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Body Fat percentage wildly inaccurate, firmware algorithm update needed?

Xanomead
over 1 year ago

For a company that specializes in fitness and health related metrics, the Index S2 scale is an embarrassment. This morning my scales gave me a body fat percentage reading of 23.1%. This is me post work out a few hours later. Now I don't know what my actual body fat percentage is, but a look online at examples makes me fairly confident that I'm below 23.1% body fat, I'd even suspect more than 5% below, and it's said that impedance measurement can be plus or minus 5 percent. So the scales seem to be even less accurate than what would be considered the worst case scenario. Given the price of the scales, and that this is the kind of thing Garmin specialize in, it's an embarrassment. Will anything be done about it? And beyond keeping the surface of the scales clean, is there anything that can be done to try to improve the accuracy?

It seems to me that the algorithm is putting too much weight on BMI when trying to calculate body fat percentage, and that's making the measurements a complete waste of time and money.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Is your bodyweight displayed by the scale within expectations?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 0x3D6139

    Yes, but that's the least that can be expected. You don't buy these scales just to get an accurate weight reading when much much cheaper scales can provide a reading that is just as accurate.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Xanomead

    I agree, but when you said, "complete waste of time and money," I took it literally. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to 0x3D6139

    If you bought a car that promised 40 mpg and 0 emissions and it gave you 5mpg and emitted toxic fumes would you consider that a "complete waste of time and money"? I think most people would consider that a reasonable assessment. Garmin is not selling a weight scale. They are selling a health monitoring device. Paying 10x market price for something that measures your weight but promises to do so much more (the main reason people buy it vs the other options) is "literally" a "complete waste of time and money". It fails to deliver the premium features at the premium price charged.

  • 0 10 months ago

    I feel the same. That's sad that GARMIN do not want to fix their own issues even when so many negative feedbacks come from the users.

    I compared Garmin Smart scales to DEXA Scan and got bad result

  • 0 10 months ago

    Have any of those people who are having issues with their fat percentage actually calibrated the scales? Within the settings there is a area to insert you actual fat percentage to calibrate the scales. The best way to calibrate your scales is to get your fat percentage measured with callipers. if you don't have callipers then I would take a average across several scales that measure fat percentage.

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to PeteDarton

    I haven't tried that, but I am aware of it. I would like to go to the local hospital and get a DEXA scan for this, but I haven't gotten around to it and still don't know how much it would cost. Also as far as I'm aware calipers can be very inaccurate, especially if used incorrectly.

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to Xanomead

    in the UK in my local town a DEXA scan is about £130.

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to PeteDarton

    I paid 80 EUR for whole body DEXA scan + backbone + femoral neck bone.

    Just whole body DEXA scan costs 45 EUR

  • 0 9 months ago in reply to PeteDarton

    Mine was telling me i was at 23%, which was clearly too high for me. I had a test done on a Tanita machine at my gym and it gave me a more realistic reading of 15.9%. So i calibrated the garmin (running ver 3.30) to this new value, and now every day it has been going up by around 0.5…. It seems it wants to head back to that 23% reading level.  Im going to try changing my activity level from a 7 to an 8, putting me into the “athletic” range and see if that will help… but, all in all Im pretty disappointed with this device.