Connected scales are all the rage these days. And for good reason – they make it easy to log your weight. More importantly though, they make it hard to pretend nothing happened. So as you rolled out of bed this morning perhaps regretting yesterday’s Turkey festivities, let’s talk about how to decide on a WiFi weight scale.
Sure, you can get an inexpensive $15 bathroom scale pretty much the world around. And you know what? It’s going to work just fine. I tested that previously – they are actually pretty darn accurate in terms of weight. But if you’re like me – it’s really easy to pretend week after week that the weight will go down soon when you step on the scale. Only to realize a month later nothing has really changed.
That’s the core difference here: A graphical and automatically logged chart of what your body weight is really doing (whether your goal is loss, gain, or constant).
But there are a lot of connected scale options. Some great, some overpriced, and some crap. My objective here is to talk through the major WiFi connected contenders (and explain why I’m not going into the non-WiFi models). More importantly – to talk about what you need to know beyond the model. As you’ll soon see, it’s not about the scale you choose, but rather it’s about who your scale company sleeps around partners with. Got it? Good.
The Contenders:
First, let’s do a quick overview of the three brands that make WiFi scales, giving you a total of four units to look through. After I talk about the basics, I’ll dive into the specific features of each scale and then the pros and cons of the platforms associated with each scale.
Withings WS-30 & WS-50:
First up we’ve got two different options from Withings. The $99 WS-30, and the $149 WS-50 (Note: Currently on Black Friday sale for $69 and $99 each). The core differences between them is that the WS-30 doesn’t do body fat, while the WS-50 does. Additionally, the WS-50 adds a bunch of ‘environmental’ metrics like room temperature and CO2 levels. Both scales are able to automatically track multiple people in your house, allowing you to tie data to their respective accounts.
I’ve used both of these scales for years, and from a hardware and software standpoint are among the best out there. Withings was the first WiFi scale company, and they’ve done a good job of holding that ground in terms of providing a reliable product, and an extensive software platform for 3rd parties to hook into.
Fitbit Aria:
Fitbit entered the scale realm almost 4 years ago now, with the Fitbit Aria scale. Like the Withings units, it comes in two variants (black, and white). And like the Withings WS-30, it too focuses on the basics. Unlike the WS-30 though, it does keep track of body fat. And like the other scales, it too can track multiple people in your household (or small business) and tie the data to their own accounts.
The scale costs $129, and even includes a smiley face on one of the screens. Because the world never had too many emoticons. While Fitbit doesn’t have as many 3rd party platform partners, they do have the majority of the big ones out there such as MyFitnessPal. In fact, this partnership with MyFitnessPal for both Fitbit and Withings is quite interesting, but more on why in a moment.
Garmin Index:
Finally, we’ve got the recently announced Garmin Index WiFi scale, which just started shipping in tiny quantities on Wednesday. While this scale looks pretty similar to the others, it does have a few notable differences. For example it displays and captures more body data than the other scales – such as muscle mass and bone mass.
Of course, like the others it’s tied into the manufacturer’s health platform, which in this case is the Garmin Connect platform. So if you’re already in the Garmin realm, then it’s the one scale that can get the most data into that platform via WiFi. It’s the same price as the Withings WS-50, at $149 (when the Withings isn’t on sale anyway).
Everybody Else:
So what about some of the non-WiFi models? Well honestly, they’re a tough sell. All of them require some other device, be it a watch, a phone, or some old school display connected to them. Additionally, some of the wannabe connected scales require another adapter to convert it from being not-WiFi to WiFi. That’s sorta like when you claim that eating deep-fried French fries count as a vegetable. Yes, technically true – but missing the point.
Bluetooth Scales have become slightly more popular in the last few years, mostly made by companies you’ve never heard of (though there are some exceptions to this, such as Wahoo’s scale). The lack of major brands is important because in most cases you’re dependent on that app to get data. Further, in most cases you really want to get that data to a 3rd party site like MyFitnessPal. So if those companies fail to regularly update their apps, that can be a challenge. Again, there are definitely some BT scales out there that are probably worth poking into, but for now I’m keeping this mostly focused on WiFi scales (if for no other reason than The Girl is threatening me with bodily harm if I increase our scale count beyond the current 12 scales).
And what about ANT+ Weight Scales? Well that ship sailed (and sunk) long ago. I know, it sucks for those of us that have said scales today, but realistically they just aren’t supported by anyone. Garmin stopped adding support to their watches 2-3 years ago (though oddly does maintain support on their newest Edge units). And even Garmin’s own scale doesn’t do ANT+. There’s just no logical reason to support it when WiFi is ubiquitous and data platforms store everything. No doubt there are edge cases (for example, soldiers deployed), but even those individuals would likely be better served by a Bluetooth Smart scale than an ANT+ scale.
The differences:
So what’s different about the scales themselves? How do they differ at a hardware layer? Well it mostly comes down to the specific metrics you get out of them, such as body fat or bone mass. Though there are some minor differences in maximum weight permitted as well as maximum users. On each scale’s websites and apps, the general graphs and such are quite similar. There aren’t any earth-shattering revelations or differences to be had there.
Here’s the run-down of the key physical differences between each scale:
Weight Scale Details
| Feature | Withings WS-30 | Withings WS-50 | Garmin Index | Fitbit Aria |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General: Price | $69 (norm $99) | $99 (norm $149) | $149 | $129 |
| General: Display Metrics | LBS/KG/Stones | LBS/KG/Stones | LBS/KG/Stones | LBS/KG/Stones |
| General: Max Weight | 396lbs/180kg | 396lbs/180kg | 400lbs/181kg | 350lbs/159kg |
| General: Color Options | Black, White | Black, White | Black, White | Black, White |
| General: Smiley Face Emoticon | No | No | No | :) |
| General: Maximum Users | 8 users | 8 users | 16 users | 8 users |
| General: Battery Type | 4xAAA Batteries | 4xAAA Batteries | 4xAA Batteries | 4xAA Batteries |
| Data: Weight | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data: Body Fat (%) | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data: Body Mass Index (BMI) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Data: Water Percentage | No | No | Yes | No |
| Data: Bone Mass | No | No | Yes | No |
| Data: Muscle Mass | No | No | Yes | No |
| Data: Lean Mass | No | No | No | Yes |
| Data: Indoor Air Quality | No | Yes | No | No |
| Data: Heart Rate | No | Yes | No | No |
| Connectivity: WiFi | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connectivity: Bluetooth Smart | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Connectivity: ANT+ | No | No | Setup/Config Only | No |
| Apps: Mobile Phone Apps | iOS/Android | iOS/Android | iOS/Android/Windows Phone | iOS/Android/Windows Phone |
| Apps: Can setup with desktop | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
As you can see, the core differences are mostly about metrics. There are some minor differences in terms of batteries and such, but none of those should sway your purchasing decision (unless you have some odd hatred of AAA batteries).
Which other devices do you use?:
Now that we’ve compared features, let’s get to some decisions. Let’s talk about Rule #1: That’s the “already have a device from that company” rule. That rule states that if you already have another device from that company, that you generally want to keep it in the family. Meaning, if you already have a Fitbit activity tracker – than it’s best to just get the Fitbit scale. And if you already have a Withings Aura sleep tracker – the same is true there, buy the Withings scale.
This rule is also mostly true for Garmin, but less so if you use other platforms. That’s because Garmin doesn’t really make it easy for 3rd parties to support the scale. For example, Withings has 106 apps they integrate with. Garmin has…well…1 (MyFitnessPal).
Here’s a simplified version of what I mean. In an ideal world, you’d have the same scale as your wearable – everything is great. Where on the second line, you’re using a different scale from the wearable. In this case, it may be great now, but could fall over in the future. And lastly, another example where it just doesn’t work at all in terms of having your weight and activity data in two different spots.
Yes, you can technically get the data from a Fitbit or Withings scale to Garmin connect as noted above, but it’s a bit convoluted, and again, there’s no guarantee Garmin won’t decide to purposefully break that down the road (be it tomorrow or a year from now).
The 3rd Party Sites:
Let me be super clear: The most important factor in choosing one of these scales is whether or not said scale connects to your fitness/health tracking platform of choice. Seriously – that’s it.
By and large, these scales all basically work the same way at the same accuracy level and cost roughly the same. Basically, the decision of which piece of hardware to get is a wash. Sure, some scales like the Withings offer heart rate and oxygen sensing – but as noted above, both are useless features.
Instead, what you want to focus on is ensuring that you can get the data from your scale to the site that you use. No doubt you’ll use the scale’s native app – such as the Fitbit, Garmin, or Withings Apps. But when it comes to fitness or calorie tracking sites, most people don’t use those sites. Instead, they’re using something like MyFitnessPal, MapMyFitness, Garmin Connect, or others. There are dozens (well, probably hundreds) of these sites.
Both Withings and Fitbit integrate well with 3rd party sites. If you turn the way-back machine on for Withings, you’ll remember at the very beginning they were all about getting 3rd parties to integrate with their platform. That legacy is ultimately why they’re in the position they’re in. And the same is mostly true for Fitbit and weight scale integration.
These integrations occur behind the scenes after you’ve linked your accounts together. It usually only takes a second one, and then from there you’re good to go forever. It’s true: Every once in a while I’ll forget about some account I linked years ago and then find my weight data up to date there. Kinda funny.
To understand a bit of the compatibility offerings, here’s links to each company’s partner pages. You can view all of the partners there, and figure out if the platform you use is on the list:
Withings Apps/Site Partners (106 apps as of today)
Fitbit App/Site Partners (32 apps as of today)
Garmin App/Site Partner (1 app as of today: MyFitnessPal)
Note that some partners don’t support weight data, for example, Strava doesn’t sync weight data from Fitbit – just activity tracks. So I’ve tried to exclude those from the above list. I also do find it refreshing that even Withings Scales can push to the Fitbit site. Kinda neat.
Also, in some cases, I find the partnerships don’t actually work. For example, my Withings Scale and TrainingPeaks account is paired – yet it doesn’t actually get any data from Withings to Training Peaks. I suspect that feature died years ago. (Update: A few readers in the comments have said there’s does work, so perhaps even though I’ve recently reset the connection, something else is still broke for just me. Good for others though!)
Finally, I should clarify one minor loophole that I’ve noted above, which is the MyFitnessPal loophole. See, for the last year or so, since MyFitnessPal and Garmin Connect hooked up – they’ve sorta traded weight data, though hardly in any official manner. Essentially if you hooked up your Withings or Fitbit scales to MyFitnesPal, and then connected Garmin Connect to MyFitnessPal, that weight data will actually sync backwards (or forwards?) into Garmin Connect. It isn’t always reliable, or quick – but it does generally get there.
So, to make it simple, it looks like this:
Now, it remains to be seen whether or not Garmin kills that down the road. I chatted almost a year ago with them about it, and they didn’t at the time seem to have any plans to break it (nor advertise it). But it’s there today. Hopefully Garmin continues to take the high road and remembers that people are still buying $100-$600+ GPS watches and bike computers from Garmin (and power meters), which is the only reason they’d actually want their weight data in Garmin Connect. And typically, those that have gone to the trouble of setting this connectivity up are their most loyal fans. Not really the group you’d want to upset.
For the fun of it, I asked Garmin if they had any plans to change or otherwise break this functionality. They responded that they “don’t have plans to change the syncing process”.
Finally, to understand the difference in data shown on Garmin Connect, first is what my weight looks like using the Garmin Index Scale:
Next, here’s a recent data point where the data came from the Withings WS-50 WiFi Scale, via MyFitnessPal but ending up on Garmin Connect:
So yes, just the weight gets transferred – not everything else. You’ll still get graphs and the like though on Garmin Connect, just not the extra metrics.
So again, really comes down to what data you want and where you want it.
Wrap-up
So ultimately, when choosing a scale, I’d look at it in the following order:
A) What metrics do you want? Just weight? Go simple with something like the WS-30, since it can push to just about anything including Garmin Connect
B) What other devices do you already have? If you already have a Fitbit wearable, just get a Fitbit Scale. Whereas if you already have Garmin and want the extra data, then go Garmin.
C) What other partnerships do you want/need for your data? Are you using MyFitnessPal? No problem, everyone supports that. But what if it’s a smaller app? Then you may need to look around and see who supports it.
The good news here is that the decision tree is fairly simple – so it’s not tough to get going with a new scale and pretend like yesterday’s turkey, gravy, and whatever that pumpkin creation was you ate – never happened. Right?
| Product | Amazon | |
|---|---|---|
| FitBit Aria WiFi Weight Scale $129 | Amazon | |
| Garmin Index Smart WiFi Scale $149 | Amazon | |
| Withings WS-30 WiFi Weight Scale $99 | Amazon | |
| Withings WS-50/Smart Body Analyzer WiFi Weight Scale $149 | Amazon |
With that – thanks for reading and have a great weekend ahead!
Connecting to Polar flow is not an option in any of these scales?
I would not be surprised if this has been answered elsewhere, but as a recent convert from Fitbit to Polar, I would love to know if there is a way to sync Fitbit scale data to Polar Flow. At this point, it is looking like the Polar balance scale has been discontinued, although I cant find anything official from Polar.
I added support for Polar Flow to my subscription app Smart Scale Sync. If you have a Fitbit scale you can use it to auto send all your weigh-ins to Polar Flow.
oh shoot, forgot I already mentioned this below. sorry about that!
My Withings seems to post directly to Training Peaks without fail. I’m not sure if that is because it it coming from MFP rather than Withings – it only posts weight though
My Withings posts both weight and BMI to Training Peaks.
Great timing Ray. Can we have European offers on these scales posted? Given the fact that the euro is incredibly strong right now … 🙂
try looking at amazon.de
it was among black friday offers (maybe also on cyber monday)
i saw WS30 for 69 eur and WS50 for 108 eur… still… much more expensive than in the US 🙁
i used to buy at co.uk, but now it became too expensive
I was wondering about polar also since i have something from them on my wrist.
and besides the independency and depth in reviewing, things like:”(if for no other reason than The Girl is threatening me with bodily harm if I increase our scale count beyond the current 12 scales).” I why i lurk here so much! Keep it going
ps: 12? really?
re 12 scales, I’m thinking they dance across them like in Big.
I’m a big fan of both my Fitbit One (activity tracking) and Aria and my Fenix 3 (running, swimming) and Edge 520, but I’ve ended up in a vastly over-convoluted spider’s web of third part sites to try and get them all to play nice together without duplicating data on MFP. I’ve ended up with the Fitbit side of things linked to MFP, which is also linked to Strava, which is linked to Garmin Connect.
Oh for one simple standard!
The result of this is that weight goes into Garmin manually and doesn’t get shunted through to MFP, but does update on MFP automatically from Fitbit.
I am in the same boat. I am in the Fitbit camp for activity tracking, and Garmin for training. I really like the FR620 and Edge 810, and I cannot get away from fitbit for the foreseeable future. My company rewards us with gift cards for meeting fitness goals, like averaging 10k steps a day for the quarter. All of that is synched through Fitbit. I tend to just keep them separate, I do wear my fitbit when I train, along with the garmin, but I have given up on keeping everything in one place. MFP was the closest I could get, but over time, I always end up just usting Garmin Connect and the Fitbit app. I have had my Aria scale for several years now, and it is interesting seeing how weight fluctuates over time. It certainly makes you more aware of it
Don’t forget that Withings also link via IFTT.com so you can also have the option of exporting weight data to some of the supported channels there…
Nike+
Jawbone Up
Misfit
Fitbit
The Nike+ connection for me tends to be a bit flaky but I use Nike+ as a historic record for running only.
Personally I’d like to see Suunto connect to Withings or IFTT.
Yes, though one minor thing to keep in mind is that I don’t believe Withings can ‘receive’ updates through their API, only ‘gets’.
I had a WS50, and depending where it was on my wooden floor, the weight changed of a few 100s grams.
Have you noticed this as well? On the withings but also for the Garmin?
For every scale to work accurately, it should be on a perfectly flat and leveled surface. Guess this is why you get these little changes. My WS50 is working fine…always working on the same exact spot. 🙂
Sure, that’s why you have to weigh yourself every time on the same place (and also same time of the day, preferably in the morning).
Ideally, never move the scale from the same spot. But if this isn’t possible, mark the spot somehow (it’s easier in the bathroom because of the tiles). This way you can always be sure that the difference in position won’t affect the result.
I cannot wait to see something more in-depth on the Garmin scale. I guess that it won’t be too long now since Ray has the scale!
I might do an in-depth review next week if I can fit it in. In the grand scheme of in-depth reviews, it’s a pretty easy one.
As for functionality, it works well – I’ve got no complaints really. No better or worse than the other two in that respect.
Speaking of which- any indication as to when the Garmin scale will be available to order in the UK? All the websites I looked at have it listed but not in stock?
How about the auto-detect? Between you and the girl, it’s probably not much of an issue. But what about similar weights or just off by a few pounds? Does it use other metrics like body composition to determine who the user is? This seems like it could be a pretty big differentiator between scales for multiple people.
I just got my WS-50 and am generally happy with it. Even with the “carpet” feet on not overly plush carpet, it was having issues. Placed a board under it and it works fine.
Turns out that if you have multiple users within a few pounds of each other, it will ask you which user it is. You need to lean left or right while it is displaying the two users to select.
I’d generally have to agree that the extra metrics of the 50 don’t give much real value and probably would have gone with the WS-30, but REI only had the 50.
I purchased the WS-50 some time ago, despite being firmly in the Fitbit camp at the time and the Aria being available, due to the type of Wifi.
The Aria, unfortunately, uses 801.11b, where as the WS-50 uses 802.11g. Both of those are old, but 11b is the really old 11Mb Wifi speed (circa 1999). It was superseded with 11g (around 2003) with maximum speeds of 54Mb. Since then 11n has superseded that and become common place, and now 11ac is making inroads.
I do not know what the WS-30 uses, since it is older than the 50. Withings doesn’t make the nuts and bolts as readily available online (that is, it’s going to take me more than 30 seconds to find it). Garmin Index goes as far as 802.11n.
You can easily argue that scales do not need high speeds, but the point is more that a lot of the more techy nerds tend to disable the older standards, because they impact throughput. Wifi access points time slice between them. They give X ms to 11b, then Y ms to 11g, the Z ms to 11n. They do not run them concurrently, it just appears that way because it cycles through them really fast, but that means it still gives exclusive time to each standard even if it isn’t being used. Disable 11b and those X ms get given to 11g and 11n.
More importantly, I can imagine that 11b will get dropped from the home broadband routers sooner rather than later, because they’re built for price and maintaining backward compatibility just isn’t cost effective any more after a while.
If you just run whatever you have at default settings, none of this actually matters. If you don’t, it’s something to consider because it might be overlooked until you have your shiny new toy at home and try to connect it.
I will ditch my Fitbit Aria down the road because of that 801.11b standard. It requires using an inefficient setting in my main router and I suspect that in due time new routers won’t support it.
My new Linksys does not support anything besides n/ac,
Currently to overcome this I am using the WiFi from my ISP for the aria exclusively, which is a real drag to have 2 routers running at the same time.
I plan to sell this scale down the road as well
Another vote on connectivity matters. I have a very old Withings which has been fine, but it’s almost the last 802b device in my house. It’ll get junked at some point, I’d not go with anything less than G with a replacement.
And support for WPA2
aug – 2016 – my aria stopped working after 4 years when I changed batteries and the scale couldn’t find 801.1b anymore on my router – the work around is unbelievably complex … so a new scale! I tried to get my new withings body cardio hooked up – and it just won’t play nice with my wifi either – like you – I can’t find adequate help info on the withings site – and the app really only tells you what requirements you need to operate the scale when you get an error message – the help people just tell you to reboot your router over and over. So the scale is supported through Bluetooth in my phone – but I cannot connect to wifi – as far as I know I am running my home wifi at default settings – but I did run into the problem of not being able to connect my shiny new toy. It’s very frustrating. especially since it is so hard to find any system requirement info on the withings website.
I appreciated your remarks and the replies to your remarks because it made me feel less crazy!
I actually had the exact same thing happen with my Aria (got it right after they came out, worked fine for 4 years, changed the batteries and *poof* it no longer worked). They sent me a new one and I was good to go.
Fitbit Aria is now listed as 802.11b.
Great review as always Ray. Thank you!
I think you bring it to the point! It depends on the devices you already have.
I use a couple of Runtastic’s apps. So I got the Runtastic Libra WiFi weight scale.
Hi Ray, are you planning on doing a more in depth review of the Garmin Index scales? I’d be interested to know what your impression of all the extra metrics is. It seems that the general consensus of the WS-50 wasn’t too hot, for example their body fat percentage readings being heavily influenced by changes in hydration status.
I appreciate that metrics such as muscle and bone mass are hard to accurately quantify even in laboratory or hospital settings, let alone a consumer-grade scale but it’d be interesting to hear whether they are consistent and reflect the trends that they are supposed to.
I’ll be looking at the metrics, and as well whether you can trick them.
I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to a lab with a bunch of folks like in the past for testing, but ya never know.
Besides weight these scales measure… nothing. I’ve been getting 4% body fat readout even on Tanita top models that have those extra electrodes you keep in hands.
Better to take a look at a simple chart, now I know I’m about 15%.
I generally agree. I don’t find the body fat metric ever really that useful. We know it’s not terribly accurate on any scales I’ve tested (see BodPod link early in post), and really, you can look at yourself in the mirror and know whether you have much body fat. No surprise there.
For a day-to-day basis fat metric is not very useful I agree but it is super relevant when you are on a specific diet either because you prepare a race or you just want to lose the “bad” weight… which means the fat… gaining weight is not a real problem as long as it is not fat and to me that metric is pretty useful then don’t you think?
The only challenge there is that many of the scales can be ‘tricked’ by water weight changes on the body fat side.
Hello, Most cheap accurate BF% is to use a Accu Measure Caliper. The simple one. It’s very accurate. Have used it and compred it with DEXA and itls pretty much 99% accurate if done ocrrectly.
Hi Ray,
Do You have any thoughts/findings about the scales accuracy?
Yup, see the link in the first paragraph or two for the BodPod comparison testing I did. 🙂
Ray, my Withings makes it to Training Peaks perfectly. Have you tried redoing the account linking? I think I had to jump through hoops to get that data into Garmin Connect (via myFitnessPal, maybe?), but that works fine too.
Weird. I had re-linked it a few weeks ago, nothing’s come through since either. 🙁
TP is still working for me, but GC has stopped working recently. Garmin definitely say they still haven’t killed the MFP connect?
I saw another comment over the last few days that for one person it seemed to hang, but they re-established it this weekend and it’s fine again. It’s always been kinda finicky, my guess is it’s no different now.
Hey Ray…
I’ve got my WS-30 connected to 2 Withings Apps, Garmin Connect via MyFitnessPal and the Fitbit App. The one thing I’ll say is that I really like the presentation of the weight graphs that Withings provides. They provide a trend-line which appears to be a moving average as well as a line graph between the readings. Fitbit would be a reasonable second and Garmin connect would be a distant third. MyFitnessPal only shows the last reading of the day which means if I step on again (say after a ride to see fluid loss) that’s the reading I get for that day.
For me this gives Withings the win. Just my .02
Mike
Yeah i agree with this. The Withings app on the iPhone is far superior to any of the other platforms IMHO, although Fitbit has gotten better, as have Garmin.
The other benefit of Withings is that it’s really easy to export your entire weight history which can then be uploaded to other platforms. Can’t do this with Garmin or easily with Fitbit (from my experience, although their policy might have changed).
So i’ve stuck with Withings for weight, even though i use a Charge HR for activity tracking and Garmin for running.
I’m surprised you didn’t give Garmin more of a virtual slapping in this post. The reason the others won’t sync with them is because Garmin makes them pay a fortune for the privilege and not because they don’t want to.
Although you say about keeping it in the family for things like calorie consumption, I’d say pointless on that one. The Withings graph is excellent by itself, and Garmin don’t integrate the data anyway from what I can tell. They certainly don’t sync my weight from Connect to the devices or vice versa to make calories more accurate.
While the theory of your choosing method is good, the practice is that in reality Garmin need to buck up and start playing with others, and start integrating their own systems better. Personally I’d choose Not-the-Garmin every time because voting with your feet matters in these things. Yes, I’ll certainly buy Garmin watches again, but blocking the frankly better competition just to get into a new market is not cricket!
Forgot to add – Garmin supporting one third party kind of makes them a non-contender. You may only want it to sync with Garmin, but wives/girlfriends/children would probably find the hundreds of other apps more useful. Not intentionally sexist comment, but women tend to use scales more for weight loss than men so the many weight loss apps could well be the reason these toys are even allowed in the house for a lot of people…
Actually, that’s not the case here. Right now Garmin simply hasn’t provided these companies with any details on how to get weight data. For example, Training Peaks, Sport Tracks, and many others have paid the fee, but don’t have weight data support today for Garmin scales (despite most of them supporting Withings/Fitbit).
I tried to be pretty clear in the post that the Garmin scale is a poor choice if you’re on multiple platforms (I thought I did it in every section actually).
That said, there is a certain portion of the population that only has a Garmin device(s), and so for them, fumbling with other scales probably isn’t worth it.
Quite right for those who are only in Garmins world. I still think Garmin are the ones being a bit anti-social in general. I’m confident Withings and Fitbit would push to Garmin by now if it was free, and I’d say it’s for Garmin to do the legwork to get weight available for others too.
It’s an interesting question though as to who should be the pusher and who the puller in these scenarios, and who should be doing the coding. I guess Nirvana would be where everyone makes every piece of my data available in XML for everyone else (and me!) to pull once they have permission. Worst case is what Garmin seem to be doing by assuming they are the big guy and everyone else should fall in line – hence they have very few ConnectIQ apps and very few integrations with services.
Oh, totally minor thing I meant to reply to on your original post…
I did notice actually that the FR235 does actually now update my weight as shown on the device from the scale upon each sync. 🙂
Thanks for pointing that out, hopefully that’s coming to the other watches too. More than that, hopefully that means they finally managed a two way communication so they can start backing up settings and syncing things like VO2Max between devices 🙂
Ray, can you test this with the Fitbit or Withlings scale and the new Vivoactive HR? Will the scale communicate the weight info with the watch, and in turn into Garmin Connect?
I won’t be able to test it right away, but I’d be blown-away surprised if it doesn’t work since the underlying components are pretty much standard for any new fitness devices from 2015 forward (except perhaps the FR225).
I have the Withings scale and I think it is still the best option out there. Due to the fact they have been the first on the market their API is widely supported.
can these scales be used by more than one person?
I.e can me and with wife both use one?
Check the WEIGHT SCALE DETAILS table, you can pair 8 different people to them and up to 16 on the Garmin Index.
doh! cheers bud
Great article – thanks Ray!
Thinkinkg about getting the Garmin scale. Is anything known about the release date for Europe (or even UK)?
Regarding all those devices and their services to be cohesive : ever thought about an article about that Ray ?Perhaps couple good pointers or use-cases that you personally use, or know that work together ?
Because one service syncing to another is trivial, but having multiple of them and as cherry on the top adding Apple Health to the mix – then it gets really “fun”. For instance, linking Strava, Garmin Connect to Myfitnesspal, then connecting all three to Apple Health. What will happen and/or will the activities get duplicated in Apple Health ?
Although one good point of Apple Health is that you know what data a certain app/service can read/write and are in control of that. I kinda miss that control on online services integrations, where it’s more or less “try it and you’ll figure it out”.
In addition to that, I would like to have a platform independent solution, where I can sync all my data to and then create all kinds of different graphs and dashboards. Apple Health is nice, but I can only access it from my iPhone. What if my next phone is an android? I would need to gather all the data all over again.
A good example is activity tracking. I used to use a Withings Pulse to track my steps. A couple of months ago, the Pulse died on me, so now I’m tracking my steps with my iPhone. The Withing health mate app allows me to do that. But now I want to use a Garmin Forerunner 235 for activity tracking, but steps recorded with a Garmin watch will not sync to the Withings Health mate app. I’m fine with that, but I also have a Withings scale for my weight and body fat. This data is going into Apple Health, but not to the Garmin App.
It would be nice to have a device-independent app and website that gathers all the data from all the devices and/or Apple Health and that allows to create personal dashboards and graphs.
> I would like to have a platform independent solution, where I can sync all my data to and then create all kinds of different graphs and dashboards
Wouldn’t we all 😀 Which reminds me to the classic xkcd post : link to xkcd.com
> But now I want to use a Garmin Forerunner 235 for activity tracking, but steps recorded with a Garmin watch will not sync to the Withings Health mate app.
The thing is that if all vendors would support Apple Health as being a central data collector, that could be implemented TODAY. Compared to Google Fit, Apple Health supports way more types of data for any kind of measurement, which basically shows that Fit was a hobby project and a “me too” kind of deal for Google.
For your use-case, if vendors implemented read and write for certain data to Health, you could get steps from Garmin watch to Withings Health made app via Apple Health (Garmin writes to Apple Health, Withings app reads from Apple Health).
> I’m fine with that, but I also have a Withings scale for my weight and body fat. This data is going into Apple Health, but not to the Garmin App.
Same thing here, Garmin app would need to support reading weight and body fat (which is trivial) from Apple Health and save it to their service.
I’ve always imagined that the point of Apple Health was exactly that – a single database of health related data where various apps/service interchange them. But since Garmin (mostly) wants their service to be one single entry point, this is still only a dream.
The interchangeable data sounds excellent, but can be a suicide for a company, specially if their service is free. That’s why we don’t see a uniform platform independent solution.
The singular caveat though with Apple Health specifically (versus other platforms), is that for better or worse, your data only exists on your device. There is no Apple Health cloud platform. So Garmin can’t directly write from GC to it. Instead, it has to go via a mobile app on your device.
> So Garmin can’t directly write from GC to it. Instead, it has to go via a mobile app on your device.
Indeed, though I haven’t tested what parameters it writes/reads and if the activity data are duplicated between Strava/myFitnesspal/Apple Health/Garmin Connect. My bet is that one might need to connect all those together, see what data goes where and duplicates happen, then toggle the read/write permissions for Apple Health.
That’s why I mentioned it’s very nontransparent what data interchange happens between online services compared to Healthkit, where you can even control the access.
One single advantage I’ve seen in Apple Health (and I’m sure they advertised as such) is the ability that I enter one parameter which can be read by any connected apps/services.
For example (being on the topic), let’s say I get weight data via a Wi-Fi connected scale. This data then ideally gets transferred at some time via the app (Withings or Garmin, based on the scale vendor) to Apple Health. Other connected apps/services at some time read that new weight value and update the parameter in their service. So no need to track and enter weight on 5 different services. And that’s probably the simplest use-case, which sadly still isn’t working with all services because of their own agenda.
Being a tech geek, maybe I’m a bit too OCD about those data collections and having everything in sync 🙂
And that connection from app to Apple Health is, so far, not reliable. Cycling distance frequently double counts or completely loses points, “Active Energy” seems to just be from a step counter (either the iPhone itself or the Withings App which nagged me until I turned step counting on; I just ignore it). Weight and blood pressure from my Withings devices are reliable, and the heart rate from my Apple Watch is there (but since I don’t carry my Apple Watch with me during real activities, it’s also not useful.)
> And that connection from app to Apple Health is, so far, not reliable.
It’s not really fault in Health, it doesn’t read data by itself, app X writes to Apple Health when browsing the app/activity, so you might want to contact Withings app support for that.
For instance, Strava app can’t write to Health if you don’t open the app and browse the activity list. For calories to be written, you need to open the certain activity etc. Otherwise Strava seems to be quite stable, no weird double entries or similar.
In the case of step counter, you might get double readings if you’re using your iPhone internal step counter and Withings app step counter, so you need to choose only one in this case.
But yeah, the data collected in Apple Health isn’t useful much on the long run, since you cannot do anything with it nor does Apple offer a product in this matter. Only thing I see value in it, as I said above, is being an immediate exchange of data of the same type between various apps/services, but a pity not every vendor cooperates with that.
To follow up on the Garmin Connect app integration, it seems they don’t even support Apple Health integration, unless you pair a specific supported Garmin devices to the App : link to forums.garmin.com
Which just confirms that they want to do their own thing more or less.
Now of course not all services support the data types as seen in above Garmin scale case. But the question is : would Garmin offer syncing of that extra Garmin Scale data to other services, if the services adapted and added the data types ? Until Garmin guarantees that, no service will invest time and resources into adapting for that.
Just wanted to add that Apple Health is the way I get my Withings weight data to sync with Strava. As Ray mentions it happens through the App on the iPhone in the following way:
1) Measure weight on Withings scale
2) Scale uploads to Withings cloud through WiFi
3) Withings iOS App receives measurement through WiFi/LTE
4) Withings iOS App writes measurement to Apple Health
5) Strava iOS App reads weight measurement from Apple Health
6) Strava iOS APP uploads weight measurement to Strava Cloud
So way to many steps in the background but the point is that Strava is fully aware of my day-to-day body weight measurements which is amazing!
What about the Garmin scale and Training Peaks? Does it sync there?
Nope. The Garmin scale data goes exactly one place at this time: MyFitnessPal. That’s it.
Is there any chance that you could ask Garmin if they have any plans to implement any further collaborations beyond MFP?
They seem to have reluctantly accepted that sharing GPS activity files between services is a good idea to keep Garmin Connect competitive and I can’t see why they would think any differently in this situation. Is it just another case of all the parties taking time to implement the required infrastructure to push and receive this data, or is there something more to it?
Getting weight data to TrainingPeaks would certainly make me a lot more interested in the Garmin scales because it seems from comments here as though the Withings route is a bit hit-and-miss.
Yup, I asked them. They said they didn’t have anything else to announce at this time.
That said, I’ve been talking to one company that’s a partner with them already for AutoSync, and it does appear they are getting some data when I step on the scale. But they aren’t 100% clear how to parse that data yet.
Since Garmin syncs with MyFitnessPal, is it possible that weight data will then sync with Fitbit via the Garmin Index Scale. I only really use three apps and they seem to play together nicely; Garmin Connect for running/training, Fitbit for activity tracking and MyfitnessPal for the nutrition side of things. Works well so far!
Oops! Sorry about the pic. Thought I was adding a profile pic, need to read posting instructions better!
Very cryptic, but I hope you’re talking about TrainingPeaks!
It would seem a logical implementation seeing as they already support daily logging of weight, body fat etc in much the same fashion as GC does.
To date I have not yet been able to get my Garmin scale numbers to sync into mfp.Ive disconnected and reconnected , my steps and exercise are pulled in but not my weight. Any suggestions??
When tracking weight, its important to take account of variance due to ingestion of fluids and solids, and the subsequent removal of them by many means. Do any of the vendors include this kind of analysis in their software, to see the difference between a change, and just random fluctuations?
Thanks for article Ray, I didn’t realize only weight got transferred to Garmin from the other scales. That part made my decision a lil easier.
Not that I really care cause i’ll be using WIFI, just more of an FYI. It appears the Garmin Scale does support ANT+ – link to buy.garmin.com
Physical Specifications
Weight: 6.2 lbs (2.8 kg)
Dimensions: 13.8” x 12.2” x 1.2” (35.0cm x 31.0cm x 3.0cm)
Battery life: Up to 9 months; uses 4 AA batteries (included)
BLE capable: Yes
ANT compatible: Yes
WiFi: Yes, 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n
Weight Limit: 400 lbs (181.4 kg)
It does support ANT+, but that’s more of a technicality. It only supports it for setup/configuration of the scale from your desktop. It doesn’t use it for transferring weight data to your desktop or to an ANT+ weight scale compatible watch (older Forerunners).
Does the Garmin scale send more than just the weight data to MFP? The Garmin scale seems to capture all the data types that I care about but I wonder if more than weight data will make it to MFP and eventually TrainingPeaks through the syncing of those services.
Actually I just noticed that my data hasn’t been synced between Withings and TP for some while now. I just disconnected and re-assosiacted TP in MyWithings and it started working again.
It really is awesome to have a place that breaks it all down in an easy digestible way. The various sport watches alone makes my head spin; and of course the advice seems simple and logical AFTER you say it Ray. 🙂
What happens when you take multiple data points through the day? I always record my data when I first get up, but I’ll also sometimes weigh myself before/after a run.
Also, do any of the services allow for uploading historical data? I have a spreadsheet with over a decade of data that would be nice to add in to MyFitnessPal, Garmin, or Withings.
I know that Garmin will take a FIT file of the proper format for historical weight data. A couple of years ago, there was briefly on the web a site which would take data from Withings and construct a FIT file, which you could then upload to Garmin Connect. So you’d have to find a way to construct the proper FIT file. There’s no other way that I know of.
Rather unbelievably the way the Garmin Connect works right now is that each time you weigh yourself on the Index it overwrites the previous data. So if you weigh yourself each morning but want to see what happened after your long 15-20 mile run, you ruin the morning’s weigh in. If you sync to myfitnesspal it appears myfitnesspal keeps every Garmin weigh in (weight only) but thats a kludge. I hope this is a high priority fix for Garmin.
I never learn… Garmin makes beautiful hardware then takes months to fix the software side.
It’s a shame that Garmin does not play well with others. They make some of the best running watches and then keep you in the Garmin world. What does Garmin have to lose by being compatible by multiple fitness sites? Also, this year we wen’t from the 220 to the 225 to 230 and to the 235. The 225 didn’t even make it eight months, did it? I have a 220 (purchased in February) with a Mio Fuse. I had upgraded from a 450cx and miss the virtual partner. I’m pondering the 235 and the scale, but I’m starting not to trust Garmin. We have one alternate option with the Garmin scale and that stinks.
Ray, if I use the link to Amazon and pre-order do you still get credit? Or should I wait until it’s in stock?
Yup, totally supports. The way Amazon works is that it only credits it to me upon the unit shipping to you. But either way, it’s all good!
Amazon.fr has a cybermonday sales for the smart body analyzer :
link to amazon.fr
wish i could buy it with your link
Question about…color, of all things.
Is the white or black the better decision? I’m not talking about just overall looks, but if you have the white, does it retain it’s color (a lot of white tech products fade/stain), and does one color attract dirt/dust more than the other?
I’ve got the black Fitbit, Garmin, and Withings scales. And also have a white Withings scale. I find in general the black scale looks worse sooner than the white – where things seem to just fade in. Just my thoughts on it though.
Thanks, Ray. I had visions of those original white MacBooks, where they got brown in the wrist rest area in a few weeks.
White scale, ordered!
If hydration level is everyday the same, it means that the other statistics are accurate?
can you explain the relationship between fitbits “lean mass” and garmins “muscle mass? i assume these are essentially the same thing?
interesting discussion on the platform integrations, this seems like an issue across the connected device world. you get tied to one platform when you buy your first device without probably having thought beyond that one device. would be so nice if everyone would just agree on some central repository or data synch service!
There is a difference actually (I didn’t know this till I searched the other night after creating that table).
Lean Mass = Body weight minus body fat weight (inclusive of water/bones/etc…)
Muscle Mass = Muscle mass weight
Just to be a little pedantic…
Lean Mass = Body weight minus estimated body fat weight
Muscle Mass = Estimated Muscle mass weight
Coming up with new numbers doesn’t mean they’ve measured these things, and this industry in particular seems to have a fetish for more and more metrics which are based on very little actual data. I know you know this Ray, and you even said in the article, but I figure if Patrick is asking the difference he probably plans to use the metrics for something
What’s the “user experience” with these? Do you have to tap to wake them up and wait for them to init, do you simply step on and you’re done? Do you have to tap something to cause it to sync?
Step on and done.
Thanks Ray
I’ve been looking at these for months and months trying to decide.
Some Fitbit Aria reviews have suggested that you need to keep the scale flat and in the same place between weigh-ins to remain accurate.
If you move it or lean against a wall, it will take a few weigh-ins to return to the required level of accuracy.
Have you noticed this at all?
I’ve occasionally seen stuff like that with numerous scales on the market. One trick I’ll use is to simply kick the scale once after you set it down. For most of the higher end scales, that’ll cause it to re-zero before standing on it.
Messaage from Clever Training just now when I tried to order it…
Oops! This item is not valid with coupon codes.
Bummer!
Looks like the sale on the WS-50 might be over. The Amazon and Clever Training rings up at $149 once I add them to my cart. =(
I think the WS 30 might still be on sale from Amazon last I checked.
I figured if the body fat is pretty inaccurate, it may not be worth the extra $80.
Thanks for the heads-up. I just checked with the Clever Training folks, they just triage it and made a small tweak that should help for anyone not seeing the right price. Please let me know if that’s not happening and I’d be happy to get them back on the phone. Thanks!
Hi Ray. I went back and was able to get the right price into the cart. Thanks!
fyi – if you change your password on TrainingPeaks, Withings sync isn’t going to be able to sync. The reason for this is that the TrainingPeaks web service wants a username/password passed with every request rather than some ‘authorization token’ that is independent of your password.
(all this assumes that Withings doesn’t have access to a different TP API than i’ve got)
Ray, can you speak to the fact that the Garmin scale is currently available at big box retailers but not at specialty outlets like Clever Training. Why is Garmin screwing the “little guy” by providing inventory to the major retailers first?
My understanding is CT is expecting scale arrivals next week. As for why they sent them to Best Buy first this time, not sure. My guess is part of some side agreement between them probably vaguely related to the Vivosmart HR stuff (60-day exclusive there). I know that it’s often appealing to try and funnel through a Best Buy for an exclusive period, though, at this time of year, I can’t imagine that’s really a wise business choice (I saw the logic back last year for the original VS since it was pre-holidays). I’d think right now you’d want units in every possible corner of the US, since Best Buy would have carried it anyway.
That noted, I actually never ask Garmin about specific retailers (such as Clever Training, or inventory to specific retailers). In my opinion, that’s an issue between Clever Training and Garmin. I try and keep those things separate for all companies. It’s not unusual that companies will try and pull me into those discussions, and I pretty much tell them all every time to discuss whatever they want to discuss with CT, but leave me out of it. I’m happy to make a simple introduction in between any companies in the space to any others, but I don’t want companies to think that they can influence anything review-wise by giving priority or not to CT for anything.
I would guess volume and exposure. I’d be less than 5% of the people know CT.
Oh, to be clear – I’m not referring to CT here so much actually. The Best Buy exclusive means that no retailers in the US get it. No running shops, no other fitness retailers, not REI, Dicks…or probably most importantly: Amazon.
All during the busy holiday period.
I really like your product reviews, it guides me before buying new “toys”. Have you heard about “Skulpt”? I would like to hear more from you about it, if possible. Thanks.
I second that on the Skulpt! I just ordered one from Clever Training. Don’t think I’m in the market for a wifi scale just yet since I already have one that spits out the same data as the Garmin Index, though not a wifi scale. Will be interesting comparing the metrics for body fat %.
So im a little confused here. Are you saying that the Body Fat % is not entirely accurate on these scales, specifically the WS50? If this is the case, then wouldn’t it not make sense to spend the extra $30 and get the WS30 instead since that is the real true difference between the two scales?
I read your post with the Bodpod and still a little confused like with your comments #23 and 24 above
Im going to buy one of the two this weekend but just want to make sure I get the one that makes the most sense and not spend the money if it’s not worth it
Thanks and continue with all the great posts
No, it’s generally not super-accurate on any of them. Consistent, yes, but not often accurate. Personally, I don’t use the metric for anything – I just use weight.
I’ve had one of the Withings Wifi scales for several years now and am relatively happy with it. In my experience the weight component is pretty consistent and tracks when comparisons I’ve done with calibrated medical scales. The BF% is, unsurprisingly, a bit of a joke and mostly only interesting to note how well its variability tracks with my cycle — otherwise it, somewhat to my surprise, seems to read a bit high (typically around 16%, where dexa says around 13%, not that dexa is perfect either). The BMI measure is pointless, at least from a bodybuilder’s perspective, but easily ignored. My sister has the newer version that adds pulse and CO2 measure, neither feature seems remotely useful.
What does drive me a bit nuts is the Withings web site. First there’s the fact that it’s even a ‘thing’ for this data to be client-server, I just don’t see any good reason for there not to be an option to save the data locally and not give it to them to do with as they wish. This is a problem I have with a lot of personal electronics/IoT where we are willy-nilly uploading every aspect of our lives, whether there’s any particular reason or advantage to doing so or not. In the case of the Withings scale I find it particularly galling because logging into their website I am often bombarded with adverts and banners begging me to flood Amazon with positive reviews of their product, making it feel even more like the data isn’t mine, but theirs and they’ll show it to me as they please.
Which, when you get right down to it, is basically the case.
It’s not like we’re talking big or complicated data sets here, or like there is any processor intensive server-side data manipulation is necessary before it can be meaningfully displayed. The same, frankly, can be said of most such devices. There’s no particular reason the data couldn’t be stored, manipulated, and displayed locally, either on a system on my network or simply on my phone, at least as an option.
I keep wondering how long it’s going to be before handing all of this personal data over to companies to do with as they wish is going to bite us on the arse, if it already has and we just don’t know how badly, or if we’re past the point of caring or even realizing just how much we’re handing over for little or no real reason.
I dunno, it’s not like I’m not as guilty of it as anyone else. At this point my only solution has been to keep as much personal data separate as possible. My scale is Withings, my blood pressure monitor is Qardio, my sleep monitor is Hello Sense, my workout watch is Polar. And never the twain shall meet. Or, at least as far as I know none of these can be linked, nor do I see any need or reason for them to be.
I keep all personal data inside Sporttracks for the very reason that I don’t want my biometric/ health data being mined for someone’s marketing campaign (or worse). My scales don’t have wifi but my brain is good at memorising, all the way from the bathroom to my computer. And the data stays home…. (unless the NSA finds it interesting).
I also capture blood pressure info and RHR from time to time and it seems that I am perfectly capable of remembering all this info, without the need to let helper apps take over my life. I prefer this kind of control, as I assume you do too.
Does anyone know if you can “recalibrate” the Withings scales? i.e. using a known weight?
Mine seems to be off by a couple kilo’s after moving houses.
Thanks,
Duncan
Yes, with it on the new flat floor press it and then leave it for 30 seconds. It’s in the manual somewhere. Don’t overlook that your weight has changed because of the house move – stress, differing exercise and other factors can have an effect quite quickly, as can take-away food while you’re moving and just after. My weight changed by 2KG for a while after moving.
I use the Tanita with the Gramin Edge 800 or 920 and its brilliant
How’s the accuracy of the body fat measurement capabilities? Quite often the scales are just guessing, instead of being able to properly analyze and measure it.
It’s not so much that the BF% measurement in these scales isn’t particularly good, it’s that it can’t really be.
Basically they use a two-point bio-impedance measurement system. An electrical signal is run from one foot to the other, generally a known voltage with the current draw being measured and the resistance calculated from there (Ohm’s Law: E=IR). Various tissues in the body have different resistance levels (or conductance, depending on which way you want to look at it) and there are several different formulas used (Withings gives you a choice between three, at least for my scale) to try and estimate body composition from there.
The problem is firstly that bio-impedance is itself a bit of a dicey proposition. You’re running a signal through various tissue types and trying to guesstimate what is what from a relatively simple measurement. Something as simple, and highly variable, as hydration level will change the measurement and there are just so many possible variables.
The second problem is that these scales typically are using as minimal a measurement system as possible. Higher-end bio-impedance devices use multi-point sampling, typically at least eight points (two each per limb), as well as variable frequency signals. By measuring between each of the points and using different measurement frequencies they can be a bit more discerning and get whole body measurements where the scales are limited to foot-to-foot only, ignoring the rest of the body, and are generally using the simplest (read here, cheapest) sampling systems the manufacturers can manage.
Measuring BF% without cutting someone open and having a look is fairly iffy to begin with. Even DEXA, the ‘Gold Standard’ has issues. A good bio-impedance system is going to be well below DEXA or Bodpod, but probably still well above calipers for accuracy — I mostly find the high-end systems useful because they can measure muscle imbalance fairly well, a common issue in bodybuilding. The systems you can stick in a relatively cheap scale, however? Meh. Somewhat useful for watching trends, but I wouldn’t believe the number they give you was anything more than a vague guess at best.
And even that may be giving them a bit too much credit.
IMHO, and all that rot.
At the beginning of the article, I included a link to the last time I did accuracy testing of scales (including some of these). Ultimately, as Myria noted, they’re not terribly accurate for body fat (but great for straight weight).
That said, as she also noted, if you’re looking at trending – they tend to be consistent day after day, just not potentially accurate.
Hoping Ray will do a write-up (even if not a full detailed review) at some point on the Skulpt Aim. I bought one on the original Indiegogo campaign, and have been using it since. It seems to me that the body fat percentage measurements from the Skulpt Aim are realistic – more realistic at any rate than the BF% readings from my Withings scale.
I do indeed have one, and have poked at it a little bit here and there.
Also for those interested in the tech: link to weightology.net
And
link to pubs.sciepub.com
Wonder if the scales are multi frequency BIA or single.
Hey Mark, can the Skulpt Aim output its results to Apple Health, Google Fit, or Garmin Connect? What’s the difference between the Skulpt and the Skulpt Aim? Where can I buy it for the lowest price? I noticed that Indiegogo is showing US$129 and on Skuplt’s website, it’s US$199. Huge difference! Are the Skulpt results reliable?
Mark or anyone here with answers to my questions?
Mine reads 3% lower than my Fitbit Aria. I would estimate myself that my body fat is even higher than what the Aria said so I would guess my Garmin is 5-6% low. I don’t see a way to set a lean/athlete vs. regular/normal mode like all the rest of the Wi-Fi scales have… I need to use “regular” modes in the other scales to get more realistic body fat numbers.
Appreciate this discussion Ray! Me and my lady are so connected with Garmin that I went ahead and pre-ordered the Index from Clever. This is all going to integrate nicely with my 230 which by the way is perfect paired with my Rythm heart rate monitor.
For any UK based folks interested in purchasing the Garmin scale- it is not available anywhere at the moment. I spoke with a retailer, who gave me an indication they are only due to receive it in mid December.
Do give us a shout if you see it in stock anywhere at all.
Since I’m obviously doing nothing with the information a $15 scale is just fine for me
Thanks for the review. I’ve had a Withings WS-50 since July and have been fairly pleased with it. I say fairly because up to now it has required a reset (pulling the batteries) once a month after stopping to make measurements (the CO2 had gaps for instance). Hopefully the latest FW fixes that on top of adding a graph of the day to day variations which they failed to advertize for some reason.
I didn’t know of that WS->MFP->GC loophole so I set up this morning and it works fine. It’s too bad you can’t import past readings in GC.
Well no sync on GC today (Withings->MFK is ok), is it just me?I’m pretty sure I saw someone else comment about that but can’t find the post now.
Ok I figured it out, for some reason my GC and MFT accounts are getting disconnected each day, hence no syncing…I have to reenable the connection manually on GC. Anyone else have that problem ?
Same problem, if you have to reenable and manually sync everyday, you might as well enter the data manually or give up on them
My WS-30 just arrived today.
Do you happen to know how many times I can weigh myself in a day and have the data feed to MFP or Training Peaks? Basically, if I weight myself in the morning, and then again in the evening, will both weigh ins sync?
I have found the Withings scales to be quite unreliable. The weight recording changes are too great to account for natural variation. They are on a hard surface before anyone suggests this.
Hi Ray,
Any possibility that GC could let the user choose specific units for the weight data. I’m from Canada and use km/meters for my cycling, running, swim metrics but when it comes to weight, I like to use imperial units (pounds).
Maybe I’m not the only one!
Thanks, great review … bought the Withings WS-50 based on your review a few years ago!
I have been using a Fitbit aria scale for almost a year. I feel that their body fat measurements are all over the map. Perhaps because of my hydration/dehydration? Do I happen to have a defective unit?
DCR, what’s your take on this?
did you read this one? link to dcrainmaker.com
while i think my aria reads a few % low it has been very consistent day to day when used first thing in the morning and has trended upwards as i gained weight this year. my new garmin index is 3% than the aria and likely at least 5-6% low of actual.
I was wondering Garmin provides these additional metrics due to a different HW? Or they added a SW algorithm to theis scale? I believe if withings HW could provide a new Firmware with some more metrics it will keep up with the competition much better
I’m not sure there.
Just one question: How is the support of the scales (apart from Garmin) for more than one Ecosystem to sync to. Just in case wife uses Ecosystem X, while husband preferes Ecosystem Y?
Could that be configured per user, where to sync the data to?
If you setup a secondary account within the Scale’s ecosystem, then you can usually sync to other platforms.
In other words, if I buy a Withings Scale, then I’d setup an account for The Girl within the Withings platform, and then from there she could setup sync to other services.
I was trying to order white WS-50 yesterday through Withings site for European sale at eur 112. The site said item not available. Black one was not available either. Today, the sale ended and boom!, it is available again at eur 149. Not nice, Withings!
Weird, they’re still tweeting the heck of the Euro deals. I’d tweet them back and ask what’s up.
I was able to setup a link between my Withings scale, The Withings app and Myfitnesspal and Garmin Connect. Is there any way to force a sync of old data, or am I out of luck transferring the old data
Did that on Saturday too and I’d say we’re OOL in terms of importing data and…maybe worse as it only synced between MFP and GC on Saturday and Sunday and not yesterday or today (Withings/MFP sync is fine)…Might be something I did but I’m pretty sure I saw a similar report yesterday, can’t find it now though.
My last weight update from Withings -> MFP -> GC was November 29. The data goes to MFP, but not to Garmin Connect. I *really* hope Garmin didn’t take down the functionality.
Just read above about MFP getting disconnected. I disconnected and reconnected and got today’s weigh-in. We’ll see if the link “sticks”.
I found setup of the Garmin scale to be a nightmare. I had no problem pairing the scale, but then the scale would timeout rather than connect to my home WiFi, so I could not complete the setup process.
Tech support was very patient and we tried: (1) an iOS phone; (2) an Android phone; (3) a Win 7 computer; and (4) a Win 10 computer. I have two different WiFi networks bridged together and it was the same for both routers. Finally, we tried removing the password from the router and that permitted me to complete setup.
Since the scale is now happily on my WiFi network, I probably can add the password back to the router, but would then have to disable the password again each time the scale needs to login to the network (e.g. after battery change or if the router lost power). Since that’s such a rare occurrence, this is not the worst kludge.
Just a head’s up in case anyone else runs into this and wants to save two hours on the phone with tech support!
It seems the Clever Training coupon code is not valid with the Garmin Index when I tried a moment ago.
Sorry Ty! I needed to flag this as a VIP-program required item (you can still save 10% there though). It’s a Garmin requirement unfortunately, not one of CT’s.
Details here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Cheers!
I see that you mention that your 235 is now getting weight from your scale.
link to dcrainmaker.com
Is garmin planning on offering this to their other devices?
I’ll poke around and see if I can get clarity.
Any update on this? I have an old 410.
Clever Training 10% discount code DCR10MHD does not apply for some reason.
sorry ignore – see Ty above
OR…. get a ‘dumb’ scales with no connectivity issues and use your ‘brain’ to memorize weight, body fat/ skeletal muscle% then type it up into the app of your choice. Ah – human cognisance – the ultimate middleware 😉 I like the Omron onces, as well as giving my brain a little workout and saving a fair amount of cash to boot!
I’m a Garmin user since the old forerunner 301, however I went with the ws-50 for functionality. Don’t know why you say that heart rate and CO2 measurements are useless. They look pretty reliable to me. If you have the discipline of measuring first thing after waking up, HR will give you a good indication of your evolving fitness over time. And looking at the CO2 graphs, I can see I spend too much time in the bathroom :).
He’s not saying they’re not accurate. He’s basically saying even if they’re accurate, what do you do with the numbers? Unless you follow exactly the same routine every day, your heart rate measurement (if it does measure, my WS-50 fails to measure my HR a good fraction of the time) at the time you’re standing on the scale is pretty useless because what happened up to the moment you stand on the scale is what determines your HR, and for me, at least, that changes every day. (The same holds for my HR as measured by my Apple Watch. What good is knowing that?) As for CO2, yes, it correlates with the presence of people. So what? What can you do with that knowledge? If you want all of the stuff that a WS-50 shows, you stand on it for close to a minute, while a regular scale takes a few seconds to show your weight.
True. You have to follow a strict routine, i.e get out of bed, strip, hop on the scale. Mine works fine. As for the co2, apart from mitigating the aforementioned affliction :), if has lead me to open the windows more often… but I agree it’s more of an interesting curiosity.
If you order the scale screens to take weight and hr first, then you only need to stand 30s on the scale. You can look at the other screens while brushing your teeth :)… and if you cannot afford 30 secs a few times a week, then you probable need something rather than a scale ;). Frankly, this scale review is a little light on details as compared to the usual DCR reviews.
The point of resting HR is to be…resting. As the name implies. Standing is not resting. Every possible scientific and medical body out there specifies that you be sitting (or preferably lying) to take resting HR. So while the data is ‘accurate’, it’s also useless. It’s not your resting HR and since you’re standing, is going to be too high above your actual resting HR to differentiate or even trend.
As for a review, sigh, it’s not a review – it’s a comparison between products. Reviews have the word ‘review’ in the title.
this is what i get from my “resting” heart rate measurement every morning (lately i’ve stopped bothering to wait for it). it’s quite possibly my actual HR at the point in time i stand on the scales (always first thing after waking up and peeing) but it doesn’t give any useful information as far as i can tell. on the other hand, my resting HR, as measured by my vivosmart HR seems pretty consistent and a good indication of my ability to train on a given day.
PS: this is with the Withings scale and my resting HR according to the vivosmart HR is 38-42
Haha…beautiful graph – perfectly exemplifying why “resting HR” is totally useless on the Withings Scale.
I did not talk about resting heart rate. If you have the discipline of being consistent, that is, wake up, get up and measure yourself in a consistent fashion, the TRENDING result is certainly useful and an indication of your varying fitness. Just like your average heart rate overtime for a specific workout or race. Example: In 2011 I did the chicago marathon at 4:11/km @ at an average of 146bpm (I’m old). Today, I’d be happy to sustain 4:30/km at that rate (I can’t). No need to be a rocket scientist to know what those HR differences mean.
Last 15 months of HR measurements out of my scale are displayed above. There are some spurious measurements when I just feel like hopping on the scale midway thru the day. I’m sure the range would be narrower if I adhered to the discipline I’m preaching. Still the trend is pretty clear as can be seen by quadratic regression curve I included. I was getting worse til April this year, and improved since then, which is consistent with my training profile.
Forgot to mention that I also find the little trending graph and weather forecast useful in some way. IMHO the ws 50 is way better than the others… and at below 100usd, a steal.
What is the resolution for the weight in lbs?
0.1 seems most appropriate for the daily tracking of an athlete. So far I haven’t seen any smart scales with this resolution.
I would like to know as well.
All three scales (Garmin/Fitbit/Withings) show and record data to the .1 degree – i.e. 179.9lbs.
(You can actually see it in my screenshots too)
Does the Garmin, or any of the scales for that matter, auto-select the unit of measure depending on the ID of the person weighing themselves?
My wife uses pounds while I prefer using kilograms, our current scale has a switch at the bottom of the unit which needs to be flicked each morning and, well life’s just too short to be flicking switches and conversion sums just make my head hurt.
No, the Garmin has a little switch on the bottom of it as well (physical).
Hey,
my gf just got me a Withings WS-50 for Xmas… Looks awesome.
In your post you forgot to mention that it has weather forecasts, which are pretty useful in the morning 🙂
Also, I use Fitbit tracker, but it can be configured to pull weight from Withings, so I’m happy with it as the Fitbit apps are much better than Withings’s
I hope I’m wrong but I’ve just noticed that my weight info has stopped syncing from my Withings scale (via MyFitnessPal) to Garmin Connect. I’ve checked that it is correctly syncing to the Withings and MyFitnessPal websites, and I’ve checked that the Garmin Connect plugin is alive and well, but the last reading that made it through to the Connect website is as of the 4th of December…
Anyone else noticed this? Is this the beginning of the end? Seems a bit cheap of Garmin if you ask me. Once you get the feeling that you have to buy everything from the same manufacturer to be able to benefit from their ecosystem, it makes you think twice…
Yeah, a few others noted it – and then found that if they reset the connection it worked. To be fair, that’s somewhat been par for the course over the years.
thanks ray. i did try reseting the connection but no joy. by this, do you mean reconnecting the plugin in MyFitnessPal?
Correct. Basically dis-associate and re-associate your account.
Been trying to place an order with CT, but won’t take your code. Emailed several times with no response.
I tried…will have to order elsewhere. Appreciate the outstanding reviews.
Hi Ray,
do any of the scales do the following like the Tanita units
*Basal Metabolic Range (BMR)—minimum caloric needs
*Metabolic age—up to 99 years
*Visceral fats
As you would say I am in the Garmin family but before then I purchased the Withings WBS01 which I link through myfitnesspal to transfer info to Garmin connect. I know you haven’t done a full review on the Garmin scale yet but I was just wondering if there was a quick overview of the accuracy you have seen to date with the BMI and Fat% at this point between the two. My Withings seems to be hanging in there but once in a while it shows its age.
I didn’t see the Qardio Base. It is bluetooth/wifi. Body comp is off for athelets, but they’re planning on pushing out an update.
No details to anything but the Qardio app. which does have a great interface for their wireless BP addituonally.
….would love the interface into Training Peaks, but not now….
Received my Withings WS-30 yesterday, based on Ray recommendations. Ridiculously easy to setup – a real joy, in fact. And in no time at all 5 household members had weighed-in and had profiles on the Withings iOS app. Very impressed. Also, through MyFitnessPal my weight is synching to Garmin Connect. Good stuff!
Kermit,
let us know if you are still connected in Garmin after your next weigh in. I still have to reconnect and manually sync everyday to get my weight to transfer. Failure to do so results in a missed data point in Garmin Connect for me. Garmin engineering has not solved it for me.
Weighed-in again this morning, and a few minutes later checked Garmin Connect and the weigh-in had been recorded. So far, this backdoor feature is working well. Hope it continues. My scale is connected via wi-fi and bluetooth, if that matters.
Hi Ray,
What do you know for this Polar scale?
link to mediatrends.es
Can you tell us more?
Thanks
It even lists on Amazon now. Seems it’s bluetooth-only and measures only weight, will probably only work with Polar’s activity trackers. App screens shown alongside the scale suggest Polar’s making something like myfitnesspal.
I bet Ray has one at home, but he’s under an NDA 😉 Maybe until CES?
Hi Ray
I cant seem to get hold of the Garmin scales in the UK, Amazon cancelled my order & a different company also did the same. Most places now have a end of Jan date as to when it is available. is there some sort of delay in Europe?
Thanks Niall
Hi Niall,
I have been faced with the same problem- these scales are nowhere to be found in the UK! I am back to the drawing board now, trying to decide between the Withings WS-30/WS-50/Tanita Body Composition or a couple Omron options.
Any recommendations you may have out of experience?
Withings…plenty of negatives about their CS. Polar….I was a fan since the late 80s, all their top offerings- their support and development caused me to look elsewhere. (Garmin Fenix 3 thanks to the reviews here – Love it)
Tanita have had great results. QardioBase is great, but no link to Training Peaks. Still looking for a consistent scale that seamlessly integrates with Garmin Connect and Training Peaks.
Good luck, off to do a split!
I had previously been using a “dumb” scale and manually logging weight into MyFitnessPal and allowing it to sync to Garmin Connect.
We received a Garmin Index for Christmas and having read through your write-up, as well as the comments I got the impression that the weight from the scale should go through Garmin Connect to MyFitnessPal. Am I correct, or is the weight one direction only (i.e. MFP to GC)?
If it is only one direction, does anyone know how to get the weight automatically out of GC?
Thanks for your help!
Unfortunately, the Garmin Index Scale cost A$250+ in Australia and the 10% discount code doesn’t work at ‘Clever Training’.
Just a minor point of clarification, the DCR coupon code doesn’t work for the Index Scale, however, the DCR/CT VIP club does for 10% off: link to dcrainmaker.com
(It’s a Garmin limitation, not mine/CT’s)
I have ADD so there may already be answer to this. So the Garmin 920XT will NOT communicate with the Tanita BC1000 scale? That said based on this review, I have no choice, as a triathlete to convert to the Garmin Index? I assume that the Garmin 930 ( 2018 release – if that is the name) and all Garmin products will communicate with this Garmin Index scale?
Thank you!
Not at present. In theory, sometime this quarter Garmin will introduce a Connect IQ update that may enable/allow that. But then that still requires either Tanita or someone else to develop a CIQ app to pull the data.
Tanita has stated since last spring they’re working on such an app, but whether they still are is unclear.
Ray,
Thank you so much. Who can we find to develop the App from the Tanita side? Or what special coding skills to they need? I have a company that Develops apps and I am willing to help knock that out. No reason to create more junk and throw away a perfectly good scale!!
Thank you !!
Thanks for the great post Ray!
I had a Withings WS-50 until it was dropped and the glass completely fell apart. Given that my wife and I are fully “Garminised”, I’m interested in the Index. Will it be able to handle two separate accounts, one for me and the other for my wife, and auto-detect us as well?
Also, any issues w setup? Amazon reviewers have actually somewhat trashed the product.
Thanks!
The last thing I need to do before publishing my review is oddly enough to unbox the product. The first scale I got was sans-box, and the setup process a bit…pre-prod.
It’s what I’ve been using since. Over the holidays I picked up the boxed product and brought it back with me Friday. I had hoped to unbox and re-do the setup to see how things are now (since earlier it was rougher). But alas, in the quest of getting a zillion things ready yesterday for CES this week, that one didn’t quite make the cut in time before my flight this morning. So it’ll have to wait till next week.
Sorry!
Oh, opps, missed the other question. Yes, no problem with multiple accounts.
Awesome review. It almost makes my decision for me. The only question I have is: can you confirm that withing or fitbit scale will synch to 2 different apps for 2 different people? I have a Garmin device and my wife has a fitbit. I’m ok with the MFP workaround as long as it directly syncs with fitbit for my wife.
Yes, you can. The apps they sync to are done at the account level, not the scale level. So the scale links to an account, and then from there the data does whatever the individual users have configured in their accounts
Hi, it seems now that Withings scales connection with Garmin Connect (via myfitnesspal) is not working anymore, at least for my last weigh uploaded:
It went from my ws50 to myfitnesspal but from there it didn’t get to GC. However my last running session uploaded from GC to myfitnesspal so I guess Garmin is not letting anymore to receive weigh data from other sites. Is that true?
Is anyone experiencing the same issue or it’s only me?? Thanks in advance.
Mine’s still working; today’s weight taken with my Withings scale and sent to MyFitnessPal (and sending weight to GC is the only thing I use MFP for) is in GC. Sometimes it mysteriously stops working and then just as mysteriously starts working again, and in my case it always backfills the measurements that were missing. Some people report that disconnecting and reconnecting to MyFitnessPal restores the flow, but I’ve never had to do that.
I wouldn’t worry about a deliberate breaking of the connection by Garmin until everyone’s has stopped working for at least a week or they announce that they’re doing it.
Thanks a lot Paul for your answer. I’ll wait then and may disconnect and reconnect the link also.
My wife has fitbit I have garmin. Which one will be the best and better scale to buy?
Ralo,
I’m in the same situation as you. From the data I this article, either the withings or fitbit aria scale will work.
My advice is go with the fitbit scale since it will work with your device and matches the branding of your wife. Your wife already has a fitbit account. She would have to create a withings account I believe for the withings scale and have it sych with fitbit. One less account to create.
Reguardless you will need a myfitness pal account for your device.
Great summary. One correction: the Withings cannot be set-up via a PC app, only via the Android or iOS phone. Maybe this was supported originally? It is not supported anymore. For me this was an important feature, as we don’t have iOS / Android devices in the family. We have two Lumia 830 phones.
I don’t see a way to set a lean/athlete vs. regular/normal mode like all the rest of the Wi-Fi scales have ???
It’s a pity the Xiaomi Bluetooth Smart Scale is not tested. Its $15 price will keep the owners of above 4 tested scales wondering how badly they were ripped off.
It’s not a WiFi scale. I outlined the reasons for that earlier in the post.
Yes, you are totally right. I’m just saying there is a bluetooth scale made by a big company which is only $15. For me, that’s the deal breaker. 🙂
Also I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the reviews on Garmin sports watches. They really help me making decision when buying one.
No doubt, $15 is pretty solid. Might make for a fun stocking-stuffer type review.
Ok, actually, just looking – I can’t find the $15 scale on Amazon – do you have a link by chance? Lowest variant I find from them is in the $50’s.
Ray, really have to thank you for this. I am going to get the Garmin Vivoactive HR, and now looking at a scale. As I read through this, I was really wondering if I had to spend the money on a Garmin Scale (which I won’t) or if I could get away with another scale, upload into myfitnesspal, and get that data into Garmin Connect. You answered that exact question for me. Basically, if all I care about is my weight, then I’m good. If I want other metrics to pass over (like BMI), then I need the Garmin.
Thanks again!
You can, at least until Garmin breaks it (for basic weight). Hopefully they won’t, but at the moment the connection is kinda flaky already.
I don’t see a way to set a lean/athlete vs. regular/normal mode on the Garmin, like all the rest of the scales have ???
Reply
No, not yet.
Ok thx ?… Hope it Will, if it is I’am All for it.
You can, with the Connect App, on a scale of 1-10 you rate your activity levels – I experimented with this and the body fat rating seems to change considerably based on this.
There is a known problem just now with the Garmin Index. Myself and many others have reported a problem that seems to be connected to a low BMI of less than ~ 19.5. The issue is that only your weight and BMI are displayed / recorded, all the other biometrics are not shown / uploaded to Garmin Connect. Garmin are aware and working on a solution but cannot offer any resolution timescales. The Garmin forum has more detail.
link to forums.garmin.com
Fault appears to be fixed now with latest software version.
Hi,
It seems that the way you can get your Withings scale data into Garmin Connect is broken (at least in my account). I am not able to get the data 🙁
greets
Hmm, must just be your account. As of last night it worked for me (Withings > MyFitnessPal > Garmin Connect).
Sorry!
I disconnected and reconnected the link to myfitnesspal in the calories view and now it works again also. Have no doubt why it broke and I couldn’t fix it with first time reconnecting the service.
It’s one of those mysteries in life that keeps everyone perplexed. It’ll work for months at a time, then randomly die. Sometimes permanently, sometimes temporarily. Sometimes re-setting it fixes it, and sometimes it takes days to see the fruits of your labor. Sigh.
Hi, thanks for the post. What’s your view on the Runtastic Libra or the Beurer 700 as they seem to be quite well liked in other places?
As a fairly muscular athlete who is also an avid runner I’m wondering if the Garmin scale accounts more for my muscularity as compared to the Withings WS-50 which has an athlete switch.
There is a new Withings scale: Body Cardio. How ist the syncing between tithings and trainingpeaks working now? I’m thinking about buying a new scale because my 19,99$ scale has no display backlight and mornings are getting now darker at 6:00am and if it does the syncing to trainingpeaks automatically don’t have to add the metrics manually.
I returned the withings scale… it was the body cardio with the wave pulse. I could not get it connected to my wifi. Customer service just gives you the equivalent of turn your computer off and on or turn your router off and on. I did not find it easy to find the info i needed on the website and customer service is not helpful there, either. I returned the scale on august 30 and because there was a “sorting” issue and could not find my scale, i am still waiting for a refund. It might be a nice product, but i am not happy or impressed with service or customer support. I bought a weight gurus wifi scale for $100 less. The set up pages addressed my initial difficulty with the withings scale in the first instruction for setup. This scale measures weight water lean mass fat and links to my fitbit account and from there to my weight trend app so i can see the measurememt graphs i want to see. The readout is backlit in blue. You probably have to stand on the scale a little longer than You are used to but all the data gets there. The weight gurus app is bare bones, but like i say, i read my data through a different app and can see everything just fine.
@Ray Any reason you have not tested the iHealth WiFi scales? They have two modes that are reasonably priced and at least on paper have a lot of features
Body weight range: 11 lb – 330 lb/ 5-150 kg
Body fat measurement range: 5%-65%
Body water measurement range: 20%-85%
Visceral fat rating range: 1-59
Body weight: ±1.1lbs (11lbs~88lbs); ±(1%+0.2lbs) (8~330lbs); ±0.5kg (5kg~40kg); ±(1%+0.1kg)(40kg~150kg)
Body fat: ±1%
Body water: ±1%
Body muscle mass: ±(1% + 0.2 lbs) / ±(1% + 0.1 kg)
Bones mass: ±0.66lbs / ±0.3 kg
Visceral fat rating: ±2
DCI (Daily Calorie Intake): ±200kcal
No particular reason, just wasn’t really on my radar. Looks interesting though.
Can any third party wifi or bluetooth scale sync with Garmin Connect?
I’m now on my second Fitbit Scale, the first was replaced under warranty due to black spots forming under the glass (scale colour Black). Unfortunately my replacement scales have now stArted to develop the same black spots, Fitbit will now not warrant this quality issue. I suggest considering Fitbit poor customer warranty if buying these scales.
A quick comment about the Aria (and Fitbit in general). Like some of the other comments, I had the dreaded bricked scale after changing batteries. However, looking at the customer forums on Fitbit, there also seems to be a massive problem with the latest firmware (v 39) update which was pushed out earlier this winter.
More than a thousand comments on three thread and nothing from Fitbit apart from we’ll send you a new one if you’re lucky to still be within the warranty period or “here’s 25% off a new one” if you’re not.
Based on all comments and personal experience of 5 failed Fitbit appliances I’m leaning more towards poor quality control or intentionally cheap manufacturing and design. Personally I’m leaving the Fitbit universe after 5 years.
Have anyone figured out how to sync Withings (Nokia) scale to Polar Flow?
Yes, someone please let us know! I have a Fitbit Aria 2 and have the same question.
Hey Scott, I can add it to the list of platforms to add to Smart Scale Sync. Is there a way to see weight trends in Polar Flow? Or is it just a static weight measurement on a profile page?
I haven’t heard of Smart Scale Sync but I’ll be looking into it for certain if you will support syncing to the Polar Flow service. I’m not actually sure if the service shows trends or not. However my Polar Vantage V watch will calculate running power from the wrist without needing an external sensor. I’m fairly certain that their sophisticated algorithm takes into account your current weight as as part of the calculation for work in the equation p=w/t. As such, I’m therefore assuming that it’s important to keep your daily weight up-to-date in order to get the most accurate running power calculation. Lastly it is looking like Polar has discontinued their Balance scale making it inconvenient for Vantage V owners to keep their weight up to date in Polar Flow. It can be done has to be entered manually on a daily basis.
1. I have Vantage V Titan and the Polar Balance Scale. The scale syncs to flow and works perfectly. No need to add any weight manually.
2. Polar Balance scale has not been discontinued.
3. Flow show weight graphs with calorie expenditure and projected future weight.
Thank you! I’m wondering though, have you noticed that the Polar balance scale is nowhere to be found on the Polar (USA) website? If they are preparing to release a new version, if like to know as I would prefer to wait on my purchase.
Sounds good – I’ve had a few people request it in the past. I think the watches also use weight for calorie estimation. I took a look today and adding Polar Flow to Smart Scale Sync is doable, I should have it live within a few days.
Great, thank you!
Ok it now supports Polar Flow! So if you have a Withings or Fitbit smart scale (or if you have an off brand scale that syncs weight to Fitbit, like Renpho), then you can auto send your weighins to Polar Flow with my app smart scale sync.
Okay I use garmin connect, zwift, Strava (used to use MFP but don’t calories count now so rarely use it)
My partner uses fitbit, (about to start zwift) (and has a MFP account)
Also have 2 kids 4 and 8 with no tracking or fitness apps associated
Does any of the ‘smart’ scales allow for anyone of us to jump on in the morning and have the data automatically recorded without having to mess around with 3rd part apps.
My guess is they won’t and consequently i’ll probably wait and not give any of them my money as they won’t do what I want without jumping through hoops?
But just in case someone knows of a cross platform fully functional smart scale………
Because I don’t want to use the MyFitnessPal route to sync Nokia Health weight measurements to Garmin Connect, I wrote a Python application to do so. You can find it here:
link to github.com
So I’ve had a withings for years and love it. I have about 10 years (of very hilly) weight data in the platform. In fact when I got the scale I used their excellent data import feature to get existing data in there.
The withings to Garmin sync just doesn’t seem to work for me though so I know all the performance numbers that my Edge 1030 shows me are lies!
I am considering getting a Garmin scale but I really don’t want to lose that historical data. It seems that Garmin are shooting themselves in the foot here. I want to buy their product but as they as so closed and have no API I can’t import my data…
I have a withings scale, and I used to be syncing my weight from Withings to MyFitnessPal to Garmin Connect.
But that pipeline seems broken now.
So I built a standalone service, it syncs all the fancy weight metrics (weight, body fat %, body water %, skeletal muscle mass, and bone mass) from withings to garmin connect. I think I’ll probably add syncing to strava soon too if there is demand for it.
https://smartscalesync.com
Just added syncing to TrainerRoad.
Just added syncing to Strava.
I am sure your intentions are honourable but I regard any service that asks for my login credentials for another service as very suspect.
If people value their accounts and data I would recommend not handing over the keys to it.
Yeah I totally understand.
I used to be a product manager at Skyhigh Networks (we were acquired by McAfee in 2018). I’m hyper cognizant of security concerns and would never hand over my own credentials without serious consideration.
Unfortunately for the services without APIs that’s the only solution (aside from managing your own app to do it). I’ve written about what measures we take to secure things within the about page.
I added support for Fitbit now as well. So if you have a Fitbit scale, or one of the cheaper off brands (eufy / renpho) that syncs to Fitbit, you can now get that weight (including body fat) into Garmin Connect.
Just to follow up here, I added support for Garmin Index Scales, and the integration is API based. So now you can make your garmin [no so] smart scale a little smarter 🙂 and auto sync weigh-ins with Strava, TrainerRoad, Fitbit, Peloton, Polar Flow, and Concept 2. Good for improving the accuracy of estimated fitness metrics like calories burned, VO2 max, and power.
Hi Ray,
Just a quick question but I assume the issue still remains regarding metrics from the Withings to Garmin Connect? Asking since the Garmin scale is more expensive here in europe currently, with the Withings being on offer on Amazon.
Thanks
Adam
I have a Withthings/Nokia scale and until I saw your post I assumed it was still working…It looks like it quit sometime in June. I just disconnected and reconnected the accounts and my last weight just zipped over. I have the cheapo scale so just weight is all i was looking for. However, I will say that the Health Mate app that the scales sync to is pretty darn awesome for weight tracking. I like the display there better and I track my Blood Pressure in the same app. I’m tempted to buy the Withthings BP Monitor now too.
You can’t sync directly from Withings to Garmin. I bought a used Withings scale and am syncing to Garmin Connect with smartscalesync (Patrick Renschler here in the comments section is the brain behind it). Works.
I know this is an old post but I think garmin have broken the myfitnesspal weight sync 🙁
It comes and goes, it’s sorta the mantra for it over the years. Works most of the time, breaks occasionally, breaks hard occasionally, and then works again.
I used to use a WS50. But the problem was the measurement it gives was not accurate. Recently I have changed my machine and now it’s totally perfect.