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Body Fat % on Index S2 Smart Scale Seems Inaccurate

Jeff
over 3 years ago

My new scale seems to give me a wildly different reading than my old one. I was previously using a Weight Guru's scale which gave me a body fat percentage between 18 and 19 percent which seems reasonable given my overall weight and fitness level. The new Garmin scale shows me over 26% body fat. Both scales show identical weight so what gives with the wild body fat numbers? 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to e7andy

    Because I had my body fat measured via water displacement method several months ago and my weight hasn’t really changed since then.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Garmin-Kevin

    Please add me to this report

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I am fed up with Garmin not giving a crap! I have the ticket to return my scale, full refund and waiting for a Tanita scale to be delivered.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Narziss

    Are you returning the scale to Garmin directly or through the retailer you purchased from?

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Just a bit of an update from the analysis I've been keeping over the last month.  Due to injury I've not been running so have been weight training 5 days a week and maintaining a small calorie deficit.  Weight has dropped by 3.6 lbs and BF % dropped from 20% to 19%.  But also lean muscle mass has dropped by 1lb, water % has increased and bone mass has reduced.  Just lends more weight to the argument that it is simply an algorithm working in the background working on average population stats and not actually measuring anything besides weight.

    I've stopped taking any notice of the absolute figures now except for weight as I know my BF% is closer to 15% and the scales have no real clue how my body composition has changed over the last 6 months of serious training, drastically reducing alcohol consumption and a major change in diet.  I can see the effect and don't need the scales to tell me.  I weighed myself on a set of £10 amazon scales and weight was identical to the Index S2 so seemed I fell for the marketing spiel and paid over 10x as much for a set of scales to do the same thing as the data I really wanted is a load of crap - I'd accept that if it was clear in the marketing but I'm afraid I think the electrical impedence measure Garmin talk about is horse *** and they should just man up and admit that

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Narziss

    You are very lucky to have recognized that Garmin is not helping brand loyal consumers while still in your return window. I am stuck with a beautiful but useless scale.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Narziss

    I'm doing the same thing. Which Tanita? I'm going to try the Withings Body+ for comparison before returning my S2 within the window (end of February).

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to dchiarav

    I had the Withings first and then got the garmin so my bodyfat would be in the fitness age Calc.  Withings is pretty accurate.   

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 9020544

    How did you get an accurate reading with Garmin? Or did you "offset" the numbers by changing your age or height until the right number appeared?