Why You Can Trust CNET Withings Thermo is a Wi-Fi smart thermometer that doesn't need to go inside you
Another connected first-aid tool for your future smart home, the Thermo syncs the data of multiple family members and takes instant readings.
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Soon, all the first-aid gadgets you have lying around your home might connect to your phone. Or Withings hopes so, at least.
The Withings Thermo is one of what will be a flood of connected health products at CES 2016 in Las Vegas. It's a smart thermometer for multiple users, designed to be quick, easy and fast. It looks sleek and cute. It has a big LED screen that glows different colors to show high temperatures. And it connects via Wi-Fi to sync multiple user readings, which means the whole family could use it to keep an eye on their temperature over time and collect the readings to share with a doctor. It runs off two AAA batteries that will last two years, according to Withings.
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Apparently, this green plastic is filled with sensors.
The sensor technology seems more interesting: Withings boasts 16 sensors using infrared for instantaneous temperature readings, using the temporal artery on the side of the head. It takes 4,000 micro-measurements a second. Thermo will sync its data to a phone app automatically. The Thermo is a Class IIa medical device, with appropriate filings for FDA-Cleared status in the US and CE Medical Approved status in the EU, according to Withings' press release.
Withings, a French health and connected technology company, already has a number of lifestyle and fitness products: connected scales, fitness bands and watches, bedside sleep monitors, baby and home monitors as well as a blood pressure monitor.
The Thermo is coming the first quarter of 2016, and will cost $100 (no international pricing available yet, but would roughly convert to £70 in the UK or AU$140 in Australia).
Glad to know I'm healthy.
On the show floor at the CES Unveiled press event, the Thermo worked as promised. Press a button, hold it to your temple, and it reads your temperature a second later. Then, you just scroll through any saved names and press the button again to save the reading to that profile. Everything was seamless and impressively fast. It kept up with the numerous willing participants wanting to try it out, giving a quick reading every time
In addition to trying the device on my own temple, and feeling suitably goofy in the process, I was shown a brief hands on demo of the working app, which tracks all readings for each participant, along with a timestamp of when they were taken. You can add any medication you take or symptoms you experience to this timeline, which you can also see in a calendar view -- a potentially handy reference at your next doctor's visit.
In all, I came away impressed.