Ultra-sensitive

These scales will not work on carpet. Only buy if you have a hard floor surface in your house to place them on.

Ease of use and body awareness

I have used the Tanita Body Fat monitor model below this one. I found it to be very even disturbingly accurate. I exercise regularly and walk to work and even so I was shocked to see my fat % was higher than it should be even though my weight is what it should be and I am slim. I have taken steps to change my diet somewhat and I would recommend the Tanita as it can reveal problems that could all to easily go undetected.

Aside from this it seemed sturdy and with a manual that goes someway to explaining the ins and outs of body fat. It is also child ’ s play to use just hop on bare foot and that ’ s all there is to it. You can also set it to an appropriate scale Adult, Child & Athlete Modes to avoid ridiculous results.

Cheap and fake

It's a cheap gadget. You have to enter your weight, height, age and sex. You then have to hold the sensors and it will 'detect' if you are holding it and start the 'measurement'. It does actually detect a person making contact with it - if you try and do it with gloves on, it won't work. It does this by passing a small electric current through your hands and detects the circuit you make - very simple, nothing fancy. However, I don't think that it really measures your body fat. I used it with both thumbs, the thumb and forefinger of one hand and also with my toes. The reading was the same each time. If you adjust the 'weight value' that you enter into the machine, and then do the test again - lo and behold it gives you a lower reading. Tell it that you're female instead of male and it gives you a completely different reading. I had my info programmed in and my wife used it - guess what? She got the same reading as me. My guess is that it takes the info you enter and has a pre-programmed look-up table inside to give you a reading based 99% on that and 1% on the actual measurement.

Wow - I can't believe I wrote so much about a 10 quid gadget - but if it saves you 10 quid then good. Don't waste your money.

Not at all accurate

Look nice, but useless. This is what you get if you buy these: Note that the scales have new batteries, are placed on a hard tile surface (ensuring the scale feet are squarely on the tile, and not on the grouting etc, and positioned in the same place in the bathroom each time the measurement is taken.

Step on the scales first time: 78.2kg...groan
and then off and back on again: 75kg...joy
and back again: 77kg...hmmmmn

and then go back five minutes later: 74kg... give up and have eggs and bacon for breakfast.

They might look slick, but when they're incapable of providing their primary function, sc. to give an accurate and repeatable weight, they're worse than useless. To be fair, most brands of electronic scale seem the same, and also weigh to the nearest 100g, which is an unwarranted accuracy. Mechanical scales are much better (as I have found out): they give a constant, reliable weight, to a more appropriate level of accuracy, usually 454g/1lb.

bad reading

The readings are absolutely wrong. I just realised a toy that costs a tenner couldn't possibly do the work of a proper body fat analyser. Buy it and compare your readings with the one at the gym. This one would give you a totally different reading.