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Bioimpendance scalea, can somebody professional jump in and explain?

7219347
over 2 years ago

I am wondering if somebody professional can explain; there are thousands of body fat scales  scales wich costs from as low as $20 to as high as many hundreds. All of them measure resistance of a human body to a weak alternative current. The result is a single number : electrical resistance. That's it.

The rest it adjustment of this number based on weight ( another single number)  and other parameters provided manually by user: height, age, gender, how athletic or non athletic a person is and possibly many other.

The art/science is how to use all these additional data to derive body fat percentage from the measured resistance to get it close to gold standards of body fat measurments like hydrostatic weighting and DECA.

Resistance measurments hardware costs not dollars but cents.

So how come that this s2 scale costs over $150 and provides incorrect results when there are scales like Arboleaf which costs few times less and provides consistant results much closer to hydro/DExa numbers?

Garmin is a serious company, there are thousands of complaints over many months and they can't fix their software and/or introduce additional parameters for adjustment like girth size, thigh size biceps size, eye color, education level etc, etc

If I missed something please pont me out

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    More advanced scales measure impedance through multiple paths, e. g. between two legs, between two arms, between legs and arms. So there is more data to work with.

    Also, more advanced scales measure impedance at multiple different frequencies.

    Also, perhaps, more advanced scales have higher precision of the measurements. We are talking about very small currents so the precision would matter a lot. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to silentvoyager
    silentvoyager said:
    More advanced scales measure impedance through multiple paths, e. g. between two legs, between two arms, between legs and arms

    But not the garmin index. The only point of contact between the user and the scales are the feet.

    silentvoyager said:
    more advanced scales have higher precision of the measurements.

    This does not explain why a very expensive device is no better (or even worse) than a very cheap one.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to silentvoyager

    Thanks for your reply. Few notes.

    Regarding multiple paths: True, there are devices which do that, they have retractable handle,  but I compare index 2 with other single path devices which costs 3-4 TIMES ! Less. Index s2 costs 160$ ! It's one of the most expensive 'non-professional" products. Withings costs less than $100. Garmin wasn't able to put in $160 device multiple frequensies measurment! Same about precision! My feeling is they are manufacturing cheap, defective product and sell it with huge profit using their brand name! I checked another threads, hundreds if not thousands complaints about s2 and the last response from somebody from Garmin,  I think his name is Kevin was few months ago that 'we have been working on the issue's ! Pepper have been complaining about the issue for more than a year! Enough time for 'working on it', me thinks. It's most likely a hardware problem, but Garmin will never admit it, because in such a case they will have to refund their customers. Harmon attitude makes me regret I bought their watch. I thought I am going to have a premium quality for the high price, now I have doubt about their entire line of products. Sad.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to tmk2
    tmk2 said:
    But not the garmin index. The only point of contact between the user and the scales are the feet.

    Technically, Index 2 has two contacts per foot - 4 in total. It could do some calibration by measuring the current between two points on the same foot, but I don't know if it does.

    tmk2 said:
    This does not explain why a very expensive device is no better (or even worse) than a very cheap one.

    Index 2 isn't an expensive device. There are professional grade scales that cost several thousand dollars. For example there is an InBody scale in my fitness club that seem to be very accurate. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to silentvoyager
    silentvoyager said:
    Index 2 isn't an expensive device.

    We're talking about home-use devices. In that category the index is one of the most expensive. And apparently still no better than the cheapest one.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to silentvoyager

    Rehnpo scale with 266000 positive reviews is $19.

    Withings is $99

    There are number of scales with retractable handle all less than $100.

    The 'price comparisson is ' clearly related to non-professional scales ONLY, no hospital grade etc.

    Even Tanita FDA cleared scale is slightly cheaped

    What's Garmin trying to do is once in 2-3 months feeding its customers a standard bull 'we are working on it' that have been doing of for more than a year. What they don't realize and don't  take iin account is a tremndous damage this approach makes to their reputation.

    As somebody wisely said

    "You can fool all the people for some time

    You can fool some people all the time,

    But you CAN'T fool all the people all the time"

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 7219347

    But can all those cheaper and better scales integrate into Garmin Connect?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Gediminas

    No, but integration with garmin connect is no excuse to be inaccurate.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Gediminas

    Let's say they can't and Garmin scale integrates with Garmin Connect flawlessly. How helpful is this perfect integration, if Garmin scales send to Garmin connect wrong information ?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 7219347

    I am wandering if 3.11 software version has completely/partially fixed the problem with incorrect measurments? Hard to believe, but miracles sometimes happen