Hands-on with Withings’ new smart thermometer

Withings, the company behind the remarkably sensible Activite smartwatch line, debuted a new product today at CES: a smart thermometer.

The doodad, named Thermo, is incredibly anti-climactic. It’s a simple object, easy on the eyes, adorned with a scrolling dot matrix-style display and a single button. It checks your temperature. Then it tells your phone your temperature, and you can see it again in Withings’ app.

The device fits in with Withings’ specialty: clean-looking heath gadgets that track your health (or your family’s health) and make doing so simpler than it’d be if you relied on a notebook or clipboard.

It takes a certain type of tech-savvy family to buy into Withings’ ecosystem, but if you’ve already bought into it — maybe you own a smart scale or want one of these blood pressure monitors — the Thermo rounds the product line out in a nice way that’s not exactly exciting, but also not boring, either.

On my first try, it took the Thermo four attempts to read my temperature. The device isn’t finalized, I was told by a company representative at CES. It’s certainly possible I held it wrong.

The Thermo is set to launch sometime during the first three months of 2016 and will cost just under $100.