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Keeping track of what you weigh is important (although there are reasonable arguments against keeping track of it too much). I am really into tracking all of all my health-related data and organizing it on my phone so I can monitor trends and changes, so weighing myself consistently is just part of that larger mission. For me, that involves using a smart scale, which syncs with all my other health apps and creates a full picture of how I’m doing, fitness-wise—but if you don’t want to get that tech-y with it, you have other options, too. Here are the best smart and dumb scales.
The best bathroom scales with cool features
These have additional or cool features like body fat measurement—though you should probably take those figures with a grain of salt—that go beyond just telling you your weight.
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I have this iHealth Nexus Smart Scale ($35) and love it so much I bought another one for my boyfriend. We’ve been using them for about two years with no problems. I weigh myself every other morning or so and the batteries lasted about 18 months before needing to be replaced. The price is accessible, but it still comes with a ton of features. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth, then it assesses your weight, BMI, and even makes some estimates of things like muscle mass and bone mass, importing all of that information to your device, making it downloadable, and creating graphs of changes over time. Because it syncs so easily with your phone’s native health app, it also, technically, syncs with any other apps that are also tied in there. For instance, I use a nutrient-tracking app called Lifesum. My weight is automatically updated and inputted there when I weigh myself on the iHealth Nexus and Lifesum adjusts my calorie and nutrient suggestions for the day to keep me on track with my goals.
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I’m an Apple Watch girl, so I’m a fan of my scale for its easy integration with Apple Health. Generally, if you’re using a specific product or suite of products, I think you should stay in the same family as much as you can. The easier tracking is, the more likely you are to do it and stick with it. If you’re a Fitbit user, grab the Fitbit Aria Air ($50), which syncs directly with your Fitbit dashboard, not Apple Health. It’s relatively simple, only showing your weight and BMI, but really, that might be all you need. It’s lightweight, “sleek,” and “minimalist,” according to reviewers, so it’s not a bulky addition to the bathroom, either.
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The Shapa scale ($120) is an innovative smart scale that shows you colors, not numbers, so you don’t get too caught up monitoring your exact weight. I have a friend who is a big fan of this approach and this device. The colors refer to your average weight over time and if you see blue on your app, you’re losing weight. Teal means you’re starting to lose weight, green means you’re maintaining it, light gray means you’re starting to gain, and dark gray means you are gaining weight. That’s it. It’s popular on Reddit, too, where users praise it for helping them get over scale anxiety. It’s not helpful to use a device if it’s going to stress you out or, worse, demoralize you to the point that you stop using it. This simple, color-based approach helps you ignore numbers (which fluctuate over the course of an average day) and think more long-term.
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This Renpho smart scale ($43) is cool because it lights up, either to remind you periodically to weigh yourself or to serve as a nightlight, depending on your preferences and needs. It’s a versatile option that’s great for small bathrooms. For its low price, it also packs quite a few punches: It syncs with Google Fit, Samsung Health, Fitbit, and MyFitnessPal, estimates metrics like body fat percentage and muscle mass, and even has baby- and pet-weighing modes, plus specialized modes for athletes.
The best cheap scales
Don’t need the bells and whistles? That’s fine. You can pick up an inexpensive one that just shows you your weight, easy peasy. You might still want to track this somewhere, like an Excel spreadsheet, so you can do half the work the smart scales do on your own, but if you’re someone who gets a little too into weighing yourself or number-crunching, you can also just use these on their own for periodic check-ins.
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The basic scale I use when I’m not using my iNexus isn’t available on Amazon anymore, but this HomeBuds digital scale ($13) is very similar: There’s an easy-to-read, bright LED display and the machine turns on automatically when you step on it. There isn’t much else to say—and for a lot of people, that’s the point!
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This GE digital scale ($30) displays your body weight and BMI. I’ll be real with you: This one has gone up in price (while the rest of the ones have gone down) over the past year, so now that it’s inching into the $30+ range, it might be worth considering spending an extra $10 on a smart scale, or at least doing so down the line. You can use this as a bridge between the classic way and the more modern way, as it comes from a trusted brand and displays more measurements than the standard scale without diving into phone-connected territory.
