The truth is, Jeff Bezos managed Amazon's operations much better than many realize. The company hasn't been the same since he moved to a different role, and it has declined significantly since he stepped away, especially with AI now and the company cutting thousands of jobs to boost stock performance at the expense of service.
As an update, I have now spent hours over two days trying to get a return label for my BPM Vision and cuff.
Withings has confirmed in writing that my full-refund eligibility is protected, acknowledged that I am ready to return everything immediately, and escalated the issue multiple times.
Still no label.
Today I was literally talking to two support agents, and neither could accomplish the incredibly complicated task of… emailing me a return label.
The cuff also started separating at the seam after only a few uses.
I actually liked the BPM Vision. But this customer service experience has completely killed the brand for me. At this point, I’m done wasting my time and will let Amex deal with it. I will update here if anything changes.
Quick update to my previous post.
Withings confirmed in writing today that my full-refund eligibility for the BPM Vision and cuff is preserved while they resolve the return-label issue.
That is good, and I appreciate the confirmation.
What still surprises me is that a previously authorized return, still within the 30-day window, requires escalation to senior support just to generate another label. I really don’t have time to keep tracking this and waiting for another internal escalation. It has turned a supposedly easy return into a real-time intensive hassle. Maybe I will get my money back. We will see.
I will update again if and when they actually send it. Overall, I’m very disappointed with the return experience, especially given how heavily Withings advertises easy returns and how long the refund process can apparently take.
My Bevel AI requests are timing out or not going through. Is it down?
I recently reviewed the Withings BodyFit after comparing it with a GE scale and a DEXA scan, and I have also had a chance to test it alongside a RENPHO scale. So far, the BPM Vision is the Withings product I like the most.
I compared it side by side with a CONNEQT Pulse, which is a more advanced home blood pressure device, and my Omron BP5450 over multiple sessions. Obviously, this was not a clinical validation, but it was useful for comparing repeatability and the overall experience.
The Withings consistently gave me the tightest groups of readings. The Omron usually read a little higher but stayed within the same general range. The CONNEQT varied more and tended to read higher, especially on diastolic pressure.
What surprised me most was how quiet the BPM Vision is. The Omron and CONNEQT pumps are noticeably louder, and I can feel myself anticipating the squeeze and tensing up. The Withings is much calmer, which matters when you are trying to get a true resting measurement.
The three-reading mode is simple, the display is excellent, and the Wi-Fi syncing may be my favorite feature. I do not need my phone nearby or have to fight with Bluetooth every time. I take the measurement, and it automatically appears in the Withings app and Apple Health.
It is not cheap, and Withings definitely charges a premium for its ecosystem. But after using it alongside the other monitors, I think this one comes close to earning that premium. It is quiet, consistent, easy to use, and convenient enough that I may actually keep using it instead of eventually leaving it in a drawer.
My main feature request would be an optional five-minute countdown before the measurement begins, since resting beforehand is an important part of getting a good reading. I also hope Withings can get the ECG feature cleared for U.S. users soon, since it is already available in Europe.
Overall, you are paying more, but in this case it does feel like you are getting a more premium device.
Has anyone experienced this issue with SMS check-ins from Whoop, and is there a fix? From Whoop AI SMS Check-in: I just tried creating a new set now—this afternoon, tonight, and tomorrow morning.
Same problem: the scheduling service is still down, so the new check-ins didn’t stick.
As some of you know, I have reviewed a few Withings products recently. I decided to test the return process as well, and so far it has been terrible.
The order status page does not seem to work and just links me to another page. I logged into my Withings account using the same email address I used for the purchase, but the account shows no orders at all, even though I was logged in when I placed the order.
At this point, it honestly feels like Withings is intentionally making the return process difficult. I contacted support through chat, and the representative had me jumping through hoops without resolving anything yet. I already provided the order number, and now they are asking me to provide serial numbers for the products.
Why is an order number not enough to locate the purchase and start a return?
I got tired of wondering which scale was closer, so I paid for a DEXA and compared it with the Withings BodyFit 2 and my much cheaper GE 8-electrode dual frequency scale during the same week.
Both underestimated my body fat. The BodyFit 2 was low by 6.7 percentage points and the GE was low by 4.5. Both overstated lean mass too: about 17 pounds high on the BodyFit 2 and 11 pounds high on the GE.
The surprise was skeletal muscle. The BodyFit 2 was within about 5 pounds of the DEXA-based number, while the GE was off by roughly 30.
Then I pulled up a GE report from nine months ago, before I had lost a lot of weight. Muscle mass and fat-free weight were exactly the same as they are now. Bone mass and body water were also unchanged, and BMR had gone up by one calorie. Apparently I lost all that weight while everything except fat stayed frozen in time.
The biggest letdown was that all the extra frequencies in the BodyFit 2 did not translate into better body-fat or lean-mass accuracy in my test. The cheaper GE was actually closer on both. However, the GE’s long-term trends look almost useless if its algorithm is going to hold lean mass constant no matter how much weight I lose.
I’m still deciding whether the BodyFit 2 is worth keeping. The PWV, Wi-Fi syncing and display are nice, but I no longer see the body-composition numbers as a reason to own it.
At this point, I trust smart scales for weight and rough direction. For anything that actually matters, a DEXA once or twice a year makes a lot more sense.
I am also planning to test a RENPHO scale later this week and will compare, which uses dual frequencies like the GE but might have better algorithms.
What is the point of Whoop’s blood pressure feature?
I honestly think it is ridiculous how little Whoop has done with the blood pressure feature. Oura appears to be doing much more with the data from a tiny ring by estimating nightly blood pressure changes and showing meaningful trends and percentages of dips at night.
With Whoop, the estimates seem to stay close to whatever actual blood pressure reading you originally enter. Can someone explain how that is useful? If the feature is mostly repeating the number I provided, what is it actually measuring or calculating?
At this point, the MG band and the additional subscription cost feel borderline scammy. Whoop marketed blood pressure insights as a major feature, but it currently feels more like an unfinished estimate built around a manually entered reading than something providing real health insight.
Am I missing something, or has anyone actually seen their Whoop blood pressure estimates provide useful changes or trends over time?
I really love my Whoop and the app is great but stuff like this just reduces trust.
I received my BodyFit and have been comparing it with a much cheaper GE body dual frequency 8-electrode composition scale. So far, I would say the experience has been lackluster at best.
Withings+ feels buggy and slow, and the app does not feel nearly as polished as apps from Oura, Whoop, or Bevel. For a company selling premium health products, the software experience feels surprisingly dated and unfinished.
One thing that really bothers me is how Withings handles BMR and RMR. The number shown in the app appears to be pulled from Apple Health, where it is classified as basal energy, but the number itself looks much more like an RMR estimate. How does a company focused on health metrics not clearly explain the difference between BMR and RMR or even identify which calculation it is actually using?
I also do not like how the app labels changes between readings as gaining fat, losing muscle, or gaining muscle. I can take two measurements only a few minutes apart and see shifts between muscle and fat. That is clearly normal measurement noise, not an actual biological change, yet the app presents it like something meaningful happened. It makes the data look more dramatic and less trustworthy than it really is.
The GE app also makes it very easy to generate a detailed body composition report with illustrations, segmental readings, fat, muscle, water, bone mass, and other measurements. The Withings health report is surprisingly basic and leaves out a lot of the detailed information that is already available inside the app.
Another small but annoying issue is that the scale has no sound or vibration to let you know when the scan is finished. At a $279 price point, why not add some kind of feedback so the user knows the measurement is complete? You have to stand there staring down at the display and waiting. It does not feel premium.
The hardware and segmental measurements may be more advanced than the GE, but the overall experience does not feel significantly better. Right now, the GE seems like the better product for the money. Withings charges a premium price, but the app, reports, and overall user experience do not feel premium at all.
Overall: at this moment in time a beta product, app, and AI at a premium price. Withings+ should be free because it is not ready, buggy, and slow. Still, I give it to Withings for trying to innovate in the space and for having a web interface for some of the data.
Have you noticed that these AIs have gone from humble to controlling, argumentative, and passive-aggressive? Anthropic has an ego problem that is getting worse by the day and is destroying its models. I refuse to pay for a tool that will lecture and argue with me all day while still failing at basic tasks. And yes, Anthropic is now the worst and takes the cake. OpenAI has recently solved some of these problems.
This is a little puzzling to me. Withings says your legs should not touch each other during a body composition reading, but the scale is pretty narrow.
I am a bigger man, and my thighs touch when I stand on it normally. Am I supposed to force my legs apart and stand awkwardly every time, or does the contact not really affect the reading that much?
It feels a little ridiculous to give that instruction and then make the platform too narrow for larger people to follow it properly. Has anyone else dealt with this, and did you find a way to get consistent readings? Some stuff Withings does is just weird and might explain some of the horrible reviews on Amazon for their products. One other thing: on my GE, the numbers do not fluctuate much, but on this scale, they change with almost every reading, within minutes of taking the measurements. How is this reliable?
I currently have a GE eight electrode scale and mainly use it to track muscle and fat changes while losing weight. I have been considering upgrading to the Withings BodyFit because of the additional frequencies, segmental analysis, and more detailed muscle, fat, and water data.
However, I have seen several comments about inaccurate or inconsistent body fat and muscle readings, including some fairly large differences compared with DEXA scans.
For those who actually own the BodyFit, has it been consistent enough to track changes over time? Are the segmental muscle and fat measurements genuinely useful, or do they mostly feel like estimates and marketing?
Would you recommend buying the BodyFit now, or waiting for Body Scan 2 with the additional sensors and cardiovascular metrics? My main priority is getting the best possible muscle and fat trend data.
The six lead ECG, glucose resilience, nerve response, and other Body Scan 2 features sound very cool, but are they actually useful and convenient in everyday use, or are they features most people stop checking after the first few weeks?
Also, has anyone used the GLP 1 features or coaching on the BodyFit? Did they provide anything useful beyond what you already get from normal weight, muscle, fat, and nutrition tracking?
So Claude is more busy repeating and harassing users about their safety precautions than actually providing answers and content. Whoever is doing this and implementing it at these companies should be fired because the implementation is redundant and often amounts to harassment after you tell it to repeatedly stop. It promises to stop but then continues to abuse you and spend time lecturing you. That is a major failure, and because of this harassment, tokens are most likely being used in Anthropic’s favor. Not cool at all. And if tokens are being used for this abuse, then litigation should maybe come out of it. In my opinion, this company appears to not have good intentions and that is ran by a very obnoxious CEO.
So Sonnet 5.0 basically refuses to do any work and tells me how it’s going to be after I pay more than $100 a month. Anthropic is a disaster. They started off lecturing our government, and now they are lecturing their customers. A company that manipulates excessively. So now you pay, and it will tell you how it’s going to be and when it chooses to run a basic analysis or check its work😀. That company has some nerve and a bloated ego. Their models aren’t even that great. Usually these companies wait longer before they start treating customers this way, but it is Anthropic that is scary and not the AI.
I just want to say how great Bevel has become. The AI is really useful and helpful. It would also be great to have ChatGPT and Claude integrated and better GLP1 tracking and monitoring. Yes, there is a fee, and Oura has a fee, and Whoop has a fee, but they’re businesses, and AI and cloud compute are not cheap. I use all three with the newest hardware and an Apple Watch Ultra, and they all are so helpful and game changing.
The sync with Oura is malfunctioning again today but worked for about three days. Bevel is a great app though and is more powerful in many ways than what Whoop and Oura have.
Just got my Oura Ring 5 in Stealth Black. The tech itself is great, but I’m a little underwhelmed by the color. For the price, the shades of color just don’t look that premium to me.
I’m thinking I should gotten the Brushed Silver, but could just be one of those thoughts... I wear an Apple Watch Ultra and a Whoop 5.0 MG during the day, so I feel like the brushed silver might actually match that setup a lot better and look more like a regular ring. Anyone seen both finishes in person and anyone have preference between the two colors?
Also, on the tech side, as good as these rings are, I feel like we’re maxing out what PPG sensors can do. Flashing lights can only go so far. Anyone else waiting for actual hardware breakthroughs that can track real chemistry, which is coming probably in the next couple of years?
I am coming from Oura Ring 4 Silver.