I’ve been shopping for a new bathroom scale.
I bought one of the digital ones, but am annoyed that it seems to give a different weight (by several pounds) every time you step on it.
I bought it from Bed Bath & Beyond, where I tried out every display model that had batteries. First, every one showed a different weight from every other one. Second, most of the showed a different weight every time you stepped on it.
I’ve since done some online research, and it seems that inaccuracy is the biggest complaint, and it doesn’t seem to matter if they are analog or digital.
I’m inclined towards an analog model, something short of a doctor’s office balance scale, but many of them are very large for a modest sized bathroom. And even then, when I look at the customer reviews on Amazon, every one seems to have significant comments about inaccuracy.
Some of the analog name brands like Detecto also have negative reviews for accuracy. The suspicion is that they’ve outsourced to China and the quality is no longer what it was.
Now I don’t require accuracy down to the ounce, but I don’t expect my weight to fluctuate by 5 pounds or more every time I use it.
So, does anyone know of an accurate, fairly compact (say 15"x15" or so) bathroom scale? I’m willing to spend some bucks to get a quality product.
I’ve been to some very fancy, advanced medical clinics with computers, computerized BP machines, digital thermometers and complete EHR systems. But they still use beam scales for measuring weight. So if you want accuracy, that’s what you should get. And as a check against it, keep enough five-gallon water bottles that total close to your weight and use them to calibrate the machine.
I bought a generic made-in-China digital scale a year ago at Bed Bath and Beyond. It was a Conair brand with a built-in body resistance fat-o-meter feature I’ve never set up nor used.
It is extremely repeatable. Like to the 10th of a pound for measurements spread over an hour or more. IOW, it’s precise.
Accuracy is a separate question. IOW, how close is its idea of 150.0 lbs versus the true NIST standard? I tried weighing various weightlifting plates and it seemed pretty close. Certainly within 5 lbs = 3% in the weight range I care about.
The whole point of weighing oneself is to see trends. It doesn’t matter if your scale says 150 when in reality you weight 145 or 155. What matters is that it be repeatable, so the same actual weight gives the same reading time after time. So you can trust that when it says 150 day after day your weight is truly steady.
For best results weigh yourself at pretty much the same time every day using the exact same clothing every time (ideally none). My habit is wake up, pee, and weigh in. So other than the vagaries of when I last pooped I ought to get readings that are real comparable from day to day.
And I do. A change of more than about 12 ounces from one day to the next is unusual. 12 ounces is well within normal variation due to hydration. Which sleeping and peeing just before is meant to mostly eliminate.
If you are seeing scales that vary by 5lbs for two measurements taken a couple minutes apart they are broken. Or they’re not sitting flat on a smooth hard surface floor. You can’t get good results from a modern scale on carpet or some other soft or uneven surface. Or you’re jumping on them and not standing still while they compute. Or something. I’ve never seen scales with 5 lb variations.
You have to step on the same place each time. If you really have no idea what your weight is, wait until you’ve just been to the doctor’s, then weigh yourself right after you come back, and step on the scale so that you get the closest weight you can to what you got at the doctor’s office. If you have a gym with a scale with a balance, go there and weight yourself, then immediately go home and do so.
When you figure out where to stand to get the same weight that you got on the reliable scale, draw the outline of your feet with a Sharpie (I had to buy a silver one, because my scale is black).
If I step in the footprints each time, I get the same reading each time-- or, within about two pounds, which is a normal fluctuation. I am right up against the “normal” BMI, so I’m OK, but I need not to gain any weight, because I’m high risk for diabetes.
In fact, I’ve decided to try to lose 10lbs, so I have a little leeway.
It shouldn’t be too bad. I have a 20 week plan to cut out 150 calories a day, and burn an extra 100. Once I lose it, I have to go back to the dietician for a maintenance plan.
Part of the problem is that they are made to be big enough for the largest feet they may possibly encounter. If your feet are smaller than about a man’s size 15, you have this problem of needing to step in the same place each time.
Even the scales at doctors offices may vary. I recently had appointments with 3 different doctors on the same afternoon, in different parts of the same clinic/hospital. At each clinic, they started out by taking my weight, temp, & blood pressure. The scales all appeared to be the same model.
My weight varied by as much as 2+ pounds (1 kg), within that same afternoon. But that’s about a 1% variation; it’s hard to get much more accurate than that at a reasonable cost. Also, I could vary the result up to 1/2 pound (1/4 kg) or so, depending on how/where I stood on the scale.
Besides, as LSLguy said, the important thing is the overall trend in your weigh.
I was tempted to buy the beam scale, but there were many, many negative reviews regarding the quality. Not just for the Detecto brand, but also for a competing brand in the same price range.
I’m currently leaning towards the recommended Tanita brand–the HD366 model. that brand seems to have mostly positive reviews and this model is just a weight scale–no body mass, etc. I want to keep it simple.
I looked at the NewLine NY scale, too, but I’m leery of the price (too low). Could be a great bargain, but I still have an attitude of “You get what you pay for”.
I’ll let you know what I finally decide, and I’ll share my experiences.
I have an older model of the same make, and it matches the balance scale I use at the gym (same kind they usually use in doctors’ offices). Readout is to 0.1 pound and repeatable.
If you peed, pooped or ate between appointments, then your weight really was different.
Anyway, what you really want is to know what you weigh within a couple of pounds of accuracy, and not off by 10 pounds. A doctor’s scale will be plus or minus about 1%, maybe 1.5 if it hasn’t been calibrated recently. A gym scale will probably be pretty close to, because they are calibrated fairly often, but they get played with a lot, too.
If you are dieting and exercising, and expect to be losing about 2 lbs a week, and the scale never shows any loss whatsoever, you might try standing on it while holding a full jug of water. That should add about 8 lbs. to your weight. If it adds significantly more, or none at all, something is wrong with your scale. If it adds 7-9 lbs, something is wrong with your diet.
If you are fussing over every pound gained or lost, you need to read up on how weight loss works, because it’s normal for your weight to fluctuate during the day, and it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your diet or exercise regimen.
I’m not “seriously” into tracking weight but I like to have some idea of whether I’m gaining or losing over time. Like LSLGuy, I just went with a made-in-China generic except I just went down to a nearby Walmart and bought the cheapest analog scale they had for about ten bucks. I almost never go to Walmart but that’s how determined I was to spend as little as possible on a silly bathroom scale! Works just fine. The first time I used it the indicated weight was about the same as what I got from my doctor’s office and it seems quite repeatable. I don’t really see what all the fuss is about unless folks are really obsessed with extreme accuracy. For knowing how I’m trending over the course of weeks or months, this super cheap gadget does the job.
It has a 4.5 star rating across 21 thousand reviews. I have bought three of them, having shattered the previous two by stubbing my toe against them and banging them into the toilet (I keep the current one in the living room).
It’s quite accurate, extremely repeatable, and is probably about as good as you’re going to get short of a beam scale.
Repeatable may be deceptive. I found one manufacturer that sensed if two successive readings were close, it would repeat the previous reading so as to think you were getting the same reading. I test for repeatablity by alternately holding a 16-oz Pepsi and seeing if the two readings are exactly 1 lb. different.
@Quartz: Lean way back to fall off and weigh 0.0 !!
@bizerta: The data is so smooth I’d suspected mine of doing that. But if so it’s pretty smart since my wife also uses it most days and she and I are well apart in weight. It tracking both our weights is more than I’d expect from a cheap Chinese software house.
Works just fine. The first time I used it the indicated weight was about the same as what I got from my doctor’s office and it seems quite repeatable. I don’t really see what all the fuss is about unless folks are really obsessed with extreme accuracy. For knowing how I’m trending over the course of weeks or months, this super cheap gadget does the job.