In the family of activity trackers, the Withings Aura is a product apart. The smart health device, which promises to help its user sleep better, is not worn on the wrist and requires no special action to perform its measurements.Read our withings aura review.Once placed on your bedside table, the terminal could almost be forgotten. In reality, the device even replaces most of the things you usually put next to your bed, like a lamp and an alarm clock. In its advertisements, Withings promises to measure and improve the health of its customers, we will see in this Review how and to what extent the Aura can perform these functions.

Installation and handling

About ten minutes was enough to install the device Will have. After placing the strip under my mattress, at my chest, connecting the USB cord to the terminal on my bedside table and plugging everything into a power outlet, the initial configuration of the system is done from the application Health Mate from Withings, no physical button not being present on the Aura. The first contact between the device and its companion on iOS is made via Bluetooth connection, the app then offers to share my WiFi information with the Aura, which will allow me to control the device as soon as my iPhone will be smart health connected to the health home network. For this first start, I am asked to wait a few minutes for the device to download and install its latest software, then for the calibration of my mattress to be completed. The manufacturer ensures that the Aura is compatible with spring, latex or foam mattresses, as well as memory foam models, and that the device can be placed as desired under the mattress or between the latter and an over-mattress. The only exception, water models that have not been tested by the brand.   The application then demonstrates gestures allowing direct control of the Aura. Without a physical button, the device must be patted or patted in different places. A good half-dozen touch controls allow you to turn on the terminal, start a sleep program, activate or deactivate the alarm, and manage the volume and brightness of the device. At first glance, the commands appear fairly intuitive, although too many hairs to memorize them all at once, especially if you want to quickly install your device before throwing yourself in the arms of Morpheus .

Fall asleep with Aura

With its strip placed under the mattress, the Aura immediately knows when you are slipping into the bottom of your bed. Unlike some smart health connected bracelets, like the Jawbone UP, so you’ll never forget to change your tracking mode when you go to bed. It is also possible to program a recurring alarm clock (without however being able to limit it to only the days of the week, it will therefore be necessary to think of deactivating it if you plan to benefit from a fatty morning on the weekend), which allows you to follow effortless sleep, even if you don’t pay attention to the object for several days at a stretch.   However, if you have trouble falling asleep, the Aura can be of great help thanks to fairly elaborate sleep programs. For this, the device will emit a warm color light (a kind of orange-red) accompanied by a sound program. For the time being, four atmospheres are available, but Withings has already announced that new programs will be added in future software updates. Among the atmospheres included, we find the sound of the waves, the song of the sirens and two sweet melodies played on the piano. All these cycles are quite slow, and are supposed to allow our heart to copy its rhythm to that of the notes, in order to find sleep as quickly as possible. Once the program has been chosen in the app Health Mate, you just need to put your hand for a few seconds at the top of the Aura terminal to start the same atmosphere again before falling asleep. It is also possible to change the brightness and volume of the program from the application or by stroking one side or the other of the terminal, from bottom to top to increase the power, or from top to bottom to decrease it.   If the principle of diffusing light when you have your eyes closed can leave doubts on the paper, you finally quickly appreciate the reddish color perceived through your eyelids, and you relax fairly quickly by forgetting the device. The manufacturer specifies on this subject that ” the system uses sound and light technology from scientifically validated programs that act on the release of melatonin, the natural sleeping hormone. It thus facilitates the transition to sleep and allows you to live the experience of an energizing awakening. “ The light and sound atmospheres will then continue for about twenty minutes, gradually reducing their intensity until complete extinction. For my part, I systematically assigned a fairly low power to these two parameters from the start of the cycle, with my head fairly close to the terminal.

A night with the aura

The Withings Aura sensor is also expected to provide better sleep tracking than most of its competitors, by measuring not only the user’s body movements, but also their heart rate and breathing. Since the last device update in early December, the Aura has also been tracking room temperature and brightness to help you improve the quality of your sleep by determining what is disrupting your nights. Despite this, the result is unfortunately not up to expectations, and sleep monitoring is proving rather uneven, the device does not always detect alarm clocks in the middle of the night, and sometimes even stops monitoring in the event of getting up at night for a few minutes (yet it happens to the best). In addition, the system regularly starts monitoring sleep when you put a slightly heavy object on his bed, or a pet decides to take a nap at the sensor. Unfortunately, there is no option to modify or delete a record from the application Health Mate.   The device is distinguished by recording the temperature and the ambient light of your bedroom throughout the night, in order to compare these two factors and the quality of your sleep. Again, no action is required from the user, who only has to see the results and adapt their habits based on them. Like most of its competitors, the Aura is also capable of discern the different phases of your sleep, in order to wake you up gently at the right time, and thus allow you to start the day on the right foot.

Waking up with Aura

As explained above, the Aura therefore has a function ” Smart Wake-Up “ to help you start the day in shape, thanks to an intelligent alarm clock calculated from the phases of your sleep. By operating the function ” alarm clock “ at the most suitable time, you should wake up more fit, even if it means sacrificing a few minutes of your night.   First of all, you must set the time limit at which the alarm clock will be triggered, then define the time available to the device (before the time limit) to get yourself out of the arms of Morpheus. For example, if you decide to wake up at 7am at the latest, with a delay of 30 minutes maximum, the Aura can activate the alarm clock from 6.30am if it judges that the moment is opportune. In the morning, the Aura will emit a bluish light, like a dawn simulator, by gradually increasing the volume of the preselected morning chants. The function allows wake up during a light sleep phase, and seems rather effective. After several weeks having alternated gentle awakenings with the Aura and programmed alarms on my iPhone, I notice quite clearly the difference and generally feel much less fatigue when the task is entrusted to the terminal of Withings, and this despite the fact that I sleep a few extra minutes when it’s iPhone that wakes me up.

Use Aura on a daily basis

Installed on my bedside table, the device easily replaces a small lamp and blends easily with the decor. The ability to change the light intensity is quite practical, however the lack of a button and control from the iPhone makes it quite painful to change. This requires stroking the edge of the device from top to bottom or from bottom to top, and repeat the operation until the desired power is obtained. We would have appreciated here that the manufacturer offers a touch gauge in the companion application, or failing that you can adjust the precision of the variations, to be able to switch more easily from a powerful light to a more subdued atmosphere. Once again, the choice of not proposing any button on the terminal seduces on paper, but turns out to be quite penalizing in use.   The presence of a USB port on the back of the Aura, intended to charge our smartphones at night is however very significant, and allows to do without a power strip. Although the connector does not allow recharging the batteries of a iPad, it will be more than enough for most users who take advantage of the night to put their iPhone (and soon their Apple Watch) in charge.   Withings recognized it, the launch of its product was undoubtedly premature, so that certain enticing functions put forward on the site (accompanied by a discreet asterisk), in particular the use as a HiFi speaker or the automatic reduction of the waves, are actually absent from the product that we receive. An update released last December did add a few useful options, notably with regard to monitoring the room’s temperature and brightness, however we could expect more from a sleep tracker sold for almost € 300 (it’s a little bit cheaper on Amazon). The manufacturer has however promised the arrival of new options in future updates, which will allow for example to record the snoring of the user, to turn off the digital time display at night, to use the Aura as an AirPlay speaker or to reduce the waves emitted by the device by automatically cutting off the WiFi and Bluetooth connections when you connect sound iPhone in USB. Finally, new sleep and wake-up programs should complement the current, very limited supply.