BeamO, but nothing collectively.

You’d never realise it from the name alone, but the Withings BeamO can listen to your heart and lungs, check your blood oxygen, run an ECG, and check your temperature, all in the one gadget that looks a little like a slim stick.

That’s a lot of features to pack into a small gadget, and one that even lets you pick the person you’re running the tests on using a directional pad and small screen.

Does it do the job?

The feature set is different, but does the BeamO work?

The answer depends greatly on what you aim to get out of using the BeamO, or more specifically, if you plan to share any of this information with a doctor.

For instance, the temperature seems to work really well, using infrared technology to measure skin temperature while holding the BeamO above the skin. Not directly to it, just in front of it.

Measuring using the infrared sensor is easy and non-invasive, and gets a measurement without fuss.

Next up is the double shot combo of ECG and pulse oximeter, technologies that up to this point have needed you to own them in a smartwatch.

Like an Apple Watch or even the Withings equivalent, these can take an electrocardiograph and blood oxygen reading. Unlike both of those, the BeamO can take it at the same time, providing simultaneous readings if you need them.

To do this, adults need to hold the BeamO’s two sensors and watch a graph on the side, applying a small amount of pressure to hold a dot in a graph of colour to allow the system to monitor your vitals in a 30 second period.

It sounds complex, but it’s not, and more amounts to being like a tiny game. At the end of this tiny game, you get a result, and the Withings app records the metrics. Voila.

Adults are the main target here, but kids don’t get to run these tests. Withings hasn’t said exactly why, but we suspect the reason why stems from measurements and the way the algorithms to run this hardware have been set up.

The last of these is the digital stethoscope, a technology that listens to your lungs, heart, and other cavities in your body, and measures the sounds.

You need to be in a quiet place to make this feature work, but even when you are, the microphone recording tends to be noisier than expected.

Some of the positions Withings asks you to record can be complicated for a single person to do by themselves, making the stethoscope’s use less ideal. You may want to ask a friend to help, and to be honest, even if you do everything right, neither the app nor BeamO always ends the process properly.

When it does, your phone will get the data, just like it will with the other functions, but we didn’t find a heap of insights that were beneficial, and it just might be confusing and unnecessary.

It’s a little like the baby dopplers that exist, which can be jarring and outright concerning if you misinterpret the sounds you hear.

Withings’ digital stethoscope is a like that, but also confusing because you don’t really gain a lot of insights. If nothing is wrong, you’ll probably hear nothing useful, and so the outcome can feel largely pointless.

It could just be a case that we’re not there yet in terms of finding a use for the digital stethoscope, and over time, Withings will roll out improvements that make better use of this addition.

Right now, it’s nice to have as part of the overall feature set, but not the only feature making the BeamO clever.

What does it need?

As clever as the BeamO is, it’s difficult to say with a straight face. The name is just that… weird.

One wonders if the team at Withings were watching the classic “Got Milk?” ad from the 90s when someone accidentally names “Oreo” from needing milk to moisten their mouth when saying “I don’t know”.

The same could have really happened here. Executives and marketing people sitting in a boardroom trying to decide on the perfect name, and when saying “Don’t know”, for some reason “BeamO” just came out.

It is a weird name, not least because it doesn’t sound at all professional given that it’s a relatively professional gadget.

Fortunately, the name is about the only off thing about the gadget, which serves as a useful addition to the family toolset. Not just useful, it’s clever.

In one gadget, you can quickly check signals and vitals that matter without needing a special breed of smartwatch, a point that’s important and almost prescient since wearables packing these features are expensive and aren’t designed to be shared.

By contrast, the BeamO is meant to be shared, able to be used not just with members of your family which will track the metrics for in the Withings app, but with guests who won’t. A guest mode means if someone drops by needs a quick check, you can use this assortment of tools for someone else.

That’s clever. The BeamO is a clever addition to your life.

Is it worth your money?

The price is where things get a little complex, but only really on first glance.

BeamO is a different class of gadget, so while its $499 price point can feel off-putting at first, we actually think it might be better value than you initially expect.

A decent digital thermometer is typically close to a hundred, give or take sales, while a pulse oximeter usually between $30 and $50.

Digital stereoscopes are still in their infancy, and the jury is still out on whether they’re useful, but the inclusion is likely saving you some peace of mind in having to explain what a $20 manual stethoscope is looking for because, well, you may not have the medical degree or training to put that to good use. EKO Health makes one, but it’s not easily found in Australia and is priced even higher than the Withings BeamO.

The most difficult integration is the electrocardiograph, the ECG, a gadget you can’t easily find on its own compact device. Most ECGs are larger even when they’re portable, and certainly not designed to be pocketable, while the BeamO is.

The few gadgets with an ECG inside are smartwatches, of which there are quite a few since Withings launched the first ScanWatch and managed to get TGA approval for the tech in Australia, essentially opening the gates for other smartwatch makers to do the same.

Now any smartwatch in the mid-to-high-end includes ECG technology for the one person wearing it, though you typically need to spend $500 minimum for the privilege.

Given the BeamO is $499 and can be shared, the price actually makes sense. You need to break it down to get there because $500 for a consumer medical tool seems like a lot, but it’s actually solid value all things considered.

Yay or nay?

Even the strange name isn’t enough to dissuade this reviewer from the practicality of what is a clearly useful gadget.

Withings BeamO is a clever addition to the home and for the parent toolkit, providing useful features that you can grow with.

There are definite ways it can improve, and the digital stethoscope’s reliability plus any potential insights are where we’d focus on. But there’s a solid gadget in the Withings BeamO worth having in your life.

It’s your home health toolkit in a pocket size. Practical and properly useful. Recommended.