Best wireless scale?

[leduck]

Hi, all. I'm looking for a scale that will give me weight, BMI, and body fat, that is compatible with my Fitbit. What's the best scale to get? Thanks!

[SteveH]

As you want to integrate with fitbit then fitbit's own Aria 2 is certainly worth considering. See: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2223/

[JakeLikesCake]

I have a yunmai premium smart scale. It was significantly cheaper than the Fitbit Aria at the time, and I read a couple reviews that the Aria was breaking for a fair number of people. My scale has been good for a year, and reliably feeds into Fitbit and MyFitnessPal, so I have no complaints.

The body fat tracking is nice, I guess, it is actually showing me ever-so-slowly leaning out over time, although the percentages are wildly laughable most days. I seriously doubt I fluctuated 2-3% body fat between yesterday and today, Mr. Scale. BMI reads in the app as well. Scale seems to know/ remember me vs. my wife quite well - once I came back from a vacation filled with particularly heinous dietary behaviours and it said "Is that you, Jake?" I felt a bit judged.

One thing I'll point out is that it appears most of the Yunmai scales use the same app. Knowing that the electrical-impedance-based fat measurements are unreliable at best, I might opt for one of the $40-ish ones if I had to buy again, but I do like the scale and it's been reliable, so - there's my review.

[leduck]

"One thing I'll point out is that it appears most of the Yunmai scales use the same app. Knowing that the electrical-impedance-based fat measurements are unreliable at best, I might opt for one of the $40-ish ones if I had to buy again, but I do like the scale and it's been reliable, so - there's my review."

That's interesting-- thanks for your response! So what do the newer scales do instead of electrical impedance? (I don't take the % fat measures on scales too seriously-- if I were that worried about it, I'd get caliper measurement or something more reliable.)

[WendyB]

The Fat % on any scale is not very accurate. I agree get the caliper measurement

I have the Aria 2 and a Withings scale and they both read with in .5 of each other. Both have been very accurate for me.

[JakeLikesCake]

Any electrical impedance scale measures fat% by passing a tiny electrical current through your body. Since it goes in one foot and comes out the other, the electricity will take more or less the quickest path, meaning pretty much up one leg and down the other. I have seen scales that have a handpiece to try to bring in more of your body to the measurement, but at the end of the day the scale software is guessing at an approximate body fat percentage based on a bunch of assumptions. The good news is that although it's not exactly accurate, usually, it's close enough to tell you whether you're going in the right direction or not. But- you probably already can tell that just from the scale number and what you look like in the mirror. My scale tells me, if I think about the math, that lifting is working and there's muscle in there- but I need to lose another 10# or so and reevaluate. 😄

If you really want to know your exact body fat percentage, find a way to get a DEXA scan. Next best is a bodpod/ vaccum chamber or underwater weighing, and next is learning to use a set of calipers. Calipers are cheap and easy, and if you take a bunch of measurements (which you can then load into myfitnesspal for tracking purposes) hard to cheat.