An accurate bathroom scale

I tried out several digital bathroom scales at the local mall, and
found that the $40 to $50 scales were not very accurate. All of them
seemed to indicate a slightly different weight when I stepped on and
off of them repeatedly. They varied a lot between each other, and the
indicated weight varied a lot depending upon how my weight was
centered on the platform. I took home the Homedics SC-403, for $50,
which seemed the best. But I ended up returning it after two weeks
for all of the above reasons. Plus it consistently weighed about 2
pounds too heavy, and the factory said there was no solution to that.

Then I ordered a Soehnle model Zeta from Amazon.com for $99 and it is
great! As near as I can tell, it reads well within 1/2 pound, or
better, of my true weight, and it reads the same every time. In 15
successive weighings it reads exactly the same, to 1/10 of a pound, no
matter vary the distribution of my weight on the platform. Even
standing on one edge of the platform on one foot, it reads exactly the
same. The display is large enough to read in the morning without my
glasses, the platform and base are glass, and the scale looks good. A
nice bonus is that it will weight light objects with great accuracy.
A carefully measured gallon of water in a plastic milk jug indicates
8.4 pounds, which is exactly correct. This is kind of nice if you
ever need the weight of a box for shipping, or to weigh any other
light object. This scale costs twice as much, but it sure seems to be
a fine piece of German engineering for home use.

John

"RT" wrote in message . ..
Well I finally went and got a spiffy Tanita today, to retire my aging analog
scale. Well, imagine my surprise when I jumped up on the new scale and it
shows me at approx 3lbs less than the analog scale. I reset the analog scale
with the dial and tried it again (in the same physical position as the
Tanita, etc) and the difference is still about 2lbs. Of course I love the
lower figure, but I want to be accurate :-)

Any opinions on how trustworthy either scale/method is?

Richard
247/218 or 215/200

"John" wrote in message
om...
I tried out several digital bathroom scales at the local mall, and
found that the $40 to $50 scales were not very accurate. All of them
seemed to indicate a slightly different weight when I stepped on and
off of them repeatedly. They varied a lot between each other, and the
indicated weight varied a lot depending upon how my weight was
centered on the platform. I took home the Homedics SC-403, for $50,
which seemed the best. But I ended up returning it after two weeks
for all of the above reasons. Plus it consistently weighed about 2
pounds too heavy, and the factory said there was no solution to that.

Then I ordered a Soehnle model Zeta from Amazon.com for $99 and it is
great! As near as I can tell, it reads well within 1/2 pound, or
better, of my true weight, and it reads the same every time. In 15
successive weighings it reads exactly the same, to 1/10 of a pound, no
matter vary the distribution of my weight on the platform. Even
standing on one edge of the platform on one foot, it reads exactly the
same. The display is large enough to read in the morning without my
glasses, the platform and base are glass, and the scale looks good. A
nice bonus is that it will weight light objects with great accuracy.
A carefully measured gallon of water in a plastic milk jug indicates
8.4 pounds, which is exactly correct. This is kind of nice if you
ever need the weight of a box for shipping, or to weigh any other
light object. This scale costs twice as much, but it sure seems to be
a fine piece of German engineering for home use.

That's a good looking scale, and according to the manufacturer it is
accurate to 0.1 lbs (50 g). Good report too...perhaps you could post a
review on the Amazon site. Here's a link: to the scale on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...astasoftwar-20

BTW - the Tanita scales mentioned in the original post were recently rated
well by Consumer Reports for their scale accuracy and repeatability (less so
for the body fat interpretations).

GG


John

"RT" wrote in message
. ..
Well I finally went and got a spiffy Tanita today, to retire my aging
analog
scale. Well, imagine my surprise when I jumped up on the new scale and
it
shows me at approx 3lbs less than the analog scale. I reset the analog
scale
with the dial and tried it again (in the same physical position as the
Tanita, etc) and the difference is still about 2lbs. Of course I love
the
lower figure, but I want to be accurate :-)

Any opinions on how trustworthy either scale/method is?

Richard
247/218 or 215/200

I've been looking for an accurate scale myself.

Can you do an experiment for me? Take a standard unopened pop can.
It should weigh about .83 pounds for the weight of the can + liquid
inside.

Weigh yourself without the pop can. Weigh yourself with the pop can.
Weigh yourself again without the pop can. Repeat 3x.

Questions:
1) does the scale accurate report the .83 pound change of the pop can
2) Is the weight doing the above consistent

I bought a few scales and stepped on then off then on again and they
always gave back the same answer. I went to the bathroom and weigh
myself and I figure I should be about .5 pounds lighter since I
urinated out at least a few cups but it reads the same. Apparently
most scales are "smart" in that they remember the last weight and then
if you are approximately (within 1 pound) of the same weight, it
reports the EXACT same number so that you think it is consistent while
it is just recalling it's memory!

Is your Amazon Zeta scale truely accurate or is it just one of those
electronic memory gizmos? Thanks.

On 18 Apr 2004 12:34:34 -0700, (John) wrote:

I tried out several digital bathroom scales at the local mall, and
found that the $40 to $50 scales were not very accurate. All of them
seemed to indicate a slightly different weight when I stepped on and
off of them repeatedly. They varied a lot between each other, and the
indicated weight varied a lot depending upon how my weight was
centered on the platform. I took home the Homedics SC-403, for $50,
which seemed the best. But I ended up returning it after two weeks
for all of the above reasons. Plus it consistently weighed about 2
pounds too heavy, and the factory said there was no solution to that.

Then I ordered a Soehnle model Zeta from Amazon.com for $99 and it is
great! As near as I can tell, it reads well within 1/2 pound, or
better, of my true weight, and it reads the same every time. In 15
successive weighings it reads exactly the same, to 1/10 of a pound, no
matter vary the distribution of my weight on the platform. Even
standing on one edge of the platform on one foot, it reads exactly the
same. The display is large enough to read in the morning without my
glasses, the platform and base are glass, and the scale looks good. A
nice bonus is that it will weight light objects with great accuracy.
A carefully measured gallon of water in a plastic milk jug indicates
8.4 pounds, which is exactly correct. This is kind of nice if you
ever need the weight of a box for shipping, or to weigh any other
light object. This scale costs twice as much, but it sure seems to be
a fine piece of German engineering for home use.

John

"RT" wrote in message . ..
Well I finally went and got a spiffy Tanita today, to retire my aging analog
scale. Well, imagine my surprise when I jumped up on the new scale and it
shows me at approx 3lbs less than the analog scale. I reset the analog scale
with the dial and tried it again (in the same physical position as the
Tanita, etc) and the difference is still about 2lbs. Of course I love the
lower figure, but I want to be accurate :-)

Any opinions on how trustworthy either scale/method is?

Richard
247/218 or 215/200

hanson wrote in message . ..
I've been looking for an accurate scale myself.

Can you do an experiment for me? Take a standard unopened pop can.
It should weigh about .83 pounds for the weight of the can + liquid
inside.

I've got a "Thinner" scale from Fry's. It seems pretty reliable and
passed your test (213 - 213.5 with can).

$50, uses strain gauges at each corner, LCD output accurate to 0.5
lbs. I would like one accurate to 0.1, but I suppose with the daily
averaging I do the extra accuracy would be rather pointless.

As an aside, I bought this scale in Sept 2000, and just this week got
below the weight that I first saw on that scale back then (211... Yay,
3 years of bad eating (kinda) reversed!)

Heywood

232/211/182, in week 10

I found your question interesting. It never occured to me that such a
"memory" attribute might be at work inside the scale. So I tried your
experiment, but I repeated it through six cycles, rather than three.
Here are the numbers:

163.2 without
163.9 with
163.2 without
163.9 with
163.1 without
164.0 with
163.1 without
163.9 with
163.1 without
164.0 with
163.1 without
163.9 with

I hope this is helpful. BTW, I tried weighing a single pop can by
itself, but that wasn't enough weight to keep the scale turned ON. It
would stay on with three pop cans alone and the indicated weight was
2.5 pounds.

Best regards,

John

hanson wrote in message . ..
I've been looking for an accurate scale myself.

Can you do an experiment for me? Take a standard unopened pop can.
It should weigh about .83 pounds for the weight of the can + liquid
inside.

Weigh yourself without the pop can. Weigh yourself with the pop can.
Weigh yourself again without the pop can. Repeat 3x.

Questions:
1) does the scale accurate report the .83 pound change of the pop can
2) Is the weight doing the above consistent

I think your idea is off. The concept that the scale ignores its
current measurement and reports a previous one is silly.

I have a Tanita (HD351 Digital Scale) and IT DOES remember your last
weigh-in. It is a feature. It always displays the previous weight for
each of the five user positions.

My soda can weighed 13 1/8 oz, or .82 lbs, via a digital kitchen
scale.

My Tanita, which has a .2 lb minimum resolution, reported in the
sequence I performed them:

303.0 w/o
304.2 with
303.2 w/o
304.0 with
303.2 w/o
304.0 with
303.0 w/o
304.0 with
303.0 w/o
304.0 with

I normally take two measures and average--giving me some degree of .1
resolution.

The average without the can was 303.08
The average with the can was 304.04
The difference is 0.96 which is close to the 0.82 actual.


hanson wrote:

I've been looking for an accurate scale myself.

Can you do an experiment for me? Take a standard unopened pop can.
It should weigh about .83 pounds for the weight of the can + liquid
inside.

Weigh yourself without the pop can. Weigh yourself with the pop can.
Weigh yourself again without the pop can. Repeat 3x.

Questions:
1) does the scale accurate report the .83 pound change of the pop can
2) Is the weight doing the above consistent

I bought a few scales and stepped on then off then on again and they
always gave back the same answer. I went to the bathroom and weigh
myself and I figure I should be about .5 pounds lighter since I
urinated out at least a few cups but it reads the same. Apparently
most scales are "smart" in that they remember the last weight and then
if you are approximately (within 1 pound) of the same weight, it
reports the EXACT same number so that you think it is consistent while
it is just recalling it's memory!

Is your Amazon Zeta scale truely accurate or is it just one of those
electronic memory gizmos? Thanks.

On 18 Apr 2004 12:34:34 -0700, (John) wrote:

I tried out several digital bathroom scales at the local mall, and
found that the $40 to $50 scales were not very accurate. All of them
seemed to indicate a slightly different weight when I stepped on and
off of them repeatedly. They varied a lot between each other, and the
indicated weight varied a lot depending upon how my weight was
centered on the platform. I took home the Homedics SC-403, for $50,
which seemed the best. But I ended up returning it after two weeks
for all of the above reasons. Plus it consistently weighed about 2
pounds too heavy, and the factory said there was no solution to that.

Then I ordered a Soehnle model Zeta from Amazon.com for $99 and it is
great! As near as I can tell, it reads well within 1/2 pound, or
better, of my true weight, and it reads the same every time. In 15
successive weighings it reads exactly the same, to 1/10 of a pound, no
matter vary the distribution of my weight on the platform. Even
standing on one edge of the platform on one foot, it reads exactly the
same. The display is large enough to read in the morning without my
glasses, the platform and base are glass, and the scale looks good. A
nice bonus is that it will weight light objects with great accuracy.
A carefully measured gallon of water in a plastic milk jug indicates
8.4 pounds, which is exactly correct. This is kind of nice if you
ever need the weight of a box for shipping, or to weigh any other
light object. This scale costs twice as much, but it sure seems to be
a fine piece of German engineering for home use.

John

"RT" wrote in message . ..
Well I finally went and got a spiffy Tanita today, to retire my aging analog
scale. Well, imagine my surprise when I jumped up on the new scale and it
shows me at approx 3lbs less than the analog scale. I reset the analog scale
with the dial and tried it again (in the same physical position as the
Tanita, etc) and the difference is still about 2lbs. Of course I love the
lower figure, but I want to be accurate :-)

Any opinions on how trustworthy either scale/method is?

Richard
247/218 or 215/200

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/300/Apr-299/200
Atkins since Jan 12, 2004
OWL-60 carbs/day (CCLL=?)

"Howard" wrote in message
...
(John) wrote:

A carefully measured gallon of water in a plastic milk jug indicates
8.4 pounds, which is exactly correct.

Hmmm... I always thought a gallon of water weighed exactly 8 lbs. I
assume that 8.4 includes the weight of the container.


http://www.freshcoffee.biz

Actually it is 8.3. A very important number to remember for us in the fire
service when taking into the consideration of the weight of water on a
structure.