All tagged Product Review

Withings Body Scan Connected Health Station – Is the Newest Body Composition Scale Worth its Aggressive Price Tag, and how Does it Stack up Against DEXA and the Competition?

I am a passionate self-quantifier and believe in the Quantified Self adaption of the Peter Drucker philosophy: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Therefore, I have tracked my body weight and composition almost daily with a non-connected body fat scale for the last decade.

The lack of connectivity of my old scale and the opportunity to upgrade to a newer device with more inbuilt functionality interested me when Withings announced the Body Scan during the 2022 Electronic Consumer Show. Body Scan is Withings most recent and most advanced body composition scale and the first with a handle. It is branded as Connect Health Station, and besides weight and body composition, it also analyses cardiovascular health and electrodermal activity and runs a full ECG during the weigh-in.

The device is not cheap, so after testing it for more than two months, it is about time to do a proper review and compare how it stacks up in terms of accuracy with competitors and a DEXA scan!

Does it Track my Every Move? Reviewing Kickstarter-backed Connected Chess Board Chessnut Air

Life-Sparring is not a Chess website; it is a self-improvement project disguised as a blog and a podcast. However, I shared my love-hate relationship with Chess not so long ago in a blog post called "My Personal Queen’s Gambit," and Chess is for me not just a game but also a way to assess and challenge my mental capabilities.

If you follow Life-Sparring, you also know that I am a sucker for connected (smart) devices and have been multiple times dubbed into backing promising devices on Kickstarter with very mixed reviews.

My most recent Kickstarter acquisition was the Chessnut Air, a smart Chessboard connecting via Bluetooth to an iOS or Android device, and from to the two biggest online chess providers, Chess.com and Lichess.

After receiving my Chesssnut, I did a well-received spontaneous "dirty" unboxing video. The views and reactions encouraged me to follow up with a more thorough review. I try my best to cover as much ground as possible and answer any questions posed as a reaction to the unboxing video. Enjoy!