Body Fat % on Index S2 Smart Scale Seems Inaccurate

Dear Garmin, you would think anyone spends this kind of $ on a scale is fairly serious about fitness and data. If the body fat numbers are so off for athletes, who's your target customer? What's your marketing strategy? Where's your product position/advantage in the wide range of similar products? Not to mention no actions after so many similar complains...

Garmin-Kevin - any chance of an update?

It would appear that it's fast approaching one year since these problems were first reported, so isn't it time that Garmin's customers were informed what is going to be done to resolve the issues with these S2 scales?

There's only a fairly limited amount of options - unless Garmin or someone has another idea?

1. A software update - although I would have thought that this would have happened by now if it was possible.

2. The S2 scales are exchanged for a new model that performs all functions accurately.

3. All unhappy customers are offered a full refund and the defective S2 scales are collected.

4. A partial refund and the customer keeps the defective S2 scales just for weight measurement.

5. Garmin carries on collecting details of unhappy customers, saying "we're working on it" and continues to lose customers in the process.

Over to Garmin...

I'm willing to concede that a $150 scale won't be as accurate as a Korr lab machine costing goodness knows how many hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Index S2 values border on ridiculous.  I could make peace with 5 percent error for the price paid, but values in excess of 25% of truth is too much.   On top of that, while I'm aware Garmin Connect will let me manually enter a weight from another source, I'm not aware of a way to manually enter body fat percentage such that it is used as part of the "fitness age" and goodness knows what other calculations.

Count me among those believing Garmin will do nothing tangible for current Index S2 owners. It was a case of caveat emptor.   I believe Garmin's solution will be an Index S3 with "new and improved body composition metrics" costing even more than the S2, while only paring away at the error in body fat percentage and other metrics.

after 6 months I have also given up, I have just packed the scale, goes back...

thanks kevin, you'll understand though that this gives us little comfort.

i have to wonder, of all those users not complaining, how many actually have any idea what their body composition really is, and how many differ from the population averages that these scales seem to provide for everyone. hundreds of people are known to be getting incorrect readings (even many for whom your previous scales worked) and yet you seem to prioritise those who likely as not just don't know any better. don't tell me you tested the scales extensively, if that were true we wouldn't all be here.

Thanks Kevin. You are a nice guy, but Garmin is absolutely terribile! If they gave the least sh*t about their premium paying customers they would at least use the S1 algorithm for body fat until a better solution is found. The fat% estimate on the S1 was still crappy, but in line with the other scales of the same kind.

Garmin-Kevin

Kevin

I certainly don't wish to sound churlish and having run customer support desk teams understand you're in a bit of a squeeze, but frankly your answer is a non answer.

While stating you don't want to upset other customers that haven't been in touch, that can also be used as a reason to do nothing at all.

By stating that there's no timescale, that now means that you're actually saying....

"We want to do something, but might or might not do anything and if we do actually do anything, we won't state what it is in advance to get input and ensure it meets the requirements to correct the perceived problems, this might all happen at a time yet to be defined".

While I appreciate dealing with customer support questions can sometimes be like rustling cats, a clear commitment to what is being proposed and some indication of timescale would more likely focus Garmin minds to get something done.

I can assure you that your current position wouldn't hold much water as a defence if it involved a car and some safety recall..."We didn't recall the car model with the faulty brakes as it only affected 2% of the owners and they had complained so we assumed the rest were OK because it suited our bottom line".

I currently have a Garmin 6 Pro Solar and am using a Tanita BC-1000 via ANT+ which using a one time charge app (ANT+ Weight Scale Display $6) uploads all my data to Garmin Connect without any intermediate stages.

ANT+ however is being deprecated going forward on Samsung phones, meaning I need, in the next 6-12 months, to probably make a decision of moving to new scales.

I like my Fenix, it has some minor shortcomings but am overall a very satisfied customer.

But as there seems no scales that allows direct upload to Garmin Connect without some intermediate middleware, except your own scales, that puts me in a bind as I won't buy a product that appears to be getting so little software love and have no intention of going down a middleware rabbit hole.

So, while you may not be getting millions of complaints, that doesn't mean you don't have a poorly functioning product. A commitment to fixing the issues and clearly communicating why, to your 'non complaining' owners, when it's time to roll it out, would only enhance Garmins reputation to quality and excellent support, rather then the current situation whereby potential customers are put off buying the product.

While I appreciate you're the customer facing front line for support, that's not really fair for you.

So tell us the name of the Garmin S2 Scale product manager within Garmin so that we may relay our questions to them directly.

Of course YVPMV.

2302115 said:

the current situation whereby potential customers are put off buying the product

I, as a Garmin user who bought 8 different Garmin products including Index S2 scale, based on my negative experience with the scale, am already being put off buying any further Garmin products. I hesitate buying Fenix 7X even though I am interested.

I see a common pattern between Index S2 and Fenix 6X where Garmin, not having quality sensor input data, manufactures some arbitrary metrics that aren't even remotely accurate. I see that with body fat percentage and other metrics on Index S2, and I see that with the wrist heart rate and the pace of Fenix 6. And what is worse, Garmin than produces sone further higher level fitness data and recommendations based on these arbitrary metrics. For example inaccurate HR and pace leads to an inaccurate VO2MAX and recovery time. And arbitrary body fat percentage leads to inaccurate fitness age. In both cases, with both products, Garmin doesn't even fully acknowledge the issues. And then Garmin makes some silly recommendations that perhaps I should do more fat burning cardio activities at the time when I am training for a 100 mile ultramarathon and am already in the top 1 percentile in terms of physical activity. You'd think that Garmin, having all the data about me, would connect the dots and see that the recommendation doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

So while it seems like Garmin produces a lot of health and fitness metrics, can we actually trust these metrics? Are they the same crap as the body fat percentage produced by Index S2? I am not so sure anymore. Small things like this would eventually erode trust. They already do.