Difference between Aria and Aria 2

[palerose2014]

Hi

Apart from the price point, what is the difference between the Aria and Aria 2? I can't see any enhancements in the specs to warrant considering an upgrade.

Thanks

[Dominique]

You can’t really assess the durability of any given product based on individual feedback left on forums. I could present the anecdotal evidence of my own Aria, which I bought in June 2013 and which is still working as expected. It’s still anecdotal evidence, you would need to have data gathered from thousands of users in order to draw any meaningful conclusions. Besides, people tend to go to user forums such as this one when they are experiencing problems, not to tell the world how problemless their user experience were. So for five users having issues of some kind, you could very well have ninety five users who had none whatsoever, but just didn’t feel the need to tell the world about it.

[Francesco10]

While I agree somewhat about anectodale evidence, I would point out the top thread with the issues experienced has 56k+ views. Also, almost all failures reported occur immediate after changing the batteries, with the exact same failure. I personally do not believe that changing the batteries in a unit should lead to catastrophic failure of a unit, to which there are daily posts with silence from fitbit as to the cause. If it was a few people, I would agree with you. And one would think with the amount of failures fitbit would assess the reason for failure. But questions are met with silence for th most part.

[TeaAddictedGeek]

Interesting, I never would've thought to connect the two but that's when my own Aria started acting wonky--I had to replace the batteries and it hasn't been right since.

[Crunch70]

For me not enough to warrant paying out for another set of scales, lets hope for the people that buy them these don't have the same Aria issues (on my 3rd one!!). Saying that I can't fault Fitbit customer service. I would have liked to have seen Lean, water, bone, fat/visceral fat to be honest on a set of scales of this price!!

[SimonaS]

Do you know when they will release this new scale?

[Dominique]

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@SimonaS wrote:

Do you know when they will release this new scale?

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What I’ve seen so far is: "in the Fall", so quite vague, unfortunately.

[SimonaS]

Thank you.

Sent from my iPhone

[Martinefski]

Your experience is almost identical to mine. So much potential, but very inconsistent. I might be a glutton for punishment but I have been looking forward to an update for a couple years.

[mikekolba]

Does it become a brick when you change the batteries like on the Aria?

Dissatisfied customer.

A scale is not a disposable item that should be replaced annually when the batteries get replaced and brick the **ahem** thing.

[TTerrific]

I don't think it has anything to do with the batteries.  I believe it has to do with the aging strain gages in the scale.  I bought my scale in July 2016 and sure enough, it went wonky in September of 2017 without changing batteries.  Just out of warranty and they wouldn't do anything except say to buy the Aria 2.  

I think the electronics compensate for the strain gages until they can't.  My scale started eating batteries every 5 days and displaying "stepsense" all the time.  I could still get it to make a reading after I stepped on it; it made the measurement and then pulling up on the scale until it said to select the user (multiple users).  It would not sense when I got off the scale.  After I make a measurement and it has transmitted it through the wi-fi I take the batteries out until the next measurement.  It must have non-volatile memory for the wi-fi settings because I never have to program the settings.  When batteries are inserted into the scale it starts up and says "hi!", starts to tell me what wi-fi connection I have and then displays "stepsense".   So I am waiting until the Aria 2 comes out.  Why do I even bother with all this as it is time-consuming - because it is part of my routine to lose weight and the interface both with my laptop and smartphone is great!

[darcydru]

Would love to have the scale provide data on water weight, lean mass and fat. I would upgrade and pay more for a more sophisticated version of the Aria.  

[lmcjipo]

I use rechargeable batteries with my Fitbit Aria and I actually found the batteries that I used outlasted the alkaline batteries which came with my Fitbit Aria.

The rechargeable batteries that I use lasts for over 1 year which is better than the old non-smart scale that I used which used a 9V battery.

I replace the battery within 12 hours of receiving the e-mail notification and smartphone notification of low battery on my Aria. I basically take the 4 rechargeable AA batteries from my digital camera and I recharge it once I get the notification. Once these batteries are charged, I take out the batteries from my Aria and quickly replace them with my fully charged AA batteries. I then charge the low batteries in my charger and put these into my digital camera.

My rechargeable batteries so far have lasted over 15 months which I am very happy with. My scale gets used a minimum of 3 times a day.

[petitmiam]

Interesting (and tellingly), I just got some electronic calipers that calculate body fat, they’re saying just under 30%. The Fitbit Aria (original) scales are persisting with the 40% they’ve been telling me for the last few years, despite massive weight changes.  I’m down 12 kg since the beginning of the year, and I’m barely 5 foot tall so that is a lot of fat loss. I’ve lost nearly 5 BMI points.

I think they did work okay for a while, my body fat on them did increase when I put on weight due to a traumatic life event, but it just got to 40% and appears to be stuck there forevermore, even though clearly my body fat is not 40% anymore.

I’m going to check how to calibrate them. Maybe that’s all they need. I do store them on their side which I’ve read can affect the calibration but I don’t really have hard floor space to keep them flat.  Oh so apparently I was confusing them by moving them for storage, when it said “sensing” every time I weighed myself it was calibrating, and I should’ve ignored the first two readings after moving.  I found some hard floor space after all and I’m keeping it there, like I did for the first couple of years.  Body fat is still off (38.5% even though I lost 2kg more since I tested with calipers) but hopefully the body fat measurement will be sorted in time for the Aria 5, and maybe there’ll be more features too? Seeing as there is very little difference between Aria and Aria 2 it seems.  Decision made I guess, no Aria 2 for me, it would have to actually be an advance on the previous model for me to seriously consider it.

Jody

[KateFitbit]

@Francesco10 I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the Aria scale. 

One thing to keep in mind, as we introduce new offerings, we take into consideration common complaints and issues with their predecessors and work to make sure new products align with our mission of constantly improving our products and services. 

[Francesco10]

@KateFitbit So is this an official acknowledgement that there is a production level/software problem with the Aria 1 and it is not the users fault changing the batteries that has caused these many errors over the last year??? I can imply that from “issues with predecessors” but I would like an awknowledgemt from official support staff.

Please Respond, as all other requests for a response have gone unanswered over the many posts.

[XtieHere]

We have had our aria scale for just over 2 years. We change the Batteries every 10 months. And have to reset every time, reconnect ...it is a complete pain! Plus, most of the time it doesn’t sync, and things have to be entered manually.

If the aria 2 can save me this hassle......I am in

[boxerdogorama]

I have had mine since 2012 with no issues. The people who have issues are the ones who post, I'm sure that not everyone has had these problems. 

[SquireBob]

Still no word when Aria 2 will be released?

[ilovedirt]

I've pre-ordered and anxiously awaiting mine too!! I can't wait! It will be my first Aria scales!! Tired of logging my weight manually each morning 🙂

[Dominique]

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@mikekolba wrote:

Does it become a brick when you change the batteries like on the Aria?

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FWIW, I bought my Aria in June 2013, so it’s now 4 years and 3 months old. It’s still working fine. Like @lmcjipo, I’ve been using rechargeable batteries (NiMH) ever since the original (non-rechargeable) batteries supplied with the scale died. Although I’m the only one using the scale in my household, and I only step on it once a day, I’ve had to change the batteries more than once a year, unlike @lmcjipo. OTOH, they come from a pool of batteries I’ve been using to power other devices, so they already had some mileage.

One thing I like about my Withings (now Nokia) Body Cardio smartscale is that it has a built-in rechargeable (LithiumIon) battery, that you recharge via a standard micro-USB connector. I’m surprised Fitbit didn’t copy the idea in the Aria 2. It makes the scales thinner and obviously eliminates the task of removing batteries (together with the alleged risk related to doing so).