Body Fat% is a way off PART2

Those are just generic ranges where people fall in and what is healthy and what not. There are many athletes in this forum that have lets say 10% bodyfat measured in lab, yet it shows 24% on the S2 - so it may work for you, but for most people in this topic it's not.

I just disabled the fat percentage widget from the scale because it's just demotivating if it shows values that are so off. But if a cheapass scale can show it correctly, than this overpriced scale should be able to do it as well.

Like someone mentioned above, it's probably using BMI as a source in a calculation. But if you do fitness for example like me, then your BMI is in the overweight range, even though you are not fat. But if that is used in the calculation for fat percentage, then it will show a high incorrect fat percentage.

I guess that most people that are complaining here are having higher than average muscle mass, and then this scale fails. People its working for, have normal muscle mass. But in theory it should be possible to show correct values if they use other calculation for fitness people with an higher than average muscle mass (a setting that could be switched somewhere in profile).

So yes in theory Garmin could fix this easily with a firmware update.

So analyzing your opinion, and based on Garmin's recommendations, we can conclude that all other manufacturers sell products that are no good, that is, they are all deceiving their customers, and in this case even Garmin with the previous model.
For god's sake, let's stop talking nonsense, this product doesn't work,
it is not worth the price at which it is sold, and Garmin as the example of almost all of its products and there are many with serious deficiencies, nor does it bother to respond or assume things.

Makes me wonder if I can fix the output % simply by increasing my height in user settings until the output is the correct BF%. I'm going to try when I'm home. I don't think height is used to calculate anything else, like VO2 max, so at first thought I don't think it will mess anything else up. I've recommended to garmin they allow for a calibration offset like you can with recording treadmill distance, but never heard anything back from the void.

I just added 6" to my height in user settings and now the bf% output is correct. I can finally pretend I'm 6'5".

Very clever experiment and you proofed with this that it's indeed BMI related. While it does solve the fatpercentage, I'm afraid that if you have a garmin watch (which I have), it might calculate higher active calories as a taller person will burn more calories. 

Do you have a garmin watch and notice any active calories changes? In theory it should, but if not, it's a great hack for the time being.

But it proofs that Garmin can adjust the firmware and add a mode for people that have above average muscle mass (high chance in the garmin community), and in those cases don't put too much emphasis on the BMI value since it's off for those people.

So in terms of hardware the scale is fine, the software needs to be tweaked just a little.

davidnicholasharris said:

I just added 6" to my height in user settings and now the bf% output is correct.

Garmin delevopers: thanks for the fix - update coming soon ;)

the architecture for a solution is already there - activity level. this does help, it just doesn't go far enough. increasing my activity level from 8 to 10 (the max) reduced my BF from 18% to 15%. in reality i am about 8% so incomplete solution and i had my activity level set down from the max deliberately as i do not believe i am the most extreme level.

garmin really seem to be catering to the masses here and completely forgetting that until a few years ago their fitness market was serious athletes

I'm disappointed I just got the scale and came here for the same reason. I have trusted garmin in the past and refer them to all clients (obviously rethinking that one) I'm surprised at how far this thing is off atleast 10%

I would like to add my voice to the chorus. My S2 consistently shows me around 22% BF. That puts me at the lower end for normal body fat, borderline obese. I googled pictures of what supposed to be a male with 22% BF and that looks nothing like how I look. I compete in multiple trail running races per year and consistently finish in the top 15-30%, so I am fairly fit even among runners who enter races - there is no way for my BF to be at the borderline acceptable range. My legs are quite muscular because most of my running is on hilly and mountainous terrain.

Obviously the body fat metric that I get from the scale is quite a bit off, at least 4-5% off, but I don't know what the actual value is. Still it is very discouraging to see 22% from the scale, and I seriously considering returning it. 

Edit: I used the tape measure method of BF estimation based on measurements of waist and neck, and according to that by BF is 16%