Withings SleepScan and NightScan trademarks hint at new sleep tech

Withings may be getting ready to do something with its sleep lineup. Two new EU trademark filings have surfaced for Withings SleepScan and Withings NightScan. The applications are numbered 019444913 and 019444876 respectively, with the French outfit listed as the owner.

SleepScan is the easier one to place

Of the two names, SleepScan is probably the more interesting. Withings already has a long history in this area, and its current under-mattress tracker is still one of the more unusual ways of monitoring sleep without actually wearing anything.

We reviewed the Withings Sleep Analyzer several years ago, and the basic idea remains pretty clever. The thin sensor sits underneath the mattress and automatically tracks sleep stages, heart rate, snoring and breathing while you get on with sleeping.

The naming around that hardware has become a little messy, though. In Europe, Australia and the UK the medical version is sold as Sleep Analyzer, while the US has Withings Sleep and the prescription Sleep Rx product. Withings has also expanded further into sleep services with its newer Sleep Care Solution.

That makes SleepScan an interesting name to register now. It could be intended for a future generation of the under-mattress hardware, a rebranding of the existing range, or something new that builds on the same technology.

The “Scan” part also fits neatly with the rest of the Withings portfolio. The company already uses names such as ScanWatch and Body Scan, so SleepScan would not look remotely out of place sitting alongside them.

And there is certainly room for new hardware. The Sleep Analyzer first arrived back in 2020, which makes it unusually old by connected-health standards even though the basic concept has aged quite well.

NightScan is harder to pin down

NightScan is the more mysterious of the two. The name sounds broader than SleepScan, and it does not necessarily have to describe a dedicated sleep tracker.

One possibility is some sort of overnight health assessment that combines more than traditional sleep staging. Withings already collects heart, breathing and sleep information overnight, and its wider health platform increasingly tries to turn individual measurements into longer-term health signals.

That is speculation at this stage, though. NightScan could just as easily be another potential product name that Withings is protecting, or even an alternative name being considered for the same project as SleepScan.

The fact that both names have appeared together is what makes this worth watching. Companies register plenty of trademarks that never make it onto a retail box, but SleepScan and NightScan are unusually specific names for a company that already sells dedicated sleep hardware.