Interesting new smartwatch from Withings. To me, its main appeal is that it looks nothing like a typical smartwatch. Instead, it looks like a traditional, high-quality analog watch, and it does have a certain classic vibe to it. I wouldn’t mind wearing one.

It’s still too early to say whether the Activité will succeed where others have failed, though. For one thing, what kind of product is this? Who does it appeal to? Feature-wise, it is essentially a fitness tracker disguised as a watch, basically a nice-looking Fitbit. But as a fitness tracker it doesn’t make sense: at $390, it’s almost four times as expensive as most other fitness-tracking gadgets, all of which offer a similar set of features.

However, at the same time, $390 is still considerably less than the cost of a typical high-end watch and people have no problem paying for those, so it’s possible it could work. But it clearly makes more sense to think of this as a watch with some extra features, instead of a fitness tracker that looks like a watch.

The question is, then: is there a significant overlap between both demographics? Or, to put it another way, are people who buy nice watches interested in tracking their fitness? The success of the Activité will probably hinge on the answer to that question.

Via The Loop.