Unacceptable: Apple Health Sync is now behind a $99/year paywall for new accounts

I bought the BS2 a few days ago. My wife and I have had Withings accounts for years, but I wanted to set up accounts for my two daughters just recently. It is a huge disappointment, and I view it as a scam perpetrated against a loyal customer. I’m returning the BS2 to the retailer and will buy a different blood pressure monitor from another manufacturer for my parents. It’s as simple as that. The irony is that I had planned to get the paid W+ subscription, but now I realize that would have been a mistake—I would have ended up held hostage by a company with such disgraceful practices.

I just bought a Withings scale from Apple as research said it was one of the best, only to have it delivered Oct 13 and to be surprised by this nasty paywall news. I just returned it and will not deal with or purchase anything for Withings in the future based on this decision. Terrible

I've left a 1* review on the app store
Also reported the app for fraud due to their now lying about functionality and charging for a built in on-device feature.
Also smells like a lawsuit if Withings doesn't reverse course.


Also I have no confidence or trust in you now Withings. So I won't be buying any new products, like I was planning on upgrading my 12yr old scale. 

I've owned three Withings scales and a blood pressure cuff.  I'd considered getting the new bodyscan 2.

However, given what I've learned about your likely plans to eventually block all non-paying owners of your equipment from sharing their own personal measurements with Apple, I will now no longer consider buying anything from Withings.

The insult-to-injury here is that your hardware isn't clearly subsidized by subscription revenues; it's already "premium-priced", as is Apple's (e.g., their own watch)... but Apple doesn't then also block their users' own data behind paid subscriptions.  You pay once for their watch, then get perpetual access to all the watch features and functionality.

If you want to charge $99 for your new scales and make up for that with subscription revenues, fine!  Lock some of the advising / AI / related features behind a paywall!

But your egregious double-dipping + blocking us from our own data... nah dog, that ain't it.  Please please reconsider.

Paying a Subscription to use the BodyScan 2 was a rubbish move, but this is a step too far. Absolutely predatory behaviour. Seriously considering just getting rid and moving brands if this is the case. Paid over £400 for a glorified data hub, that costs £8 a month to use. Absolutely not. Get it sorted or you’re gonna lose a lot of customers. I’m sorely disappointed Withings. Shame on you.

Now I cannot comment any post without approval. Thanks hilarious.

I got my body scan yesterday.
I like it but apple health is essential for me.
So if they don’t change this policy the scale is going back.

This decision has effectively ended the life of Withings devices. I own four devices which will be replaced with new ones from another manufacturer without a subscription.

Thank you for the clarification, but this response completely ignores the core issue and uses a technical fallacy to justify a cash grab.

First, you claim that Withings+ "funds the services around your data." Let's be technically honest: writing data to Apple HealthKit or Google Health Connect is a local, on-device API execution. It requires absolutely zero cloud compute, zero server maintenance, and zero AI processing from Withings. Bundling a basic, local API call with premium cloud features (like physician reviews or AI Connectors) to justify a $99/year paywall is highly misleading.

Second, offering CSV exports in 2026 as a "free alternative" is frankly insulting to your users. Nobody is going to manually download and parse spreadsheets every morning after stepping on a scale. We bought smart scales for automation, not for manual data entry.

Finally, grandfathering existing accounts is just a tactic to silence your current user base while quietly penalizing new customers. It completely ruins the experience for multi-user households, where family members creating an account today are suddenly locked out of basic features on hardware we already paid a premium for.

If you want to charge for AI insights, Heart Age, and medical reviews, that is perfectly fine. But holding basic, local data synchronization hostage is a heavily anti-consumer practice. We still strongly urge you to decouple basic third-party sync from the Withings+ subscription.

My family now owns 4 withings scales because they were so good though so much overpriced... last ones were bought several weeks ago and now I started giving 1 star to reviews, cause new customers would be unaware of this change.. so all the ads and reviews are currently misleading... imagine, you watched all the reviews, how it is good with your iPhone, you pay 10 times more for a scale and then input the data into apple health manually. All the new listings of the product should be stating that

I just bought a new Bodyfit and now I am pondering returning it.
This is terrible, it doesn't matter if my account is grandfathered or not. Syncing to Apple Health is a local app-to-app sync and shouldn't cost anything. This is one feature I will definitely dump a whole ecosystem for.

As an alternative, give the user the option to only sync locally via Wi-Fi. Then you don't have any server cost or infrastructure cost, and users can use the product even if your service is down or slow (which sometimes it is).

In response to Withings’ answer, I believe our colleagues responded very well:

“1. "Withings+ funds the services around your data" Absolute lie. Writing your weight to Apple Health via HealthKit or Google Health Connect is a local, on-device API call. It happens directly between the Withings app and the Apple Health app on your phone. It requires ZERO cloud computing, ZERO server maintenance, and ZERO of their new "AI Connector" processing. It costs Withings exactly $0.00. They are intentionally holding a free, local API call hostage to force you into paying for their AI medical features that nobody asked for.

2. "Existing accounts are grandfathered! Nothing changes for you!" This isn't a favor; it’s a calculated divide-and-conquer tactic. They know that if they retroactively paywalled existing users, they’d face massive backlash, European consumer protection probes, and tanked app ratings overnight. By grandfathering old accounts, they are hoping we just shut up and look the other way while they screw over every new customer. Bought a scale for your partner or kid? Congrats, their new account is paywalled on the hardware you already own.

3. "You can still export a CSV for free!" Ah yes, thank you Withings. Let me just open a spreadsheet and manually import rows of data on my iPhone every morning in 2026. We bought smart scales specifically for automation. Offering a manual CSV export as a "feature" is frankly insulting. A $15 no-name Chinese scale off Amazon manages to sync automatically to Apple Health for free, but a $200 Withings scale can't?”

Really enjoyed Withings products, but if a core feature like Apple Health sync is paywalled nor will I buy, but will actively encourage not to buy any of Withings products.

I will never buy anything from withings again - I feel betrayed. Apple Health sync is the bare minimum for any health related device.

Agreed. I have purchased my last Withings product. And I have given my last recommendation for a Withings product.

Take a look at how this worked out for Anova.

TO MARKUS FROM WITHINGS:

With that appalling reply you just completely destroyed Withings' already battered reputation, well done mate!

In the face of dozens of angry customers, old and new, many of whom have clearly explained why the excuse you've given is a complete and utter lie, you're just doubling down with marketing waffle and it actually makes you look even worse.

I've just packaged up my new Body Smart and am returning it for a refund. I was going to keep it after your support team undermined the entire policy by grandfathering me in due to my purchase date, but you've just made it abundantly clear you can't be trusted. 

Let me be very clear: you are not doing this because of some fancy API update in your app, or because of improved security, or improved privacy, or because of your 'AI Connector', because none of that has anything to do with how Apple's free, built-in HealthKit API tools work.

And it's absolutely not, for one single second, anything WHATSOEVER to do with some imaginary expense Withings incurs to sync with Apple Health, so all that stuff about how 'Withings+ funds sync' is an egregious lie. 

You are doing this because Apple Health in iOS 27 is about to eat Withings+'s lunch, offering the sorts of freely-available AI-powered insights from health data that companies like you, Bevel, and Athlytic, have been charging a fee for. 

You're scared you're about to lose Withings+ subscribers to Apple Health, so you're ensuring that you get paid for any insights into OUR data measured by your devices, no matter who provides those insights. 

That is the only reason. It's disgusting behaviour and your reply here and on Reddit is just shameless corporate squirming that has completely failed to delude a single one of us. 

There's no point claiming otherwise and here's why:

- Apple's HealthKit APIs can be used freely by developers, so it's not a cost thing, because it costs you nothing

- all Apple Healthkit data transfers between source and destination happen on board the Apple device in question, so unless you're accusing Apple's HealthKit API of having a privacy or security leak, that is not the reason you need us to pay to sync OUR data.

- anyone with an account setup before October 12th isn't affected by this mysterious new API requirement, or the mysterious security and privacy concerns that Withings+ somehow alleviates. Funny, that!

- anyone that setup an account on or after October 12th can make the case to Support to have this fee waived, and I've seen half a dozen effortlessly make that case (I've read the transcripts). If it's a simple setting change at your end then that further compounds that this is categorically not an API, privacy, or security issue. 

If you're so scared of Apple Health's next update, make Withings+ better. It's that simple. That's how many, many other companies that got Sherlock'd by Apple survived. 

But not Withings, nooo. You're just gonna squeeze your new customers as hard as you possibly can for every, single, last, penny, to make up for the many existing Withings+ subscribers that are quite rightly going to look at the new Apple Health and go "actually that's all I really need". 

For now, I sincerely hope Apple punishes you for monetising their free API tools, something their developer rules seem quite clear about. 

And I want you to know, Markus, that you PERSONALLY have ensured I will never be a Withings customer again, just two days into my Withings Experience. I had my eye on several other Withings products over the next year. There's not a hope in hell I'll ever consider Withings for any of them now.

Well done, bro. Hope you get that raise you're looking for. 

I was actually waiting for a new firmware update before buying a Body Scan 2, because I still wasn't completely convinced about its accuracy for body fat, visceral fat, etc.

Despite the current issues, one of the main reasons I was still considering Withings was the possibility of accessing my own data through the public API. I have developed my own health app, where I already integrate my Garmin data, and I wanted to add my weight automatically as well — and, of course, having body fat, visceral fat and the other Body Scan measurements would have been a nice addition.

I'm speaking purely from my own perspective, but with this new mandatory subscription just to synchronize/access my own data, I honestly think I'll simply buy a Garmin Index S2 instead.

It doesn't have segmental body composition, but it already integrates with the Garmin ecosystem and, most importantly, I don't have to pay a subscription just to synchronize my own health data.

Yikes - just saw the update today - looks like Withings is doubling down on their enshittification. They're done as far as I'm concerned - never another purchase from me. Reverse it or their customers are lost.

Markus, thank you for the clarification, but it completely misses the point. Grandfathering existing users doesn’t make this decision acceptable. Apple Health synchronization is basic functionality, not a premium service. Listing additional Withings+ benefits doesn’t explain why new customers must pay $99/year simply to sync their own health data. Manual CSV exports are not an equivalent alternative.

Build subscriptions around genuine added value, not artificial restrictions on essential features. This decision seriously damages trust in Withings, including among existing customers. Please reconsider.

/Owner of 5 different withings devices since 15 years/

Commenting again to reply to Markus statement. You must be new to how the enshifitifaction process works. Of course we're grandfather'd in, only new customers are impacted, then new changes will be introduced where only our current product with our member account will have this basic feature. But don't worry!!! when your current product is replaced we'll give you a 3 month free or withings+ membership and 10% discount for the first year!! Oh and we're also going to only have a limited amount of ads. /s

This is a terrible move, and Markus's explanation is rubbish.  There are no "ClOuD cOsTs" associated with writing a local data point from the iOS app on my iPhone to the Apple Heath database on the same iPhone.  Pure lies.

This is just a cash grab by Withings, trying to trick money out of new customers.  Plain and simple.

Was just about to purchase the body scan 2, wont be doing that now, unless this decision is reversed before I find an alternative

I have been a customer for 10 plus years. As of Sept 26, 2026, scale data stopped syncing between Withings and the Apple Heath app. Further Withings make it about as difficult to get help on this as it can be. No phone, no humans to communicate directly with and your chatbot that is useless, going in circles without being helpful. What a waste of time.

I received an email last week about a new scales Withings would like me to buy. I responded making it clear that your total withdrawal from the world short of marketing material has made me decide that I will never, ever buy another Withings product. No one has responded. to that communication.

Read the tea leaves. You will be gone soon enough and you certainly won't be able to say you have no idea what happened. It is all here in black and white.

Add this to the fact that the basic functionality of notifications in android 17 on the scanwatch 2/Nova don't even work properly and you have the very clear recipe for DO NOT BUY rating. A Wyze scale and an Amazfit watch work reliable and sync their data a SIGNIFICANTLY lower costs with no subscriptions. You are asking users to spend hundreds on a device and then charging us monthly to make it work? This is exactly what will drive users to other options. Echelon is a great example of how this can negatively effect your products, reputation, and sales.

This is just like BMW charging to use the heated seats in the car.  

I bought my first Withing's smart scale in 2012 and have purchased multiple scales, sleep devices, thermometers, and BP Cuffs since for myself and my family. I will dump everything in a heart beat and never recommend withings again if this goes through.

This thread's formal corporate response does not address the core complaint, it only repeats the surface message. Locking customers of premium hardware products out of local, intuitive access and integration of their own personal health data -- such a sad pivot into a failing business motion, right at the time when subscriptions-aversion is a growing social movement. Add real, recognizable value, or be crushed by competition who appreciate their customers more.

No more Withings for me. I'm fed up with companies forcing users into a subscription for "plus" features, which almost nobody have a use for. 

Just got a Withings scale and was considering buying some other products but I will be returning the scale and Withings will forever lose me as a customer. I've already been frustrated by no local options for these scales and requiring an online account, mostly because it lets companies make terrible decisions about my data like this.

I have an account already that won't have to pay this fee (for now), but this is a horrible direction to see the company go in and I worry what they may do next so I am getting out now while I can still recover my money. This is horribly anti-consumer.

I’m grandfathered in… but the fact you’d make a horrible decision like this…
I was literally looking last night at upgrading my scale to a new one from you.
Congrats, you just lost it.

I’m grandfathered in as a Scanwatch user. But I hate this decision by Withings. I will not recommend this brand anymore.