Smart Body Analyzer - big brother is watching
diy
Posts: 6,473
I'm an annoyingly difficult person to buy gifts for, as when I want something I buy it. I normally research it to death and shop around to get the best deal. Spending days to save a £10er.. So the chances are when it comes to my birthday, you are going to buy me something I probably don't want. That is, if I haven't bought it already.
Mrs DIY does her best and normally buys something that fits both categories, or she gives up and buys something she wants.
This time she bought me a Withings Smart Body Analyser WS-50. A whatings? I here you say - yes I'd never heard of them either, but lots of cool social media types who I'm sure were not paid to say so, seem the think they are great. To summarise its like a Tanita body composition scale only more expensive and not as good.
Anyway my point is really a word of caution.
- If you buy from the website, don't assume you have any UK consumer protection, they are a french company and even though you price in GBP and the site in English the terms pretty much ignore all UK data privacy, consumer protection and unfair terms legislation.
- You get a 30 day trial period, except you don't as the moment you connect the device the trial is void. I'm not sure what kind of trial they had in mind? Maybe I'm meant to look at it?
- Its collecting and sharing your data with your authorisation, which you are forced to give to use the product. So expect lots of marketing targeting your obesity or anorexia depending if its actually worked out your %fat properly, which it doesn't seem to be able to do.
I could probably send it back, but paying to ship a 2kg parcel recorded delivery to France, pay their restocking fee and other requirements probably means its easier to file it with the other unwanted gifts.
A word of caution when considering a digital snake oil fitness coach product for xmas - buy local as at least you can take it back.
Mrs DIY does her best and normally buys something that fits both categories, or she gives up and buys something she wants.
This time she bought me a Withings Smart Body Analyser WS-50. A whatings? I here you say - yes I'd never heard of them either, but lots of cool social media types who I'm sure were not paid to say so, seem the think they are great. To summarise its like a Tanita body composition scale only more expensive and not as good.
Anyway my point is really a word of caution.
- If you buy from the website, don't assume you have any UK consumer protection, they are a french company and even though you price in GBP and the site in English the terms pretty much ignore all UK data privacy, consumer protection and unfair terms legislation.
- You get a 30 day trial period, except you don't as the moment you connect the device the trial is void. I'm not sure what kind of trial they had in mind? Maybe I'm meant to look at it?
- Its collecting and sharing your data with your authorisation, which you are forced to give to use the product. So expect lots of marketing targeting your obesity or anorexia depending if its actually worked out your %fat properly, which it doesn't seem to be able to do.
I could probably send it back, but paying to ship a 2kg parcel recorded delivery to France, pay their restocking fee and other requirements probably means its easier to file it with the other unwanted gifts.
A word of caution when considering a digital snake oil fitness coach product for xmas - buy local as at least you can take it back.
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Comments
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£90 for a set scales which tell you how much you weigh (fair enough but you can get a set for £14 in Argos) but hang on they also tell you your current BMI - a simple calculation based upon your height and your weight - I wonder if my smart phone could do that calculation?
Then you can pay more for a set which tells you the weather (as opposed to looking out the window), if your bathroom is cold (standing on the scale in the nude usually tells you that, especially when you look down at the wee man), the CO2 levels outside (not that you can do anything about that unless you chose not to breathe that day).
What a f e cking waste of money..... people creating products for problems which do not exist.0 -
Where did you read about their data sharing policies and are you sure there's not an opt-out clause?
That would seem pretty extraordinary for a company in this day and age given concerns around data privacy, especially for something as intimate as health data. It might not be such a direct concern in the UK, but for countries where private health insurance is required, if Withings were to sell personally identifiable health data to insurance firms then the ramifications could be very interesting.0 -
As per my 3rd sentence.. these were several 10ers more than 90 quid.
I over exaggerate about the privacy aspect. You can opt out, using the appropriate app privacy settings, but given they need the app to work they just become normal scales. They are controlled by an app and the data stored in a cloud syncd via your wifi. The privacy issues are documented in several reviews and clearly in their ts and cs. if you don't use the app you don't get the inaccurate digital snake oil advice about your body mass.
which is a shame since they seem accurate to the nearest 5kg and 10% body fat. HR monitor is pretty accurate too if resting HR was valid standing up.
The data is more valuable than the margin on the product. Hence why they are processing it0 -
As per my 3rd sentence.. these were several 10ers more than 90 quid.
Your 3rd sentence doesn't say anything of the sort.
If you look at my post I say you can spend more (than £90) for the additional functionality which you appear to have.0 -
£90 for a set scales which tell you how much you weigh (fair enough but you can get a set for £14 in Argos) but hang on they also tell you your current BMI - a simple calculation based upon your height and your weight - I wonder if my smart phone could do that calculation?
Then you can pay more for a set which tells you the weather (as opposed to looking out the window), if your bathroom is cold (standing on the scale in the nude usually tells you that, especially when you look down at the wee man), the CO2 levels outside (not that you can do anything about that unless you chose not to breathe that day).
What a f e cking waste of money..... people creating products for problems which do not exist.
I've seen in gyms, scales that displayed your body fat percentage. Stand on them bare footed and the scales send a small electrical current around. Fat = electrical resistance ? However they were so temperamental, every time you stood on them you got a different reading. One guy claimed even your level of hydration effected the reading."The Prince of Wales is now the King of France" - Calton Kirby0 -
You're not being very clear, are you saying that Withings retain the right to sell any data uploaded to their website by the scales and that there is no way for the end user to opt out of that another than to not upload any data?0
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They say the data is aggregated and anonymised is their studies. but you specifically give them authority to use your data.
there have been a few articles
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29952998.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/sep/03/fitness-health-apps-sharing-data-insurance
but importantly they openly admit to collecting and sharing the data. when you sign up you authorise this. the fact that they keep it secure is a matter of IT security not privacy. All they are saying is that unauthorised access is prevented.
https://www.withings.com/us/en/legal/privacy-policy-statement
there are a couple of reviews that say the data isn't securely transmitted or stored. I've no evidence either way. I know data privacy law and I know what you authorise when you agree they may store, process and share your data. it's very broad. remember. the device knows email, IP wifi, location links to social media accesses your phone contacts etc etc. all part of ID correlation to improve the value of the data they intend to keep.0 -
We've got a FitBit Aria which seems to be the same kind of thing with similar features, got it for £60 (in the returns at John Lewis), I think the RRP is ~£90ish. I didn't realise the Withings one was so much more expensive.
My girlfriend has a FitBit wristband thingy and I have to say the system is pretty swish - showing all your info about activity levels, weight, sleep and diet (if you can be bothered to track your food) together is interesting. But for me the scale is quite expensive tool just to automatically graph and analyse my weight over time (as opposed to doing it myself with a spreadsheet or whatever).
I'll admit I have not looked at the data privacy arrangements for it but I have not had any unsolicited emails from them or anyone else about diet or anything like that.0 -
The Fitbit is in the same camp. The wrist band is a neat idea for 24/7 monitoring. These things are cool for people who's idea of exercise is a long walk, it's not going to help anyone in to training with data. If it connects to your wifi and stores data on their servers, it knows exactly who and where you are as Google store this from their maps survey. Withings seem very proud of the fact they are collecting your data for analysis. The whole ecosystem are fighting to get data to sell. It's not just marketing crap, it's how they will use the data going forward. pensions, life policies insurance etc. will all be buying this data. If it was a free app you've no argument but when you buy a product with certain features, you should expect to get those without having to give your data away.
If I was trying to lose weight, a product like this would depress me. I weigh myself once a week at my gym at the same time. This gives me bar far the best view of my gains or losses and importantly the scales don't know who I am.
How would you feel about your NHS GP practice selling your data? You'd likely be horrified.
The company in question also has a baby monitor with exactly the same architecture and terms, though I think it was discontinued due to reliability issues with streaming to the server. This is scary stuff.0 -
Well, Fitbit at least have a statement in their privacy policy about never selling your personal data or sharing it with third parties without your permission. They do use "de-identified" data for trends etc. though (I guess it is a key part of their marketing, "X number of people lost an average of Y weight" using our services and so on). I'd have to look into what sort of de-identified data they actually use and what it looks like but in principle I can't get too upset about them doing that. Of course if they changed it so that they would sell your personal data directly to life insurance companies then it would be different.
I found calorie counting and tracking food on the app to be quite effective for weight loss, actually. But then we're all different - I can see how others might not like it.
Agreed that it doesn't help with actual training (not least because the optical HR sensor is apparently totally useless when cycling).0 -
How would you feel about your NHS GP practice selling your data? You'd likely be horrified.
To be fair, the NHS does publish aggregate, "de-identified" data, and use it to improve their services - which is exactly what Fitbit say they're doing too (although fitbit are also going to sell it).
Of course I would be horrified if my GP sold my personal data, as I would be if Fitbit did, but they have an explicit statement to say that they won't do that (assuming you think they will abide by that...).0 -
I don't mind what they do as long as I can opt out without loss of functionality. Currently I can't.0
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A WiFi scale is useful for people who track and log their weight. I was doing it for years, and I would have liked a WiFi scale, but I already had a medical balance so didn't want to buy another scale. I know what you are saying about gifts, and for that reason, our family does not give gifts to other adults for birthdays or Christmas - just to kids.0
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Yep, its not something I'd buy, basically I can't see why you'd measure your weight on a daily basis anyway. You are after trends, not daily analysis saying you put on 0.3kg from yesterday is useless - that could be water.
I think people confuse digital + lots of features + expensive with accurate. This product has similar accuracy to substantially cheaper products on weight, is little more than a random number generator on body fat and frankly I can use a HR belt to get my HR, which means its reason to exist is pointless.
My weight can fluctuate 3kg in 24 hours easy as I am a faster. A product that identifies the user by their weight - is never going to work for anyone on a fasting diet.
Fortunately, due to mrs diy paying with a credit card and something called the Brussels convention, I probably can use my UK consumer rights.0
