Our pick of the best smart scales to help you hit your goals and track your health
Planning your New Year goals? These smart bathroom scales will help you stay on track
Planning your New Year goals? These smart bathroom scales will help you stay on track. Whether your goal is to diet or to bulk, whether you favour jabs or willpower, a smart scale keeps you on track and helps monitor your health.
The scale should recognise you, know your height and therefore calculate your BMI. A sensor measures your heart rate too.
Smart scales also use electrodes and a weak current (foot to foot typically, but some models now have hand grips too) to analyse your body composition. So you’ll typically find out everything from hydration to muscle mass.
You’ll just get the topline results displayed on the scale itself, with a mini graph if you’re lucky. More details are sent to a companion app. This logs everything for you, so you can look at a graph of progress (if it’s good… and ignore it if it isn’t!)
1. Salter Body Insight Smart Scale
A pull-out handle and eight electrodes help this affordable new scale track up to 58 different health metrics. Dual-frequency bioelectrical impedance analysis makes for more accurate measurements. It can even give you separate data for arms, legs and torso. The data is all broken down in the Salter Balance app. So if you skip leg day, it knows!
2. Beurer BF 990 WiFi
With eight electrodes and a pull-out handle, this promises full-body analysis with up to 25 types of data. WiFi and Bluetooth mean the data’s synced to your phone straight away. You can read them in detail in the Beurer HealthManager Pro app. It has eight memories and user recognition. It’s less than 3cm high and, like the Ford Model T, comes in any colour as long as it’s black.
3. Hume Pod
The Hume Pod seems pricier than some smart scales but look out for great discounts online. It boasts a pull-out handle, four weight sensors, dual-frequency analysis and 45 body composition metrics. Unlike some rivals, it’s rechargeable and you only need charge it once a year. The app uses AI analysis and offers you data-driven coaching as well as graphs of progress.
4. Eufy Smart Scale P3
The Eufy calculates 16 key health metrics, including body fat percentage and heart rate, and sends the data to your phone for easy monitoring and analysis. It includes both WiFi and Bluetooth, so your phone doesn’t need to be nearby. The colour display is pretty informative but the EufyLife app goes further, with AI analysis, smart coaching and recommendations.
5. Homedics Glo
Maybe you think seeing your scales in the middle of the night is the stuff of nightmares, but the Glo boasts a clever feature: it lights up when it senses motion nearby. As well as working as a nightlight, step on it to track your weight and 13 biometrics – they’re displayed simply on the scales and also sent to the Homedics Scales app via Bluetooth, for tracking and insights. Impressive for the price.
6. Renpho Elis Nova Smart Scale
The scale’s larger colour display shows numbers and graphs of seven key metrics, including weight and BMI, but more data is sent to the app using WiFi. The Renpho Health app lets you see 18 metrics for detailed health insights. The app aims to be a one-stop shop where you can log food too. It can also sync data with Apple Health and Google Health Connect.
7. Withings Body Comp
Get health metrics you didn’t even know you needed, like vascular age and nerve health. They’re synced with the Withings app via WiFi. The app also takes data from Withings ScanWatch smart watches that track steps, calories, workouts, sleep, heart rate, menstrual cycle and more. Your data is free to peruse but there’s an optional Withings+ subscription that adds predictions, AI, even cardiologist analysis.
8. Garmin Index S2 Smart Scale
The colour display gives you a small graph of trends as well as big numbers. But the full data is sent via WiFi to the Garmin Connect app. The app also syncs data including activity and sleep tracking from Garmin watches such as the Venu 4 and Fenix 8 Pro. The scale displays the weather too, so hop on in the morning for a daily forecast. It recognises up to 16 different users, great for families.
9. Fitbit Aria Air
Google owns Fitbit, which makes for affordable smart scales that work with the same Fitbit app as Fitbit smartwatches and Fitbit activity trackers, such as the Charge and Inspire, but also Google Pixel smartwatches. The scales send data via WiFi and the watches sync via Bluetooth. You can set yourself up with a smart scale and wearable combo, to track everything, for less than the price of some scales.
How to choose the best smart scales
Tips for picking the scales that will suit you best
- Only connect Scales with WiFi as well as Bluetooth upload to the cloud any time, which updates the data in your app. Scales with only Bluetooth need to connect via your phone.
- Handy handle? New models with pull-out handles add extra electrodes and can give a better breakdown by body part (arms, legs, torso etc) so they’re great if you want maximum data.
- Safe mode These scales work by sending a tiny electrical current between electrodes. Look for a model that can turn this off with a safe mode if anyone who will be using it has a pacemaker or is pregnant.
- Direction of travel Some smart scales display a mini graph of progress as well as big digits. But head to the companion app for better graphs and analysis. Having a ‘cheat day’ or even a cheat week? Keep using the scales anyway, look at the graph another time to see the impact.
Caramel Quin
Contributor 
