Open-Source YourOwnWeigh Lets Users Sync Withings Scale Data Without Subscription

Image: This open-source project lets you sync Withings data to other apps without a subscription · Source

The YourOwnWeigh project offers a free way to wirelessly sync Withings smart scale data to other apps, bypassing Withings' new subscription requirement for third-party data syncing.

Withings recently announced that new users would need a Withings Plus subscription to sync health data from their devices with third-party applications. This policy change frustrated many users, including Tom Anthony, who criticized the official Withings app as cumbersome. Motivated to offer a free alternative, Anthony developed YourOwnWeigh, an open-source project designed to redirect Withings scale data from the company’s servers to any server of the user’s choosing, enabling wireless syncing without subscription fees.

YourOwnWeigh operates primarily as a web application that can be hosted on a personal server or, for those without a server, on a free CloudFlare account due to its minimal data requirements. The web app performs several key functions: it communicates via Bluetooth with supported Withings scales to update their firmware so the devices send data to a user-configured, non-Withings server. Instead of building its own firmware from scratch, YourOwnWeigh downloads the official firmware and applies patches to it as needed. The app also imports current scale settings and user profiles and downloads stored health data derived from weigh-ins.

To import this health data into Apple Health, Anthony implemented a solution using Apple Shortcuts to schedule automatic data retrieval from the alternate server. While initially focused on integration with Apple Health, the developer hopes that the broader community will adapt YourOwnWeigh to support other health platforms like Google Health.

Currently, YourOwnWeigh supports only two older Withings scale models. However, Anthony suggests that similar firmware patching could be extended to newer scale models, potentially broadening the project’s compatibility. This open-source initiative provides a sought-after subscription-free alternative for users wanting to maintain control and accessibility of their health data across different applications, responding directly to the limitations imposed by Withings’ new subscription rules.