Fun story: when I got my Withings watch 5-6 years ago couldn't get it Bluetooth paired with my phone. Contacted support.
Me: hey bluetooth pairing isn't working I've tried A, B, C and here's additional context.
Withings support: [over 24 hours later] Have you tried A? :)
Me: ...Yes?
Withings support: [over 24 hours later] Have you tried B? :)
Me: As I said initially, yes. Can you please batch things to try to expedite this since replies are so slow?
Withings support: [over 24 hours later] We have to do this in order. :) Have you tried having a different phone even though your phone meets our listed requirements? :)
Me: .....................
Me: I debugged it myself in Android dev mode and got it working, I had to do X, perhaps you can relay the issue to your engineers. Thanks for nothing.
Withings support: [over 24 hours later] oh
And as a bonus after an update a couple years ago it looses track of time within a couple weeks and has to be manually set.
Very pretty product once upon a time with horrid customer service and software.
cebert 46 minutes ago [-]
I can’t wait till somebody figures out how to reverse engineer these with a LLM so we can just sync the scale data ourselves. I purchased one of these devices, but I am somewhat regretting my decision now.
itopaloglu83 5 minutes ago [-]
We need an open firmware for these scales.
I just need a scale that syncs with my phone, and none of those subscriptions.
mijoharas 39 minutes ago [-]
Used to be a thing before LLMs too.
Here is a starting point. It includes a link to instructions on how to reverse engineer a Bluetooth scale[0], and it looks like someone dumped some data already.
True but it's good to see access to our own devices democratized, for once.
It isn't far short of magical to watch Opus hack a piece of connected hardware. Everybody should try to take advantage of that capability at least once, if only to see it in action before they nerf it.
tonyedgecombe 40 minutes ago [-]
I'm coming to the conclusion that my life is improved the more I can leave these technologies alone.
eitally 37 minutes ago [-]
I've had pretty good luck using Google Appscript to either access web APIs or screenscrape, then parse into a Google Sheet (which I either use as-is or as the source to populate a web app).
Analemma_ 13 minutes ago [-]
I'm not as optimistic. I think we're in a very small golden window and once companies catch on that reverse engineering is taking off in a big way, they're going to panic and start demanding cryptographically-sealed binaries with remote attestation everywhere. And they'll probably get it, because what the consumer wants barely matters anymore.
Terr_ 7 minutes ago [-]
Something something think of the children.
Except it'll all be locked down into a lower-bidder insecure state too.
Why do they even bother? This is going to hit the front page of every health/fitness/cycling/running blog site, there will be a big stink for a few weeks, then Withings will quietly (or loudly, "we've heard you!", as if they were listening in the first place) get rid of it. And they'll waste all this time, money, and customer goodwill for nothing, because no one could have possibly seen this backlash coming.
Doesn't matter to me, neither their POS blood pressure cuff nor their scale will sync to HealthKit anyway (oh, how I've tried), I'm not losing anything. So stomping my feet with "I'm never buying another Withings product!" won't make any difference, I was not going to buy their POS products again anyway. :-)
wat10000 11 minutes ago [-]
Will they get rid of it? It seems more likely that they'll do damage control to wait out the news cycle (the official comment on the linked post is an excellent example of corporate deflection) and change nothing.
Hamuko 19 minutes ago [-]
I used to have issues with my Withings scale not syncing to HealthKit, but I just checked and it had all of my weightings in there just fine. Can't even remember the last time I checked the Withings app.
msy 34 minutes ago [-]
Sounds like some PM is jealous of Whoop and trying to launder the cost and boost adoption of their unwanted AI feature/subscription behind a heavily used existing feature.
TomAnthony 9 minutes ago [-]
The Withings app has just got consistently worse and worse over the last few years. I just wanted some scales that would sync to my phone and record my weight over time.
Now the app is absolutely bloated and I can barely find my weight, and the syncing has become _much_ less stable, and the app is constantly asking me to sign in again.
Amazing how they were from good, to bad, to terrible.
loloquwowndueo 16 minutes ago [-]
What’s withings?
Dunno man, I just hop on the treadmill, do the thing for an hour, and hop off. Every day. I don’t need to count every single second or calorie I spend on it. Why all this paraphernalia around it all is needed is beyond me.
techdiff 20 minutes ago [-]
This is up there with BMW charging a subscription for heated seats.
netsharc 4 minutes ago [-]
I don't see the appeal of heated seats, I've never turned the ones in my cars on. OK, I suppose when you've left your car in below zero weather it's useful.
Heated steering wheel on the other hand; that's heavenly.
I suppose if I ever find a BMW attractive enough to buy one despite this consumer-hating behavior (their grilles help me stay away), I'd figure out if I can unplug the seat from the control unit, and just plug it straight to a different power supply to get the heat. Or will they use something like HDMI's Digital Content Protection to prevent "heat piracy"?
Assuming the Withings app is on the same phone as the HealthKit account, there's no "cloud" involved. This is 100% grift. I hope nobody buys these.
iAMkenough 25 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, I got turned off when I realized you can’t sync these devices via Bluetooth or LAN.
Required path is:
Scale data -> WiFi -> Internet -> Withings app -> HealthKit
altairprime 5 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
mikestew 20 minutes ago [-]
Is that my problem? I figured that WiFi access was enough to hit my phone to update HealthKit, but I never gave the scale access to the Internet ("you can go live over there on the IoT VLAN with the other tattletale devices").
Well, fuck that. Now I'm really, really, really not going to buy a Withings product again.
iAMkenough 12 minutes ago [-]
Mine died after a year, which I suspect is because my spouse used it after showers, and they’re not designed to handle bathroom moisture. Not even rated as water resistant.
Never again.
rpdillon 7 minutes ago [-]
This is sort of an old-man-yells-at-clouds comment, but I recently realized that most of the new stuff companies sell is pretty much a solution in search of a problem. Apple's whole announcement this past week was like this, but I'm feeling the same way about smartwatches, smart homes, and the like lately as well.
For most folks, I feel like spending 20 minutes a day on Darebee would be more effective than their $20/month subscription to their $600 smartwatch.
Why does everything on this website have to be a bait-and-switch funnel to some kind of (self-)Promotion.
altairprime 1 hours ago [-]
For those who want to have a bottom line impact and have time & money to spare, purchase a scale or a blood pressure monitor from Apple Store online, try to set it up on your phone until you hit the new paywall, and then call and arrange to return it; when asked, explain that it requires a $100/year subscription for Apple HealthKit support and that you’re offended at Apple for omitting that. It’s quite possible that Withings made this change without notifying Apple, and a handful of such returns could lead Apple to pull all Withings products from their sales channels in response. Or it could just be wasted time, and Apple’s fine with it, but there’s no easier way to find out — and this sales channel is probably valuable enough to Withings that losing access to it might cost them their entire projected revenue gains from the fee.
niels8472 27 minutes ago [-]
But but... it has an "AI Connector" now (this is literally one of the reasons).
haute_cuisine 19 minutes ago [-]
I honestly don't have anything against them moving apple sync behind the paywall. It's really hard to justify doing any kind of ongoing maintenance and rnd from one-time sales. If they ship good durable things, there might not be enough people willing to buy that stuff, they're also forced to constantly find new customers.
mikestew 9 minutes ago [-]
It's really hard to justify doing any kind of ongoing maintenance and rnd from one-time sales.
What kind of water-carrying excuse is that? Multibillion dollar companies have been created doing exactly that for decades. Withings has somehow managed to stay in business for nearly 20 years...doing exactly that.
wat10000 9 minutes ago [-]
What ongoing maintenance is required beyond what would be needed to keep their app working for future sales anyway?
ebtebt 17 minutes ago [-]
What?! How about providing value so that it is actually worth purchasing a subscription?
TheCoelacanth 36 minutes ago [-]
The entire economy is a grift now.
bigwheels 56 seconds ago [-]
That's late stage capitalism for ya.
Rendered at 21:33:53 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Me: hey bluetooth pairing isn't working I've tried A, B, C and here's additional context. Withings support: [over 24 hours later] Have you tried A? :) Me: ...Yes? Withings support: [over 24 hours later] Have you tried B? :) Me: As I said initially, yes. Can you please batch things to try to expedite this since replies are so slow? Withings support: [over 24 hours later] We have to do this in order. :) Have you tried having a different phone even though your phone meets our listed requirements? :) Me: ..................... Me: I debugged it myself in Android dev mode and got it working, I had to do X, perhaps you can relay the issue to your engineers. Thanks for nothing. Withings support: [over 24 hours later] oh
And as a bonus after an update a couple years ago it looses track of time within a couple weeks and has to be manually set.
Very pretty product once upon a time with horrid customer service and software.
I just need a scale that syncs with my phone, and none of those subscriptions.
Here is a starting point. It includes a link to instructions on how to reverse engineer a Bluetooth scale[0], and it looks like someone dumped some data already.
[0] https://github.com/oliexdev/openScale/issues/786
It isn't far short of magical to watch Opus hack a piece of connected hardware. Everybody should try to take advantage of that capability at least once, if only to see it in action before they nerf it.
Except it'll all be locked down into a lower-bidder insecure state too.
https://github.com/morluto/rea
https://rea.tools
Doesn't matter to me, neither their POS blood pressure cuff nor their scale will sync to HealthKit anyway (oh, how I've tried), I'm not losing anything. So stomping my feet with "I'm never buying another Withings product!" won't make any difference, I was not going to buy their POS products again anyway. :-)
Now the app is absolutely bloated and I can barely find my weight, and the syncing has become _much_ less stable, and the app is constantly asking me to sign in again.
Amazing how they were from good, to bad, to terrible.
Dunno man, I just hop on the treadmill, do the thing for an hour, and hop off. Every day. I don’t need to count every single second or calorie I spend on it. Why all this paraphernalia around it all is needed is beyond me.
Heated steering wheel on the other hand; that's heavenly.
I suppose if I ever find a BMW attractive enough to buy one despite this consumer-hating behavior (their grilles help me stay away), I'd figure out if I can unplug the seat from the control unit, and just plug it straight to a different power supply to get the heat. Or will they use something like HDMI's Digital Content Protection to prevent "heat piracy"?
Anyway it's all theoretical, it seems they've given up trying to pick your pocket for heated seats, but for other features they're still going to mug you: https://www.drive.com.au/news/bmw-admits-heated-seat-subscri...
Required path is: Scale data -> WiFi -> Internet -> Withings app -> HealthKit
Well, fuck that. Now I'm really, really, really not going to buy a Withings product again.
Never again.
For most folks, I feel like spending 20 minutes a day on Darebee would be more effective than their $20/month subscription to their $600 smartwatch.
https://darebee.com/
What kind of water-carrying excuse is that? Multibillion dollar companies have been created doing exactly that for decades. Withings has somehow managed to stay in business for nearly 20 years...doing exactly that.