Disclaimer: Due to regulation, different ScanWatch health features may be available in your region. Learn more.

Respiratory Scan will measure your heart rate, respiratory rate, movement, and oxygen saturation level throughout the night to provide complete maps of your sleep.

During sleep, it is possible to experience trouble breathing and you may not remember it in the morning. Oxygen saturation level drops can be a sign of these breathing disturbances. When the brain senses that oxygen levels are getting too low, it triggers a safety alarm signal, waking you up to take a breath. After falling back to sleep, this can occur repeatedly during the night, which doesn’t allow the body to recover properly.

ScanWatch embeds sensors to scan your night. It uses its PPG (photoplethysmography) sensor to measure your heart rate and heart rhythm, your breathing rate and respiratory effort, and your oxygen saturation (SpO2) continuously. It also uses an accelerometer to monitor your actigraphy (rest and activity cycles). Consequently, ScanWatch can detect breathing disturbances episodes during your sleep.

When activating the Respiratory Scan, you will be able to choose between three types of experience:

• Off: No Respiratory Scan will be launched.
• Automatic: Based on the results of the first night, ScanWatch will repeat the recording when necessary. It will notify you the day before and ask if you want to reschedule later. This frequency is recommended by doctors to get the best results from this feature. Note that the battery should be above 10% to launch the series of measurements.
• Always on: A Respiratory Scan will be completed every night, and you will get the results every morning. Your battery life might suffer from this mode.

Understanding the Automatic measurement frequency

Based on your first Respiratory Scan result, the feature will implement a batch of scans. The batch consists in one to three Respiratory Scans in a row. The first scan of the batch is by default scheduled for the next sleep. You can postpone it if you want to.

Each scan of the batch will occur on a specific time according to the results of the previous scan:

• Low breathing disturbance: the batch ends
• Medium breathing disturbance: the batch continues for the next sleep
• High breathing disturbance: the batch continues for the two next nights of sleep

The next batch will occur according to the most severe scan result of the previous batch:

• Low breathing disturbance: the next batch will occur in three months
• Medium breathing disturbance: the next batch will occur in three months
• High breathing disturbance: the next batch will occur in one month

Note: if the Respiratory Scan cannot be performed or completed, another one will be automatically scheduled for the next week. You will be reminded of the process with a notification.

Understanding my results

ScanWatch provides three categories to grade the severity of breathing disturbances:

• Few: A few breathing disturbances were detected on the last tracked night.
• Moderate: A moderate amount of breathing disturbances were detected on the last tracked night.
• High: A high volume of breathing disturbances was detected on the last tracked night.

Medical advice should be sought if you experience moderate or severe breathing disturbances, or if you experience symptoms and have concerns.

Sharing my results

You can find each night scan record and history in the Withings App and you can easily share it as a PDF with a doctor or healthcare professional. This can help you assist with early diagnosis and prevention in case of breathing disturbance detection.

Notes: 

• The Respiratory Scan functionality will impact the battery life of the watch.
• When the Respiratory Scan is activated, a moon icon appears under the time on the screen of the watch.
• To enable the Respiratory Scan feature, go to Withings App > Devices > ScanWatch > Health Features > Respiratory Scan > then select the recurrence of your choice.