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MagyarCES 2024 | Withings BeamO is a 4-in-1 portable health scanner that is probably not arriving soon
Withings' innovative streak never disappoints, and this year's CES turns out to be no different. The health tech company has just introduced the BeamO, a new health tech gizmo that replaces four at-home diagnostic devices: thermometer, stethoscope, electrocardiogram and oximeter. It's the world's first veritable health-scanning chimera, and Withings is selling it for $249.95.
Except that the BeamO isn't on sale, just yet. Withings futuristic gadgets easily hold the most promise among health tech products. But promises can be broken. At CES 2023, Withings presented the U-Scan, a pebble-shaped thingamajig that performs hands free urinalysis from inside your toilet bowl. Newsflash: it's still yet to launch. Withings Body Scan, a smart scale that doubled as an ECG monitor, took 18 months from first announcement to public launch. The ScanWatch took even longer, and its de-facto predecessor, the Move ECG never even got to the US.
All these epic delays have not been without a tenable excuse: for medical devices, getting FDA clearance is a tenuous affair. Particularly for innovative health tech like what Withings frequently comes up with. But perhaps this time it'll be different.
Withings seems to have laid the some of ground work for the BeamO in its other devices: namely the ScanWatch and the Withings thermo. The photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors for measuring heart rate are already found in most smart watches and the mechanism for converting your heartbeat into digital signals is a relatively common technique in electronic stethoscopes. ECG – with relatively advanced atrial fibrillation detection – and pulse oximeters are also nothing new in wearable health tech.
You can buy all these devices separately, of course, but there is a novelty and convenience in what Withings is offering with the BeamO. The device combines four medical-grade sensors in a handheld form factor that closely resembles Withings' Thermo thermometer and takes contactless temperature readings in the same way.
What's also interesting here is how all the readings can be electronically packaged in the accompanying app and sent to a telehealth provider in real time(just one minute, as stated on the product page). Withings is marketing the BeamO as exactly that: an essential telemedical gadget that eliminates the need for frequent trips to the hospital.
Withings plans to launch the BeamO by June this year. However, Withings also makes it clear that the device is awaiting FDA clearance, probably for it's AFib detector. Now, the BeamO is a beautifully designed, innovative piece of tech. But that's precisely why whispers of an early launch date must necessarily be taken with a pinch of salt.
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