Withings Puts Automatic Sync Behind a Subscription for New Users
New Withings accounts created on or after October 13, 2026 require a Withings Plus subscription to use automatic sync to third-party apps, including Apple Health and Google Health. The Verge
The plan costs $9.95 per month or $99.50 per year. New hardware includes a one-month free trial with syncing included. After the trial, automatic syncing pauses. Data already exported stays where it is.
The cutoff follows the account, not the device. Accounts created on or before October 12, 2026 keep free automatic syncing. An existing user who adds a new watch, scale or other Withings hardware keeps free syncing for that hardware.
Withings support documentation says the same. Its Apple Health articles state that users need an active Withings+ subscription to export Withings data to third-party apps like Apple Health, and that any account created after October 13th, 2026 must sign up for Withings+ to enable that export.
Withings+ is the optional premium tier inside the Withings app. Company product copy describes it as unlocking an in-app health experience with access to daily engagement support and transforming health insights into actionable steps. Pricing varies by region. On its EU product page, Withings lists 9.95 euros per month, with an annual plan at 99.50 euros.
The broader context here is entitlement logic. Two identical devices on the same firmware and app version can behave differently based only on account creation date. That date, not the hardware model or app version, decides whether Apple's HealthKit and Google's Health Connect, the background pipelines that move health data between apps, keep flowing or stop after 30 days.
In my view, this is a narrow but consequential shift for data portability. Automatic export has served as a shared link, letting people use Withings as the sensor and Apple Health or Google Health as the system of record. New accounts lose that default. They must keep a subscription to preserve background sync, or accept manual steps and gaps.
Worth flagging for family and fleet setups: grandfathering limits short-term disruption. Existing accounts can rotate hardware without losing free sync. The friction falls on new onboarding, buying for new users, and any automation that assumed free background export would last. Test plans and setup guides will need to branch on account age.
Looking at the longer arc, connected health data is still likely to expand. Gated sync does not delete history, and the one-month trial preserves time to evaluate. But for new users the default has changed from open export to paid continuity.
